Many of my fellow conservatives, and even fellow Catholics, have disparaged the two recent Disney films Maleficent and Frozen. The general consensus amongst the critics is that the films, by not placing romantic love at the center of the plot, have abandoned the traditional fairy tale stories and reduced themselves to nothing better than feminist propaganda. That the films are shades of the original fairy tales certainly cannot be denied, but unless you read your children stories from the original Brothers Grimm every night, this point is not a compelling indictment on the new films.
As a Christian, I am thrilled that Disney has finally started creating movies that do not center on romantic love. I was raised on Disney movies, and must confess to watching them regularly. However, believing like I do that the greatest problem in our society is a deformed understanding of love, I am forced to admit that many Disney movies are largely responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. From Disney we learned to follow our heart and that things would inevitably work out for the best – a way of thinking that is foreign to the rhythm of love. Love is a deliberate act of the will that results in a change in our existential state. When someone chooses to love another, he has made a choice that puts an end to all his choice. Before, he could make decisions based on his interest alone. A man in love, however, has forsaken that option.
This is partly why I was delighted to see romantic love, which our society has clearly proved it misunderstands, left in the background in these two recent films. In Frozen, the bond of love that heals is the bond between sisters. In Maleficent, it is a bond between a mother figure and a daughter figure that heals. That major Hollywood movies are portraying familial and philial love as something just as important and redeeming in our lives as eros is something we should certainly be thankful for.
I find that the charges that these films are vessels of feminist and lesbian propaganda are unfounded, and likely stem from an equally deformed understanding of the nature of love. Traditionalists in particular should know there are many forms of love. When modernist critics ascribe homosexuality to Achilles and Patroclus, Frodo and Samwise, or David and Jonathan, it is because they have failed to understand the deep love of friendship. They see love in these old stories, just as we see love, but our overly sexualized culture assumes all love must be about sex. I have yet to see a compelling argument that the bonds of love portrayed in Frozen and Maleficent are anything but expressions of the love we know to exist between family and friends. In fact, the conservative naysayers are usually as shallow as the Freudian critics of our beloved classics
It would be a pity to think conservatives fail to recognize expressions of philia and storge as valid expressions of love, especially in a world that so desperately needs to be shown examples of love other than an over-sexualized eros. Disney has done enough damage to eros. Let’s hope they can redeem themselves with storge and philia.