The Unpopular Opinion

Movie sequels tend to be.... subpar. When I first watched Mulan at the age of five, I was entranced by the movie's rich display of Chinese culture and the mesmerizing glory of Li Shang. When I proceeded to watch the sequel of Mulan, "Mulan 2," I was dumbfounded: there were random, irrelevant new love interests and several of the characters had lost their original nuance.

That being said, "Frozen II" was a pleasant surprise. The movie was brilliantly executed– its playlist is catchy, its animation is stellar, and Elsa serves us some model-esque looks with her transformation.

But that being said, "Frozen" is one of my favorite Disney movies— so it's hard to live up to that standard. Through my own perspectives as a (very) biased movie critic, I assert that "Frozen" is *slightly* better of a movie than "Frozen 2"— my own connection with the first movie, as well as the character conflict and music in the original, provide a stronger, more cohesive narrative to be told. 

I've scoured the Internet to see the general consensus on this debate, and it seems like "Frozen 2" wins. I understand the reasoning behind the "Frozen II" fans, but I resonated more with the themes that "Frozen" displayed and hold a unique nostalgic connection to the film.

When "Frozen" first came out, I was obsesssed with the glitz and glamour of the movie: Elsa's dress was gorgeous, and so was her eyeshadow. But while rewatching it for this class, I couldn't help but empathize with Elsa when she recited the lines "conceal don't feel."

As a gay man, I've been in plenty — and by plenty, I mean way too many – situations where I've tried to conceal so much of my identity. There are still family members in my life that I conceal much of my identity from, but most of the people I love in my life are aware of my identity because I made the conscious choice to "let it go." 

This very cheesy mantra — to be yourself, to express yourself unabashedly — is something I think I absorbed from the movie when I first watched it. And I needed that. In middle school, I was stuck in this awkward rut of being aware of my sexuality but trying to force myself to be someone I wasn't. I would be ashamed of myself and hide that part of my identity– because it was easy to just stay the same. But forcing myself to come out of my shell, to "Let it Go" rather than concealing, was one of the best and most freeing decisions of my life.

In the same way that Elsa could shoot out ice beams with a hand motion, being openly and expressively gay was its own superpower. And keeping that superpower hidden was suffocating, miserable and a ticking time bomb. When "Frozen" came out in 2013, I was an insecure boy in the closet that needed to hear "Let It Go."