Letting Go, Coming Out, and Working Through: Queer Frozen

Abstract

This article builds on an already established understanding of Disney’s Frozen as a queer text. Following Judith Butler, however, it works against a notion of ‘queer’ that is locatable in the intrinsic truth of plot, imagery, and character, and removed from questions of performance and narration. In taking this approach, and in keeping with the focus of this Special Edition of Humanities, the article undertakes an extensive, fine-grained reading of ‘Let it Go’, the stand-out song from the first Frozen film. Rather than argue for or against the idea that ‘Let it Go’ is a Coming Out song, issues of textual perspective and textual difference are foregrounded in a way that challenges claims to the stability of identity. The pressing question, for this article, is not whether the lead character of Frozen truly is ‘out’, but the possibility of fixing identity in this way, the precise nature of the reversals and antagonisms that being ‘out’ and ‘letting it go’ require in this particular text, and how such determinations might impact on a wider understanding of ‘queer’.