Friday, January 19, 2018

Queen Elsa's Economic Sanctions Against Weselton

[Possible spoiler for the movie Frozen.]

Was anyone else bothered by the end of Frozen? Queen Elsa tells the Duke of Weselton that Arendelle will no longer have any trade with Weselton. This is presented to the audience good-humoredly as a minor pathetic villain (the Duke) getting his comeuppance. But I'm thinking, Wait a minute. She just slapped economic sanctions on another nation. She probably harmed her own citizens in the process.

Did she enforce those sanctions? If carts or shiploads of goods from Weselton were already en route to Arendelle, did they get turned away? If Arendelle depends on trade with Weselton for its food supply, did Elsa allow her people to starve? If there are Arendelle merchants and craftsmen who depend on a steady supply of Weselton goods, did Elsa allow them to lose their livelihoods? What about smugglers? Let's see a follow up film, a short called Frozen Out, where a ship's crew gets hanged for running the blockade and smuggling in Weselton goods. Maybe include some footage of starving Weseltonians who lost their livelihoods because of the sanctions. Perhaps an interview with a hard-headed Arendelle nationalist who is glad to see Elsa "Sticking it to Weselton," but laments that lutefisk is so much more expensive than it used to be.

It's such a chipper, throw-away scene. "Ha ha! That Duke got what's coming to him!" Is the audience supposed to overlook Elsa's use of collective guilt?

For me this is right up there with "King Triton just happens to know a spell that makes the bottom half of a human lady" (like, did he have to practice that one a lot?) and "Belle spends the first ten minutes of the movie shitting all over her neighbors" and "When the guy is plucking feathers out of the sentient feather duster, what's actually happening to her?"

No comments:

Post a Comment