A Frosty Review of "Frozen"

I heard the other day that some conservative Christian group is frothing at the mouth over the Disney film Frozen. Apparently, not only does it promote witchcraft (these guys do know that witchcraft isn't real, right?), but also, gasp, lesbianism!! I hadn't yet seen the movie when I heard this but I thought to myself, "a Disney movie incorporated some openly gay characters? Cool!"

I decided to actually buy the DVD/Blu-Ray combo of the movie, since not only had I heard such great things about it from everyone I know, but I also rarely get an opportunity to watch "girly" movies at my house. When you live with 2 sons and a husband, you get a lot of Transformers, cars, and aliens, but not a lot of singing, dancing, or ballgowns. Had you asked me ten years ago (before I had kids), I would have smugly told you that this was a purely social construct, and it's only because we encourage boys and girls to consume different types of media that they have any "preferences" at all.

I've since come to the realization that boys and girls are just different. This doesn't mean that ALL boys like trucks and ALL girls like dolls. It just means that even when you paint your boy's toenails and try so hard to assure them that there are no "boy colors" and "girl colors," they're still probably going to gravitate to Spiderman over Cinderella. Not all, but most.

Anyway, back to Frozen.

I was excited to see this one because I'm a HUGE Broadway fan, and the amazing Idina Menzel (aka "Adele Dazeem") voices one of the main characters. Plus, my brother had told me it was very "Broadway-ey."

So I was severely disappointed to find out that I hated most of the music. Except for the one song that was the big hit of the film, "Let it Go," the rest of the songs kind of sucked. Which my husband enjoyed pointing out again and again throughout the film. Also, I was dismayed to find that there was NO gay plot-line after all! Only a sweet story about two biological sisters performing acts of "true love" for each other.

So that was disappointing. But like any Disney movie for kids, it had a mix of good and bad themes throughout. So without further ado, here is my list of the good, the bad, and the ugly from Frozen:

Good:

• That one song was okay.
• There is a lesson to had about not letting fear rule your life.
• The love story between the sisters trumped the romance between the lead male/female characters. That was nice.
• Josh Gad. I LOVE Josh Gad. And the reindeer. He was funny.
• The lead female character was kind of bad ass and dorky at the same time. That was a nice change for Disney.
• It turns out that deciding to marry someone you just met that day is probably a bad idea. Unless you've known them for like a month, in which case it's probably "true love."

Bad:

• Must EVERY film that is marketed to girls require a romance as one of the main plot points??! Do we need every girl to think that the single most important thing in life is getting married??!! You don't see this same theme in films targeted to boys. Yes, there is an occasional romance thrust at them, but it's not usually such an important part of the story. And we are talking about children here! They have plenty of time to worry about romance when they grow up. Does it have to be the only thing Hollywood keeps throwing at them?
• And on the point of romance, I'm so sick of seeing the idea thrown at kids of any gender that there is "one true love" out there for everyone. This idea is harmful. It keeps people in bad relationships for much too long, and keeps young people from exploring their options when it comes to partners. When kids grow up with the idea that once they find their "soul-mate" then everything will just magically fall into place, we're setting them up for a lifetime of disappointment. The movie does give a slight nod to this idea, but solves the problem with a second "true love."
• Does every female lead character in the world of Disney NEED to be a Princess? What is it with Princess worship? I just don't get it.
• The idea that hearts are more important than brains. Brains are just a changeable feature able to be manipulated, but your heart, well, ALWAYS trust that.
• The "poor little rich girl" theme, again.

Ugly:

• Do I even need to say it? The eyes!!! Ugh! Disney, please stop with the girls having eyes that are 15 times too big for their faces!! We get it. You're trying to make them sexy and more appealing, but it's just creepy and unsettling. 
• And while you're at it, do all of them need a 2 centimeter wide waist and size -2 feet? It's just weird.

So there you have it. One person's opinion. As of this writing, my 4-year-old son is on his 4th viewing of Frozen, so I guess it does have some cross-over appeal. But if I woke up tomorrow and saw that Disney was making a movie with some honest-to-god gay characters, I'd be pleased as punch.

