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Crystal: It makes me sad and angry too.
In regards to Elsa, as I said earlier in chat this morning, I’m fine with her going either way (being gay, straight or simply not having a love interest at all, that is). But my MAIN concern with this character is that I dont want whatever relationship she has to overshadow that of her sisterly relationship with Anna. Regardless of the gender, Elsa’s relationship with Anna should be first and foremost and if it gets the backseat just to showcase Elsa being in love with whomever then I will be very disappointed and will flip so many orcas. Same with Merida and her relationship to her mother. A relationship is nice but there are other aspects to the character that shouldn’t be ignored.
TheWatcher, I partially share your view. I don’t want other vital relationships suffer for any romance (queer or het romance) – unless it brings a good story and character development, building tension that gets resolved, when the romance becomes pretty much a plot device to test other relationships. On the other hand I don’t want them to simply retell the movies in OUaT, but they should keep the essence intact, that means work with the great relationship Elsa had with her sister Anna, or if ever Merida would come to the show, the same goes for Merida’s relationship with her mother. I would be okay though, if what they tell starts after the events in the movie, Elsa’s relationship with her sister is something set or maybe something to get control of her powers again, but it doesn’t have to be the central driving moment of Elsa’s story in OUaT. In general I prefer them to keep the essence of characters they use from fairy tales or fiction (like that the Evil Queen has some jealousy issues, or that Rumplestiltskin an archetype trickster), but take a different perspective on it, which although is always open for discussion, the characers are interpreted by different people in different ways, even archetypes.
Is there a WRONG way for ONCE to do an LGBT relationship? In other words, as a member of that community (Crystal and others who are reading this and are)–is there a way that would NOT be acceptable for your community–if we leave anything abusive or manipulative, ect.
There are different opinions about that possible, we’re a diverse group of people 😉
One certainly wrong way would be to make it joke (the new MTV show “Faking it” is walking a very, very fine line there as comedy at the moment, it can tip any time into the wrong direction).
Another is to do the famous sweep week lesbian kiss. This refers to the impression, that a number of shows came up with some story, in which one of their regular female characters was discovering feelings for a female friend or a guest character (Bi the Way female character), leading to a lesbian kiss or at the least the hint of one – and it was done noteworthy often for episodes airing during the sweep weeks (a time Nielsen does a deeper assessment of audience, it happens in February, May, July, November). The attraction regularly lasts only one or a few episode, and later is at worst even totally forgotten. Often the character has soon, mostly in the same season, a “normal” love interest, aka hetero romance. At worst it was just two women making out drunken on a party. If something is probably a sweep week lesbian kiss often becomes already clear, when the network uses it to promote the episode. The kiss is done more for sensation than for good story telling reasons, and hardly ever has lasting effects on the sexual identity of the regular character. Seeing women kiss is something a lot more accepted and even part of some fantasies without questioning sexual orientation (I always cringe when some use Katy Perry’s song “I kissed a girl” as soundtrack for any girl-on-girl, lesbian adoration video -listen to the lyrics and watch the original music video, it’s more a woman making out for the fun of her boyfriend, although some people see the song differently). Examples: L.A Law, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, The O.C., Friends, Fringe.
Because of being more about sensation than about same gender/sex attraction or relationship, sweep week lesbian kiss is only partially what is discussed by now as queer baiting. The latter aims directly and primarily at attracting queer audience. It means that a show plays with subtext, teasing something, in the show and sometimes even on interviews and panels, but never lets anything happen, and at worst even denigrates queer people at some point – most outstanding example for that is IMO UK series Sherlock. Other shows discussed in connection of queer baiting are Supernatural and Rizzoli&Isles. Seen people question by now as well, if OUaT does it too, with how they write and play Regina and Emma and with Mulan. I don’t share the assessment, that OUaT is doing it, but they are moving on thin ice.
