Group 1 Frozen Movie

Post by: Maggie Wiatr, Hanna Salmonsen, Katelyn Nichisti

In the Disney movie Frozen, Queen Elsa accidentally uses her powers to freeze her kingdom. In doing so with the help of a few friends, her sister, Anna, finds a way to unfreeze it. Although this may seem like a typical child-friendly Disney movie, children’s developmental perspectives produce different reactions to the film. There are many scenes, as well as characters, than can affect the way children behave and act after viewing the movie. One example is when Anna and Prince Hans decide that they are going to get married after only one day of knowing each other. Once children watch this, they may think it is acceptable to marry someone right after they meet them due to the Social Learning Theory, which states that children learn by observing others (Farrar, 2016). Children do not have the cognitive ability to distinguish what is wrong and what is right so they will learn the standards of marriage through watching this movie.

Moreover, the actual characters of Anna and Elsa have an affect on children's health behaviors. The Sociocultural Theory says that the ideal woman should be thin, which brings social, personal, and professional success (Farrar, 2016). Both female characters in this film are portrayed as beautiful and thin so most girls are going to start to want to look this way. This movie also affects children's perspectives on gender roles because between the ages of two and seven, children are most likely to make the largest developments in what they perceive gender roles (Farrar, 2016). Anna is obsessed with her new fiance Hans and he is all she talks about. Therefore, when female viewers hear this, they might think that all they should care about is finding love.

Frozen also poses issues in regards to limitations in processing media content because there are major shifts and differences in cognitive processing from younger to older children (Farrar, 2016). When we first meet Elsa, she shows her ability to produce snow in a magic way from her hands. This schema is difficult to interpret for a younger child because they haven’t increased their domain-specific knowledge (Farrar, 2016). In other words, a young child’s perceived appearance to reality is lacking, which therefore creates a fuzzy separation between what is real and what is not (Farrar, 2016).

When Anna and Elsa sing the infamous song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, a young child’s lack of temporal sequencing inhibits their overall understanding. The child can hear the song and know that it’s occurring but isn’t cognitively developed enough to understand that Anna has been asking Elsa to build a snowman for many years during their childhood.

Because information processing is a very demanding task for a child, they must increase their amount of mental effort (AIME), which in turn, can lead to less understanding and more confusion (Farrar, 2016).  During the song “Let It Go,” Elsa manages to build an entire ice castle that seems larger than life.  Because this animation is so unrealistic, kids on the younger side are unable to fully process what is happening because their world is very perceptual and physical (Farrar, 2016).

As children get older, the things that they find fearful change and adapt to their maturity level (Farrar, 2016). The guardian snow monster of Elsa’s ice castle can pose fear reactions in young children because he looks scary to the eye.  For a child anywhere from 2-7 years old, visual images, whether realistic or fantastic are the most troublesome content (Farrar, 2016).  

There are various examples of violence in the movie that provoke reactions for a child audience. There are other effects of media violence such as levels of aggression that can have a heightened impact on the viewer. The priming effect suggests that mere images of something violent can prime aggressive thoughts (Farrar, 2016).  Research also suggests that violence on television plays an important role in the aggression of children. In the movie, we begin to see a large portrayal of violence when Hanz and his men go to kill Elsa so he can rule Arandale. The men fire countless arrows at her and she fights back by creating ice shields. This violent behavior might be fearful for younger children, but might prime aggressive thoughts for older children watching. According to the cognitive neoassociationist theory, viewing aggression disinhibits the viewer’s controls on aggressive behavior. By viewing Hans and his men fire arrows and act aggressively, it could potentially disinhibit the viewer’s controls on aggressive behavior in their own lives. In addition to effects of media violence, fear is certainly a common emotional reaction that children and young viewers experience. Research shows that up to a third of kids between 7-12 report being frightened by media in the past year (Farrar, 2016). With that being said, most adults can readily recall something that frightened them as a kid, so these fearful events might leave a lasting impact. Although there are developmental differences associated with fear reactions in the media, children from the ages of 7-12 years old are the most scared of realistic threats that can happen, especially to the child (Farrar, 2016). In the beginning of the movie, Ana and Elsa hug their parents goodbye before they go away on a trip, expecting to see them again in just two weeks. However, a great and powerful storm hits and they are both killed. This would be extremely nerve wracking to watch as a child between the ages of 7-12 because it is fairly realistic and most people can not even imagine the pain and suffering associated with losing a parent at such a young age.

            There are several instances of emotional events displayed in the movie Frozen. For example, Elsa and Anna are sad because they haven’t seen each other in so many years. Little kids might not understand that the reason why they are sad is because so much time has passed. On the other hand, an older child can comprehend that the sisters are separated because Elsa is afraid that she might hurt Anna from her magic. Young kids might not understand that Elsa actually wants to see and play with Anna. They only see that Anna is upset and don’t understand that Elsa would play with her if she could – they might only think that Else is choosing not to play with her sister.