More than 50 Shades of Gray

I think I may have finally figured out what it is. That thing. The thing that separates liberals from conservatives. The thing that, when you peel back all of the arguments and rhetoric about everything, is at the heart of the disagreement between the left and the right.

Are you ready?

Here it is.

Uncertainty. Ambivalence. Complexity. Ambiguity. Skepticism. In short, shades of gray.

This may be common knowledge to many of you, but it really feels like an epiphany to me. The reason that I hold so many of the opinions I do is not that I'm so sure of the rightness of my own thinking; it's the fact that I know I don't know everything.

It's the reason so many liberals like to cite scientific studies and focus on "evidence-based practices." We know that our own knowledge on any given subject is limited, and therefore we look to experts who spend more time studying the topic than we do.

We are comfortable with moral ambiguity because we know that morality isn't always necessarily black and white. We know that the idea of "good guys and bad guys" is misleading.

Life is complex. People are complex. And the world is messy. We know that not everyone thinks and acts exactly like us, and so we try to reserve judgement for when we know more about a situation, and make allowances for diversity and variation.

When I wrote my last post about abortion, I had someone arguing with me about when I think "life" begins. I told him that I don't know, which is why I don't think it should be up to me to make that decision for someone else. He kept pressing me for an answer and seemed very perplexed at why I could not make an absolute decision. The fact is, I don't know when a person starts becoming a true "person." I know that a cluster of cells is different than a newborn baby. But is there a moment between month 3 and 4 when a fetus becomes more "human" than it was before? Maybe. But since that is a philosophical question, it seems to me that the best course of action is to leave the decision up to the woman involved, because I don't know what's going on in her life.

I've also been arguing about voter ID laws over the past day on Facebook (yes, I enjoy arguing).  So many people think that since voter ID makes sense to them, and since it wouldn't affect them at all, then we should do it. I mean, who needs "research" or the opinion of professionals who actually specialize in voter fraud when we have some stories we heard one time about someone voting in place of their dead uncle? People don't seem to want to look outside their own bubble and find out more about what is actually going on in any given situation for someone else.  They'd rather have the certainty of knowing they're right.

I've been trying to watch "The House I Live In" for the past day or two (I've gotten about halfway through it at this point) which is a film about America's "war on drugs." It's a fascinating topic, but most conservatives won't give a second thought to what's going on in the lives of prisoners. They're drug dealers, they belong in jail, that's it. Any attempt to explain the background of someone who's in jail is just "making excuses for their crime."  They don't worry too much about the death penalty because the person being executed "deserves it."  They don't give a second thought to all of the complexity of situation and room for human error that exists in any human-based undertaking such as our criminal justice system.

Here's what I think it all basically boils down to: liberals don't want people to suffer needlessly when we can do something about it, and we don't want people to be dicks about everything. Beyond that, the conversation is wide open and we're willing to change our minds if the circumstances change or the situation becomes clearer.

So, if you want to be a liberal, keep an open mind and don't be a dick. Now go about your business.

Parent Teacher Trouble

Before I begin, a technical note: I will be referring to "Obamacare" in this post.  If that bothers you, sorry.  I know the proper name of the law, I'm just too lazy to type it all out, and I think Obama should be proud of his law and own it.

So I had a weird situation the other day.  I attended my first parent-teacher conference of the year with my son's third grade teacher, who is an amazing woman.  In the short time I've known her, I've found her to be kind, funny, warm and smart.  She's kind of a "grandma" figure to the kids, and my son just loves her.

As the conference began, she asked me about my impending surgery since we've discussed it on and off when I've been in the classroom volunteering.  The conversation came around to medical bills, and she said she's been worrying about me because my medical bills must huge.  At that point, I told her that one good thing about "Obamacare" was that it would end the lifetime cap on coverage which would be huge for me. She agreed but then asked what would happen if it got repealed.

I should interject here to say that I really hesitated to even bring up the issue, because around here, you kind of have to assume that everyone is conservative until proven otherwise.  So it was a subject I broached very tentatively.

