This is a guest post by Caroline Siede.
While this will probably be remembered as the “Winter Of The Polar Vortex,” it’s also fair to call it the “Winter Of The Feminist Blockbuster.” Grossing a combined total of more than $700 million domestically, Catching Fire and Frozen have definitively proven that films with female leads can attract a major audience. Even better, they’ve inspired think pieces about everything from Katniss’ movie “girlfriend” to queer readings of Elsa. Yet as I cheered on the strong ladies at the center of both films, I couldn’t help but notice something troubling. While Catching Fire presents a diverse supporting cast, Frozen rounds out its ensemble with a disappointing parade of white, male characters.
Geena Davis’ Institute On Gender In Media recently commissioned a study that concluded that for every female-speaking character in a family-rated film, there are roughly three male characters. Davis explains, “We are in effect enculturating kids from the very beginning to see women and girls as not taking up half of the space.” Like many films before it, Frozen subtly suggests that the only women who deserve screen time are the ones with exceptional stories. Men, on the other hand, don’t need to be extraordinary to appear on screen; their maleness is justification enough for their presence. Davis’ study determined that while women make up roughly 50% of the population, most crowd scenes contain only 17% of female characters.
Don’t get me wrong I adored Frozen. I’ve had the soundtrack on repeat since I saw it a few weeks ago, and I’m fully prepared to perform a karaoke duet of “Love Is An Open Door” at the drop of a hat. But for all of its feminist subversion, Frozen’s supporting cast falls in line with Davis’ study. Despite its dual female protagonists, men still outnumber women: There’s a wise Troll King, a repressive father, a brave ice cutter, a friendly shop owner, a scheming prince, a manipulative dignitary, an open-hearted snowman, and a dog-like reindeer. Men aren’t limited to being good or bad, heroes or villains, rich or poor; they are all of these things. Women, however, are almost entirely absent from supporting roles. Elsa and Anna’s mother remains silent and inactive while her husband takes control, a female troll gets a brief solo, and a townswoman delivers a line or two to Elsa. As far as I can recall, these are the only supporting women of note, and I’m really stretching it with that townswoman.
And in case you didn’t notice, there are also no women (or men) of color in Frozen. Some are quick to claim it would be historically inaccurate to depict racial diversity in the film’s medieval Scandinavian setting. Putting aside the ice powers, anthropomorphized reindeer, and magical trolls for a moment—Arendelle is depicted as a major trading city with ties to countries around the world. It seems perfectly logical that it would be a bustling metropolis with a diverse population. And to be perfectly frank, the benefit of a child of color seeing herself represented onscreen far outweighs the danger of someone being confused about the demographics of Scandinavia.
It’s difficult to say whether Frozen’s creators subconsciously mimicked the gender and racial disparity we’ve become accustomed to onscreen or whether the white male-dominated world was an intentional choice meant to keep the focus on Anna and Elsa. (After all, audiences are used to seeing white men as business owners and dignitaries so there’s no need to justify their appearance in these roles. Perhaps the creators feared a female shop owner would be too much of a distraction.) Either way, the homogenized supporting cast feels like a huge oversight for a film that otherwise goes out of its way to craft a feminist story. Frozen subverts Disney clichés, celebrates female friendship, and even promotes asking for consent as an act of romance (swoon!), but it utterly fails when it comes to creating a world that accurately reflects our own. Perhaps most frustrating, it would have been so, so easy to improve representation. Make the Troll King a Troll Queen. Make Anna and Elsa’s mother the active parent. Make the shop owner a black woman. Make Kristoff an Asian man who traveled to Arendelle yet never quite fit in. Make half of the visiting dignitaries women. And heck, make some of those female dignitaries corrupt, just as the men are allowed to be!
If Frozen required a template, it need only look to the winter’s other female-driven powerhouse film, Catching Fire. In fact, the entire Hunger Games franchise seems to deliberately demand diversity. The parameters of the titular Games require each District to send one male and one female tribute, a fictional mandate that matches nicely with Davis’ suggestion that writers dictate all crowd scenes contain 50% women. There are still more male characters overall, but it’s a huge step in the right direction for gender parity onscreen.
In addition to everyone’s favorite bow-and-arrow wielder (sorry Legolas), Catching Fire depicts a beautifully varied array of female characters. There’s the vapid, wealthy women of the Capitol; the hardworking, poor women of District 12; Katniss’ emotionally-fragile mother; aggressive Johanna; tech-savvy Wiress; vicious Enobaria and Cashmere; old but brave Mags; young but brave Prim; Snow’s impressionable granddaughter; Rue’s stoic mother; the drug-addicted tribute from District 6; and a career-driven socialite named Effie Trinket. Even better, many of these characters have agency and arcs of their own. Effie slowly learns to question the society she once worshipped, and her growth is one of the most moving elements in an all-around exceptional film. Effie’s subtle resistance to the Capitol is a foil to Katniss’ aggressive frustration—an acknowledgement that women can show strength in many ways, not just through traditionally masculine pursuits like hunting and fighting.
Though Catching Fire is still predominately white—and the whitewashing of Katniss is problematic—it does take some important steps to represent racial diversity. Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) and Rue (Amandla Stenberg) are not only essential characters of color; they effortlessly defy the racial stereotypes of aggressive black men and sexualized black women that too often fill our screens. The film could and should present more persons of color, but it’s certainly an improvement over Frozen’s all-white ensemble.
So does all this mean Catching Fire is a more feminist film than Frozen? Of course not. Representation is just one way we can examine feminism onscreen. Simply counting up the number of women will not indicate how well written they are or how actively they impact the story. Like the Bechdel test—which both films pass, by the way—representation is one feminist lens. But it is an important one. As Davis asks, “Couldn’t it be that the percentage of women in leadership positions in many areas of society — Congress, law partners, Fortune 500 board members, military officers, tenured professors and many more — stall out at around 17 percent because that’s the ratio we’ve come to see as the norm?” Couldn’t Frozen’s homogenized world teach its audience that women are only worthy if they are “exceptional”?
Frozen just took home the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, and I’m thrilled that such an overtly feminist film has been embraced by mainstream culture. It’s especially exciting because Frozen has not one, but two female leads, and both of these ladies are wonderfully nuanced and complex. So let’s continue to celebrate Frozen and Catching Fire for everything they get right. Let’s use Elsa, Anna, and Katniss as examples of fantastic female protagonists who are allowed to be both strong and weak. Let’s demand positive female relationships like the ones between Elsa and Anna or between Katniss and Prim. But let’s also continue to point out flaws in the films we love. Let’s demand more representation of women from all walks of life, not just brave, pretty heroines. Let’s demand more representation of persons of color. Most importantly, let’s demand more fully realized human beings onscreen, especially ones who just happen to be ladies.
Caroline Siede is a freelance writer living in Chicago where the cold never bothers her anyway. She frequently contributes to The A.V. Club and documents her experiences in the city on her blog Introverted Chicago. When not contemplating time travel paradoxes, she often tweets sarcastic things @CarolineSiede.