Skip to main content

Frozen song leaves me cold

Image
By

I know I’m somewhat late to this particular party, but why is that ‘Let It Go’ song from the “Frozen” animated movie so popular?

It’s now over a year since Disney’s “Frozen” was released - just in time for Christmas, of course – so I’m not entirely sure why I’ve suddenly got myself all hot under the collar about it’s feature song. Maybe it’s that my central heating is on the blink, meaning the word “frozen” regularly spreads it’s icy chill through my shivering brain cell.

As many parents of young children will willingly attest, it is entirely possible to hear “Let It Go” far, far, too many times. As it’s sung by one of the lead female characters in the film, it resonates powerfully with children of the female persuasion, but also with many of their Mum’s too.

Sung so passionately by Idina Menzel it sounds like she might be about to injure herself, the song is an empowering statement of release, escaping the constraints of other people’s expectations of perfection, and setting yourself free, plus ‘souls spiralling in frozen fractals all around’. I’m not sure your average six-year-old is going to fully understand that last one. Come to think of it... neither do I.

Both the song and the film created surprising levels of controversy. Featuring strong, female, leads, you could rightly assume that it gives a very positive message out, but some Right-Wing Christians have a somewhat different viewpoint. They argue that “letting go” really means coming out, and that the film is a shocking piece of propaganda in support of homosexuality.

When central character Elsa is banished for having ‘magical powers’, and sings “I’m never going back, the past is in the past”, is she proudly announcing her previously suppressed sexual orientation? I’m not quite sure that everyone exiting the closet feels the need to build an ice castle, but maybe some more research is needed.

Then there’s the Whitewashing Controversy, whose proponents point out that the film features white characters only, and accuse Disney of racism. Largely perpetuated by social justice bloggers (who sound like they’d be fun at parties) and fervent fans of the film (ditto), it has raged online since the film’s release, meaning the 99.9% of people who think it’s just a cute animation with a feel-good reading that’s off the scale can easily avoid it.

So: cute and funny film about unconditional sisterly love, redemption, snowmen, a nice mountain man and reindeer (with catchy songs)? Or racist, homosexuality-promoting smut-fest, corrupting and indoctrinating our innocent children (with catchy songs)?

I’m going with the former, although I will confess I’ve only seen clips. A pushing-50 bloke with a beard, on his own at a children’s film, is liable to go down rather badly in this paranoid day and age. “Let It Go” is a feisty, catchy, sing-along tune from a very successful film that children and adults can enjoy signing together and interpret as they choose.

Me? Can’t stand it.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 6th of February 2015. Once again, it hasn't surfaced on the newspaper's website so far, but if you want to keep an eye out for it (and see how old the last one is they actually did get around to posting), have a look on their website here

Odd one this. Having heard the song on the radio a few time recently (Radio 2 had been playing it over the Christmas period) I had the odd sensation of knowing it was a likable song, but I didn't like it. I suspect this is down to Indina Menzel - she has a strong voice and sings with gusto, but something about it grates for me. Can't fault her pitch etc., it just irritates me for some reason.

The only other example of this I can think of, where I like a tune but hate it at the same time, is Mike Oldfield's "Incantations" album. I'm a big Oldfield fan, but that's the one album of his that I find hard to listen too. Coincidentally, this is largely down to the female vocals on that album.

I guess my point here is this: It is quite possible to largely dislike a singer/band's output, in the same way it quite possible to mostly love their stuff. It's pretty rare to have a particular track that is the is the polar opposite of your usual inclination for that particular artist. Rarer still is the strange case of liking a song whilst simultaneously being irritated by something about it. Let It Go ticks that particular box for me.

(Tapeologism of tonight: A TDK AR90 - my tape of choice! - containing the Corrs' "Talk On Corners" album from '98. If I remember rightly, I purchased this particular album to use as the hold music on the phone system of my employer at that point in time. Sorry, The Corrs....)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"It's all gone quiet..." said Roobarb

By
If, like me, you grew up (and I’m aware of the irony in that) in the ‘70s, February was a tough month, with the sad news that Richard Briers and Bob Godfrey had died. Briers had a distinguished acting career and is, quite rightly, fondly remembered most for his character in ‘The Good Life’. Amongst his many roles, both serious and comedic, he also lent his voice to a startling bit of animation that burst it’s wobbly way on to our wooden-box-surrounded screens in 1974. The 1970s seemed to be largely hued in varying shades of beige, with hints of mustard yellow and burnt orange, and colour TV was a relatively new experience still, so the animated adventures of a daft dog and caustic cat who were the shades of dayglo green and pink normally reserved for highlighter pens, must have been a bit of a shock to the eyes at the time. It caused mine to open very wide indeed. Roobarb was written by Grange Calveley, and brought vividly into life by Godfrey, whose strange, shaky-looking sty...
Post a Comment
Read more

Suffering from natural obsolescence

By
You know you’re getting old when it dawns on you that you’re outliving technological breakthroughs. You know the sort of thing – something revolutionary, that heralds a seismic shift it the way the modern world operates. Clever, time-saving, breathtaking and life-changing (and featuring a circuit board). It’s the future, baby! Until it isn’t any more. I got to pondering this when we laughed heartily in the office about someone asking if our camcorder used “tape”. Tape? Get with the times, Daddy-o! If it ain’t digital then for-get-it! I then attempted to explain to an impossibly young colleague that video tape in a camcorder was indeed once a “thing”, requiring the carrying of something the size of a briefcase around on your shoulder, containing batteries normally reserved for a bus, and a start-up time from pressing ‘Record’ so lengthy, couples were already getting divorced by the time it was ready to record them saying “I do”. After explaining what tape was, I realised I’d ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shouting in the social media mirror

By
It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...
Post a Comment
Read more