Anyway, as the discussion continued, she told me she had heard that there is a provision in Obamacare that pays for all the children of illegal immigrants to go to college for free.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I politely told her that seemed pretty unlikely to me, and asked her if maybe she was thinking of the "Dream Act" (which doesn't do that either, but I can see how the rumor could get around).  She insisted that no, it was in fact Obamacare, and that "we" (I'm assuming she and her husband?) had fact-checked it because they thought it sounded weird too.  I told her it still seemed fishy to me, and she asked me to let her know if I find out differently, at which point our time was about up, so I told her we should probably talk about my son (who, as it turns out, is an amazing, wonderfully kind and funny boy who really needs to work on his reading and math skills).

That night, I spent at least an hour googling and came across nothing, so I resorted to finding the entire text of the law and searching through it for keywords like "education," "immigrants," and "college" and still found nada.

The next day, I emailed the teacher letting her know what I had found (or rather not found).  I'm not sure how often she checks her email though, so I guess we'll see if she sends a response.

The point of this whole story is that even the most intelligent people can believe very unlikely things, and what that could mean for this election and for our future really kind of scares me.  We live in a world where facts aren't always facts, and you can just about always find somethting to back up what you want to believe, no matter what side of the fence you're sitting on.

Chick-Fil-A

Here in Minnesota, we don't have any Chick-Fil-A restaurants that I know of, so this whole Chick-Fil-A controversy doesn't affect me much.  In case you've been living in a cave and haven't heard about the brouhaha, the owner of Chick-Fil-A did some radio show somewhere in which he professed his disdain of marriage equality.

So now you've got the LGBT community and their allies (like me) boycotting Chick-Fil-A, and religious fundamentalists gorging themselves on chicken sandwiches to support them.

One thing that is kind of bothering me about the marriage equality community's response to this whole thing is the planned "Same Sex Kiss Day" at Chick-Fil-A restaurants around the country that will be held tomorrow.  It seems to me that showing up en masse at Chick-Fil-A's to make out with someone of the same sex only advances the stereotype that gay people are only concerned with sex all the time, and with shoving their "lifestyle" in people's faces. 

What's wrong with a good-ole-fashioned boycott or basic protest?  Or maybe organize an event to go and eat at some alternative chicken restaurant whose owner has some more progressive values? (Not sure which restaurant that would be, but there's got to be one somewhere.) 

I'm just a little concerned about the photos that will pop up from this event, and how they will be perceived by all the bigots out there who already have pre-conceived notions of how gay people "are."  I think the only way to change people's minds is to show them that there really isn't much of a difference between them and someone who they think is different, and most people I know have no interest in making out at a chicken joint.

I know it's not my job to change people's minds, and that we shouldn't kowtow to people who are just ignorant, but overall this could really just give some more ammo to the "being gay is all about sex" crowd.  Maybe I'm wrong about this, and I'd be interested to hear what my LGBT friends would have to say about it.  I just don't see much good coming about due to the event, and I see the potential for a massive backfire.

Hate Radio

I got a sweet new car last month that came with a sweet new trial subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio.  It's been awesome listening to all the non-stop left wing radio when I'm in my car, but I've noticed something troubling.

When all of my favorite stations have commercials on simultaneously, I flip over to right-wing radio just to see what they're talking about, and I'm starting to see why the tea party is so angry all of the time. 

I get an ulcer just listening to this stuff for 2 minutes at a time.  The anger and hatred that is spewed on these stations is just nauseating to me.  What you hear over and over is some form or another of "I'm right, they're wrong, end of discussion."  There's no contemplation and no context for anything they talk about.

I would challenge any conservative people to try listening to left-wing radio for a few minutes, and see if they notice a difference.  Most of the shows are thoughtful, respectful, and welcome debate.  There are always exceptions, but for the most part, it's not unusual to hear a left-wing host say that they've changed their mind because of a point a caller made, or you can tell that they're at least thinking about it.

And it's not just the words they say, it's the tone they use.  They are basically screaming venom at the microphone.  You can just visualize the veins popping out of their foreheads.  It puts me on edge just to hear it.  I gotta say, if I listened to this crap constantly, maybe I'd be a hard-core tea bagger too.