People on the internet have been really vocal about wanting Elsa, the deuteragonist of Disney’s hit cartoon Frozen, to be a lesbian. Because adults are way too invested in children’s media since those Harry Potter books came out. They make movies for adults, too, you know, some of them are even pretty good. You don’t have to be an adult human going on Twitter to explain how the congressional bill you don’t like is like what Voldemort did to the Muggles or whatever. But good news, because Frozen writer Jennifer Lee has heard your pleas, and she told The Huffington Post she’s listening to them.
“I love everything people are saying [and] people are thinking about with our film ― that it’s creating dialogue, that Elsa is this wonderful character that speaks to so many people,” Lee said. “It means the world to us that we’re part of these conversations.”
“Where we’re going with it, we have tons of conversations about it, and we’re really conscientious about these things,” Lee added. “For me … Elsa’s every day telling me where she needs to go, and she’ll continue to tell us. I always write from character-out, and where Elsa is and what Elsa’s doing in her life, she’s telling me every day. We’ll see where we go.”
Oh lord, she’s a method writer. That reminds me of the time I asked X-Men scribe Chris Claremont if a scene in an X-Men comic was a reaction to a famous decree from then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and he started talking about the characters’ motivations as if they were friends of his and he was relating to me what they were going through at the time. It’s not as crazy as method acting, and it produces some really great stories, like Frozen and The X-Men, but god is it ever weird to talk to a method writer about their stories.
Despite Lee being conscientious about things and having conversations, I wouldn’t get my hopes up about Elsa getting a girlfriend. Studio movies go to great lengths not to be controversial in any way, and things like interracial relationships and LGBT representation are still controversial, especially in media aimed at children, despite the fact that no decent human being actually objects to them. Think about Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and the way she’s spent most of her time since the children’s book series ended on Twitter telling fans about how much diversity there is that she didn’t show in the actual media in any way. She has made a big deal about Dumbledore being gay, but when it comes time to make a movie about him and his former boyfriend, there won’t be an on-screen mentions of either of them being gay. That’s about what you can expect from Disney when it comes to Frozen.