As of recent, I have grown a slight
obsession with the newest Disney movie Frozen. It is inspired by Hans Christian
Anderson’s fairy tale The Snow Queen and it is about two sisters, one
who has powers of ice and one who is completely ordinary. After watching the
movie four times in theater I can say that Elsa is probably one of the best
examples of how clothing and accessories can give such a strong message of
personality traits and transformations. 
In the very beginning of the movie
Elsa accidentally hurts her little sister and in doing so she is told that she
needs to learn how to control her powers of ice. Her parents then scare her and
convince her that control means hiding her powers and so she decided, “Conceal
it, don’t feel it, don’t let it show” (Frozen). From this moment onward she
starts changing. Elsa is stuck as an insecure teen age girl, even at the age of
21. She is withdrawn, introverted, self-conscious, and scared of herself. She
becomes secluded and shuts everyone out. In the process of becoming closed off
she starts changing the way that she styles her hair and the way that she
dresses. She starts wearing very concealing cloths that show no skin what so
ever. As for her hair, where before it was kind of in a loose braid, it is now
in a very tight done up bun with not one hair out of place. One of the final
and most essential parts of her wardrobe are the gloves that her father gives
her a pair of gloves in an attempt to keep her powers in check. With this
change in her style her posture is very tight and compressed; you can tell that
she is incredibly uncomfortable almost all the time.
The turning point of the movie for
Elsa is when she runs away after her powers have been discovered. This is when
she begins singing Let It Go. This song is her realizing that she can’t keep
hiding anymore and that she shouldn't have to be afraid of herself or other
people. At the beginning of the song she throws her gloves away and starts to
use her magic with no fear or worry. In the final two versus of the song Elsa
goes through a kind of transformation. She takes her hair out of the tight bun
and lets it down. The final part of her transformation is her dress. Where her original
dress was very concealing and showed little to no skin, this one was the
complete opposite. This dress was beautiful, it kind of wrapped around her
shoulders, it showed her shoulders and upper chest. Along with that the sleeves
stopped at her wrists with no gloves. And the final part of the dress was the
slit that went about mid-thigh up the dress. This girl who has let fear rule
her life for years is now embracing who she is.
Unfortunately, even though Elsa’s
situation is dramatized, it is a real issue that is happening everywhere with
girls of all ages. They become self-conscious about themselves and fear what
other people are going to think about them. The fear that they feel prevents
them from being comfortable with themselves and everyone around them. A lot of
people hide behind they’re cloths, they think that if they look the way that
they are “suppose to” then no one will judge them. This is the same problem
that Elsa had, and all she had to do was realize that it doesn't 
Ethical Questions
Should you allow the judgment of other affect the way that you dress and present yourself? And how does the way you dress show how you feel about yourself?
No comments:
Post a Comment