UEA academics to spend one-day conference talking about Disney movie Frozen

This image released by Disney shows Elsa the Snow Queen, voiced by Idina Menzel, in a scene from the animated feature "Frozen." Photo: AP/Walt Disney

Experts at the UEA have organised a conference dubbed “Symfrozium” to talk about the children’s Disney movie Frozen.

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The animated film, featuring the popular song Let It Go, a princess and a troll king, will be analysed by a group of film scholars who will examine gender roles in the movie.

Billed as “Symfrozium”, the conference on Tuesday, May 12 is the first dedicated day of academic conversation about the award-winning film.

Keynote speaker Dr Amy Davis from the University of Hull, a specialist in representations of gender roles in US animation and popular culture, will open the day with a speech called “Love Experts, Evil Princes, Gullible Princesses, and Frozen”, examining what kinds of love play what roles in the lives of the film’s characters.

Professor Paul Wells, director of the animation academy at Loughborough University, will chair the morning’s session which also includes discussions called “Reworking the Superhero Genre in Disney’s Frozen and Wreck-it Ralph” and “Disney Classics and Poisonous Pedagogy: The Fairytale roots of Frozen”.

While the day will concern a children’s film, a spokesman for the UEA said that serious subjects would be discussed - with the UEA’s Su Holmes to share her research on links between the film and those involved in online pro-anorexia websites and communities.

Sarah Godfrey, senior lecturer at UEA and co-organiser of the event with Su Holmes, said: “Frozen was an immediate hit and has been a talking point amongst film lovers and academics ever since.

“The film’s apparent privileging of female kinship over heterosexual romance has been seen as marking the film out from its precursors in the Disney ‘princess’ franchise.

“While academic scholarship on Frozen will no doubt be forthcoming, such claims are yet to be subject to sustained interrogation.

“Indeed, while the film’s apparently unprecedented popularity and cultural impact has garnered significant attention in popular media discourse, the film’s significance for film, media, cultural studies and beyond has yet to be visibly debated.

“This Symfrozium offers the opportunity to take up this interrogation and to reflect upon the issues and questions raised by the film in the context of its significant cultural moment since 2013.”