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Talk about recovering from an epic polar vortex season: Frozen has just done something that will blow your mittens off.

After opening in Japan, Disney’s Frozen has now raked in a whopping $1.072 billion in box office sales worldwide, making it THE highest grossing animated film of all time. But that’s not all: Frozen officially now sits on the top 10 highest grossing films OF ALL TIME. The film has earned $398.4 million domestically and $674 million abroad, and these numbers will continue to climb as more theatres play the film worldwide.

Frozen, co-directed by Jennifer Lee, is the first film directed by a woman to gross over $1 billion. The main protagonists Elsa and Anna are two sisters who navigate through the film on a quest for love: a love that is embedded in sisterhood, not romance. Though the theme of kinship is not a rarity to Disney (after all, its other two highest grossing films are The Lion King and Finding Nemo), Frozen is the first time we see a Disney product centrally focused on sisterhood.

There is nothing more refreshing to me than a progressive plotline like that of Frozen. As someone who grew up at a time when the Golden Age of Disney was at its peak, I can surely attest to this.

The Disney princess franchise of the early 90s provided my generation with a troubling message, a message that essentially taught us that a woman’s quest in life is to find true love. Those of us who venerated the likes of Ariel, Belle and Jasmine are now only realizing some of the negative side effects they left behind.

While my generation is still trying to undo the damage, a new generation of Disney youngsters may have something to look forward to. Frozen heartwarmingly captures a powerful love story between two sisters, and reinvigorates our appreciation for female solidarity. When a film promotes the concept of true love through sisterhood, you can’t help but walk away with a big smile on your face.

The Disney princess franchise has hit the mark with Frozen, and we can only hope that it continues to create more progressive, feminist leads for its films. In the next decade, I hope to see princesses of all different shades, regions, and sexual orientations smashing the box office records. Frozen reminds us that sisterhood is powerful, and nothing could be truer. A film directed and co-written by women, and starring two female leads, now part of the biggest grossing movies of all time? Now that is truly and epicly BOSS.

Categories: POP