Charlotte Silverstein - Frozen 2

Silverstein 1 Charlotte Silverstein Kelly McDowell Visual Culture 3/29/20 Into The Unknown of the Wight Gaze The wight gaze has been around for centuries dictating how history is recorded and stories are told even today in modern media. In the 2019 Disney sequel ​Frozen 2 ​the wight gaze is demonstrated in many ways. In the movie Anna and Elsa uncover their place in the white gaze and how it has affected the narrative of their childhood. Through their actions they still end up playing into the wight gaze. We will see them start to understand the wight gaze when they examine and contrast the story about the Dam, told to them by their father with the truth of the story shown to Elsa. Then we will see how Anna deals with the truth and her position in the wight gaze. Finally we will look at how because of the western gaze of the creators and the audience the movie still ends up falling into the common tropes of the wight savior and the noble savage.

The movie begins with a flash back to Elsa and Anna as children getting ready for bed. Their father, King Agnarr tells them a story from his childhood. About when he visited the enchanted forest with his father to unveil a Dam that Kingdom of Arendelle gave the indigenous people known as the Northuldra. This Dam was supposed to be a peace treaty and to strengthen their waters. During the celebration after the unveiling fighting broke out. Agnarr doesn’t know who started it but he seems to think it was the Northuldra. Agnarr only managed to escape because he was saved by a young

Silverstein 2 Nothaldra girl. Many of the soldiers from Arendelle and the northaldra got trapped in the forest when the spirits that lived there became angry and a barrier appeared around the forest allowing no one to go in or out. The story then skips many years forward and the now Queen Elsa hears a literal voice calling her in the direction of the forest. Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf decided to follow the voice and arrive at the barrier of the enchanted forest. Elsa allows them to enter into the forest by using her powers. One of the first things they find is that the spirits created an ice sculpture that depicts a younger version of their father being saved by a little girl. This aligns with the story their father told them and is the first step to starting their mission to find the truth. This mission is really kickstarted after they come in contact with the Northaldra and the Arenelle soldiers. Who after all these decades are still fighting about what went on that day. The Northaldra noticed Elsa and that her mother's scarf she is wearing is a Northaldra scarf.

This prompts Elsa to begin her journey into the unknown to find the truth about that day that the Dam was unveiled and the truth of her own history. Elsa remembers a song from her mother “for in this river all is found in her waters deep and true lie the answers and path for you”(​Frozen 2)​ . Elsa heads for the frozen over Atohallan river when she enters the icy cavern of the river she is greeted by more icy depictions of the past, like the one they saw entering the forest of her father. As olaf stated earlier in the movie “water has memory”(​Frozen 2)​ so Elsa is able to see the truth of what really happened.

She watches a projection of her grandfather who was King at the time as he talks to a soldier about his true intentions. He says that the Dam was not actually a gift to the Northaldren as a peace treaty and to strengthen their water but rather a means to

Silverstein 3 control them by depleting their land to eventually force them to submit to his control.

Elsa is horrified by what this means. Elsa follows the ice projections deeper into the cavern, the last image she sees is her grandfather about to attack the Northaldra Chief with a sword while he is sitting down praying. So not only was her grandfather's motivations for building the dam corrupt he was also the one to incite the violence. The wight gaze of their father caused him to view the situation very differently as if the Arendelle soldiers and his father were the heroes of the story who were attacked. When in reality his father turns out to be much more villonus than he remembered. Sadly Elsa forgets another part of her mother's song “ dive down deep into her sound but not too far or you'll be drowned” (​Frozen 2​) . Elsa has gone too far. The truth overwhelms her and she ends up freezing in the cavern.

Elsa uses the last of her energy to send the projection of her grandfather about to murder the Northaldra Chief to Anna. When Anna sees this image, she has no choice but to face the fact that her family was not the victim in this story but rather the villains.

Anna has to accept that her father's place of power made him look at this event with the wight gaze and misinterpreted them. Anna now has to make the choice to keep this information to herself and go on with her life or own up to the situation and do whatever she can to make it right even if it requires personal sacrifice. Anna goes for the later as she decides to do in her song “the next right thing”(​Frozen 2​) she says “when it's clear that everything will never be the same again then i'll make the choice to hear that voice and do the next right thing ''(​Frozen 2)​ . She does the next right thing, which is with the help of the earth giant spirits destroying the Dam, the symbol of Arendelle oppression of

Silverstein 4 the Northaldra. Which will calm the spirits and restore the forest but in the process it will also destroy Arendelle. Anna decides this sacrifice is worth it but ​Lieutenant Mattias​ is opposed. He knows what destroying the dam will mean for Arendelle. He is now faced with the same decision Anna had, to sacrifice the city to help start to undo the trauma they have caused to the Northuldra. At first he is hesitant but after hearing Anna out, he decides breaking the Dam is the right thing to do. He helps Anna by getting all of his soldiers to crash their swords and shields together to call the giants to the Dam. Even though the movie has a positive message about discovering and fighting the wight gaze, because of the western gaze of the audience and creators of the film it can end up playing into some harmful tropes. The Northaldra fall into the trope of the noble savage. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the noble savage as “ ​an idealized concept of uncivilized man, who symbolizes the innate goodness of one not exposed to the corrupting influences of civilization ”(​Encyclopædia Britannica​)​.​ They are shown as being primitive, living in huts with simple clothes. They also come off as passive as they did not fight against the Dam, even though it could destroy their homes. They are also shown as almost mystical as they have a deep connection with the forest and the spirits and don’t often interact with the outside world. Elsa also follows the classic storyline of the wight savior complex. The Metro difines the wight savior complex as it “refers to a white person who acts to help non-white people, but in a context which can be perceived as self-serving'' (Metro.co.uk). Elsa is considered the hero in this story because through finding the truth about their history she helps to free the Northuldra but really she is just trying to find her place in the world. This trope is why at the end of the

Silverstein 5 movie the audience is so willing to accept that Elsa leaves the life she knows to go live in the forest with the Northuldra. Even though It is never explicitly stated the western gaze can lead you to believe that she is ruling the Northuldra because of her clothing and the fact she is viewed as more sophisticated than the Northuldra. Even though they are a civilization which has presumably done just fine for themselves for hundreds of years without needing a white girl with snow powers help.

This paper showed how Anna and Elsa came to realise that they had only seen the story of the dam unveiling through the wight gaze and what the truth of the situation actually was. How Anna came to terms with how her place in the wight gaze narrative and righted the wrongs of her grandfather. Even though the main characters were working against the wight gaze, because the producers and audience were viewing this film with a western gaze it still fell into the same troupes of the wight savior and noble savage. Even with these faults overall the movie still had a powerful message of reperations, somthing very poinent at the moment as america and many other countrys are faced with if and how to repay the people who have been hurt by the discrimination and enslavment of their ancestors. The movie subverts other common tropes by having two powerful women being the subject and hero of their own story. All of this makes Frozen 2​ a step in the right direction as Disney travels into the unknown of the white gaze.

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Work Cited

Bakar, Faima. “What Is a White Saviour Complex?” ​Metro​, Metro.co.uk, 6 Mar. 2019, metro.co.uk/2019/03/06/what-is-a-white-saviour-complex-8793979/.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Noble Savage.” ​Encyclopædia Britannica​, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 24 Apr. 2019, www.britannica.com/art/noble-savage.

Frozen 2, ​Directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2019.

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