In an auditorium at the University of East Anglia, the American scholar Diane Negra, a professor of film studies and screen culture at University College Dublin, looks up from her laptop, surveys the audience of around 40 academics, and says: “I just really hope there’s still something to be said about Frozen.” Sympathetic laughter ripples through the room.

This is Symfrozium, the world’s first academic conference devoted to Disney’s record-breaking 2013 animation. There have been similar events dedicated to film franchises such as Harry Potter or companies such as Marvel, but nobody here can recall one focused on a single movie, and certainly not one that has been previewed by BBC Radio 1 and pre-emptively criticised by the Sun and the Daily Mail. The conference filled up well in advance and attracted enough submissions to fill another day or two. “I’ve been really surprised by the attention,” says Samantha Langsdale, who teaches the study of religions at Soas, University of London. “I have no idea why so many newspapers want to cover this, because academic conferences about popular media happen all the time. So why this?”

I’ve been asking myself the same question. After writing about my daughters’ obsession with Let It Go, I somehow drifted into the role of Frozen expert. When I realised that Frozen was the third option appended to my name by Google’s autocomplete algorithm, which shows suggestions based on other peoples’ searches, I decided enough was enough. But just when I thought I was out they pull me back in. So here I am in Norwich, diligently taking notes on the significance of Anna, Elsa et al. The film just won’t let go.

Symfrozium’s organisers, Sarah Godfrey and Su Holmes, each became interested in Frozen viewing it endlessly with their children. “It’s such an interesting and productive text,” says Godfrey. “We’ve watched it over and over, and there’s still so much to say about it. It’s a real moment in culture. Even people who don’t have children know about Frozen and Let It Go.”

Godfrey is philosophical about the tabloid backlash – ie, why are these ivory-tower pointy heads wasting taxpayer money on analysing a children’s movie? “I think we’re fair game, aren’t we? Speaking as a feminist media studies academic, I’m a sitting duck,” she admits. When one is talking about a text that’s hugely popular, it automatically [makes you ask], why are we looking at it? Su and I said at the outset well, actually, that’s exactly why we should be looking at it. What is it about this film that has captured the imagination of kids and adults and continues to have a cultural presence? Why would you not look at that?”

Watch the trailer for Frozen Fever, the sequel to the Disney hit – video Guardian

Paul Wells, a boisterous character who runs the Animation Academy at Loughborough University and looks like a long-lost Mitchell brother, has been weathering these storms of confected outrage since he started writing about animation in the 1990s. “It’s extraordinarily predictable,” he says. “At times of economic disquiet the arts are always seen as hobbyism. The denial of its cultural value is bemusing to me. If it was Chaucer, nobody would bat an eyelid. Why? Because nobody knows about him. The Sun can go: ‘Cor, these academics, what a load of tossers!’ because everyone knows Frozen.”

Obviously, nobody from the Sun has made the journey to Norwich to see what actually takes place. A cynic could certainly have fun playing media studies bingo (“Patriarchy.” “Hegemony.” “Heteronormative.” House!), but the 10 papers are thoughtful and wide-ranging. Scholars track Frozen’s debt to genres such as fairytales and musicals, unpack its gender politics and dig into its reception among different fan communities.

I’m not convinced by the audience member who raises the phallic symbolism of Olaf the snowman’s carrot nose

Some are more persuasive than others. I’m less convinced by the audience member who raises the phallic symbolism of Olaf the snowman’s nose (sometimes a carrot is just a carrot), and by Negra’s final keynote, which takes in antidepressants, I Dream of Jeannie, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, princess culture and “neoliberal millennial capitalism”, especially as she doesn’t seem to rate the movie very highly. “There are limits to the film’s understanding of post-feminist affective decorum,” she says. No doubt there are.

Although some of the papers make irreconcilably different arguments, the atmosphere at Symfrozium is scrupulously polite. Disagreements with questioners are translated into academic euphemisms such as: “It’s not a huge feature of the analysis I’m undertaking”, or “My interest is not in coming to that conclusion,” which I think means no. They are all admirably conscientious. Whenever I ask someone about an area they haven’t studied, they say it would require more research, instead of winging it and improvising a theory the way I would.

‘There are limits to the film’s understanding of post-feminist affective decorum,’ says one academic. Photograph: Disney

As for whether Frozen merits and withstands in-depth analysis, the answer seems to be an emphatic yes. It might be aimed at children, but it was made by very clever adults. It is meticulously crafted, gently subversive by Disney standards and dense with symbolism, codes and echoes. It is far from unique in that respect – Brave, Home and Finding Nemo are all mentioned approvingly – but Frozen’s Elsa, in particular, has become a lightning rod for analysis. “Elsa’s a blank slate,” says Lauren Maier, who presents a paper called Queer Elsa. “She can be mapped on to a number of different struggles.”

If you think that’s a bit of a stretch, then it’s not the academics who are doing the stretching. Maier talks about how different fans have read Elsa as queer, asexual or schizophrenic. Su Holmes explores Elsa’s popularity with the “pro-ana” (pro-anorexia) community, some of whom are convinced that Disney is even “undercover pro-ana”. Fan responses have boomed on the internet and given rise to myriad readings. In fact, academia now lags behind fans when it comes to subjecting popular culture to intense analysis. The online debate about, say, Mad Men could sustain a conference for weeks.

Wells has found that his knowledge of Frozen is a boon when it comes to online dating.

“Fan studies talks about how carefully and critically audiences discuss texts,” Holmes says. “The internet has made fan responses so much more mainstream and accessible.” In the past, she says, you would need to do focus groups to yield similar information. “I think the way in which it’s been really popular with traditionally marginalised communities is specific to Elsa’s characterisation,” she adds. “It can resonate with people who have been ostracised or stigmatised.”

I talk to Paul Wells after the conference. He says it was a good day, but he has some reservations. One axiom of media studies is that the author doesn’t matter. “A text only has meaning when it comes into contact with the audience,” Godfrey says. But Wells works with animators and has interviewed Frozen’s co-director Jennifer Lee. They’re not irrelevant to him. “A lot of time, the interpretations don’t take into account that people make them,” he says. “These thing don’t just drop out of the air. Of course, once you pass a text over to an audience they’re going to take it as they want, but there’s a whole raft of quite clever complex, interesting people who make the stuff. So can we join those things together?”

Wells is also disappointed that the only speaker who couldn’t make it today was the single one who had planned to talk about how children respond to Frozen. The film’s mainstream audience hardly gets a look-in. “The key thing missing here today is the politics of pleasure,” says Wells, who has found that his knowledge of Frozen is a boon when it comes to online dating. “The thousands of people who are buying the DVD and the singalong CD, what’s happening there? These are empowering things for girls and young women. I’ve witnessed it, and it’s fantastic.”

In her concluding remarks, Godfrey says: “I wish that all the naysayers had come. I think it validates our original idea that there’s a lot to say here. It’s not just a kids’ film.” Godfrey has seen Frozen over 50 times and still thinks there is more to be said. She specifically mentions the new phenomenon of participatory culture, where fans engage with the film through YouTube clips and mashups. Langsdale, however, is ready for a break. “I’ve watched it to the point where I’d prefer not to see it again for quite a while,” she says.