[snip]
Yeah no this isn’t accurate at all, it’s just racist whitewashing horseshit. Like literally the whole argument is “I’m Danish so this is true, also Danes only talked to Germans and there’s no such thing as brown Germans, they’re all pasty white Edward Cullen look-alikes lololol.”
It’s imbecilic, condescending, and basically just straight up racist.
Not to mention the fact that this seems to totally ignore the Sami people which from what I’ve seen is a complicated thing that a lot of people are angry about re: Disney’s portrayal of that culture in the film, so I don’t want to wade into that but basically pretending like there’s no reason to talk about that at all is intellectually dishonest in the extreme.
Like I mean:
No brown people in the white Northland, no sirree! All white folks with nice blond hair.
Ha ha ha you racist fucks.
That’s leaving aside the fact that these idiots have no problem with all the other anachronisms in the film, like the fact that there’s paintings from the Fin de Siecle period (particularly one by Sargent of Spanish dancers—because a painting from Spain can apparently travel to Denmark but not actually Spanish or North African people lolololol it’s just not possible brown people are allergic to water lololololol) hanging on the walls in the god damn manor house but people are still using fucking crossbows as their weapons of choice. Like, basically the fact that this is literally the only historical accuracy thing people care about basically is all the proof you need that they’re 100% motivated by white supremacy.
And then to have the GALL, to have the FUCKING NERVE, to say “Well this queer thing wouldn’t have been historically accurate but who cares because it fits my particular patriotic, nationalistic narrative”…! How absolutely disgusting and despicable. I find it appalling that the human rights of queer people are being used here as some sort of fucking method of scoring points so that these dipshits can pat themselves on the back about the racial purity of their country. How dare you instrumentalize the struggles against exclusion of my people in order to perpetuate the exclusion of other people? How dare you?
…
…But yeah no you could probably do a queer reading of Elsa and get some strong results although honestly I think interpreting her through a lens of anxiety/depression/other mental health related issues would be maybe more fruitful. I like that thought Mx Casual.
Thank you, Sam, for doing the research that I couldn’t be bothered to do, and therefore making the argument I was too lazy to make. I was just going with the lazier, easier argument of “even if that is true, which I’m not saying it is, then they could’ve set it somewhere where it wasn’t true and been less racist.” But yeah. Yours is the much better argument, since yours has actual facts and stuff, and actually discredits what should be discredited.
Oh man I mean don’t give me too much credit. Like this wasn’t a well researched thing at all it’s just me pointing out that A. this is a simplistic shitty argument and B. I can identify John Singer Sargent paintings.
If you want the really good stuff, medievalpoc has you covered. In fact, I’m pretty sure she has a Frozen tag. This is where I found out about the Sami, actually, and there were some interesting conversations back and forth about the movie and whether or not it was appropriative-but-also-whitewashing that culture (I don’t have enough knowledge to say either way, but I’m leaning towards the “yes it is” camp honestly based on the arguments). The whole blog is a great resource for this sort of thing.
It’s very frustrating to me because the movie IS strong from a queer and feminist perspective, at least in my opinion, and has some important things to say about living with intense anxiety issues. The racial problems of the film don’t make it Literally Hitler and totally indefensible on any grounds.
But it’s impossible to have a nuanced discussion of the film’s strengths and weaknesses when its supporters are like… actually preaching white nationalism. Same with the bullshit a while back about women characters being hard to create or whatever. There were just so many really awful supporters of Disney trotting out the most ridiculous, sexist nonsense that any kind of nuanced Feminist discussion of the film was kinda hobbled before the film even came out!
I don’t know, it’s a problem :/
Okay, so, uh, kind of feel the need to point out that they don’t really have Sami in Denmark (they live significantly further north). Of course, neither do they have mountains (all of Denmark is basically just piles of sand), which feature very prominently in the movie, so Disney is either messing up race or geography, your choice.
I think Greenland has mountains, though. On the other hand, it’s also got a far more complex racial history so, uh, yeah.