OUaT produced mixed reactions to what they did with Mulan, though from what I gathered over all most were glad, that with Mulan there finally is one queer character on the show. It was a mixed message. On one hand the writers reacted to chemistry between characters as they were played on the show, like the not so hidden subtext in the scene when Mulan puts the heart back into Aurora, they saw a chance and took it, and it fitted quite nicely in the story with what Mulan said to Neal. On the other hand at the same time the made it a tragic love story, not only that Aurora and Philip are a more or less a set true love pairing (thanks to the Disney movie), but they made Aurora even pregnant. I still wonder why they did the latter, because in my view it served this season only one purpose, to make absolutely sure that Mulan and Aurora as pairing are no option, as if Aurora and Philip being classical Disney pairing wasn’t already enough. Separating a Disney OTP when they are about to have a child, when they have children is a no go with a mainstream audience. And polyamory is something that goes beyond the horizon of mainstream network broadcast and the horizon of a majority of queer people as well. So it was a mixed message: Yes, Mulan loves a woman, but she can’t have her, she has to leave and has to go her own merry way, maybe with the faint hope to find her beautiful Shang, but Shang being a female leader and warrior herself, somewhere someday. Or to find another woman to truly love and be loved by. Unfortunately for us Jamie Chung was not much available for the rest of the season (but fortunate for her to get more work), so Mulan’s story is in limbo at the moment. Even besides being the only openly queer character on OUaT so far, I think people would like to learn, what happened to Mulan, what she is doing, she has grown on people as character regardless her sexual orientation.
Coming out stories are important, because particular young queer struggle with their identity and experience bullying, but it has a down side, they focus too much on that in our societies same gender/sex relationship still are defined or seen mostly as different kind of love. On a show about fairy tale love though I wish for queer romance to be not something special but a love story to be told like others, with drama and character development coming from two people being in and/or exploring their love for each other, two people who happen to be queer.
The wrong way to do a queer relationship on OUaT: to only tease it, make it love that will not happen because the other is already proven to be in love with someone else, without offering soon hope for another at least, to only mention it by the way, although that shouldn’t hold them back to have queer couples in the background crowd, but this is a show about love, so making it something in the background is not enough, and to not offer at least a substantiated hope for a happy ending.
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@Gaultheria Well said.
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Right, totally forgot that there was an animated feature by Fox Animation with a Princess Anastasia (with Kirsten Dunst and Meg Ryan as her voices) and Rasputin. It looks like Disney but is no Disney movie. So great for confusing people if they would go with OUaT Wonderland Anastasia as Anna. And not usable for OUaT as it is Fox.
Elsa as one of the stepsisters of Cinderella. And let us totally ignore for a moment any connection to OUaT wonderland Anastasia. How should that work? Should it be a story like this: Her cold-hearted mother forcing Elsa to marry the Iceking of the South, which turns her heart so cold that all out of the blue she has dangerous magical ice power. But she got so cold at heart and became a threat to the kingdom, that the Iceking called Rumple for help to get her under control. So Rumple came and trapped her in the urn.
But the idea is based on that there is a (Cinderella step-) sister named in this case Anastasia (because of the background story for the Red Queen, otherwise wouldn’t even know that), so how does Anastasia fit in then? Is she the one who is called to come to the rescue of Storybrooke, because of her own experience of becoming first dark and then saved by love she now can help to stop Elsa? Right would explain why the Knave shows up in Storybrooke. But there would not much be left of the wonderful, independent, complicate character of Elsa, who embraced the powers she was born with, to be different, and even learned pretty much on her own to use and control her powers, she would be just another wronged person out for revenge. That sounds too much like Regina as Icequeen version to me to like it.
And I can’t see them downsize a princess, well actually Elsa became Queen in the movie, to some merchant daughter or whatever the father of Cinderella had been. (And before anyone brings it up: Belle was not a born royal, never, but became the love of a prince)
Like the idea more then to connect Elsa to Eva in some way.
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For a change I would prefer to have a character not related by blood to any of the (regular, recurring) characters on OUaT or Wonderland. (find this blood related thing annoying anyway, family is where love is and not where my genes comes from).
Sorry, but I am so no interested in any family story of Belle. It annoys me that they reduced her to be Rumples love-blind cheerleader, but pepping Belle’s story up with some sisters is not what I think would make it any better. Let her character bloom on her on, that means without Rumple and family. They had a great approach when the made her connect as friends with Grumpy and with Mulan, missing friendship relations on this show anyway. And if many, many people want to have Belle’s whole family story: give her her own show.
Never got into Wonderland, and think that goes for plenty of viewers of OUaT. So they would have to do a bit of additional telling, repeating parts of her story on the mother show, to make the connection to Anastasia thrilling on OUaT – highly doubt that many would like to have to watch Wonderland to get why that could be interesting or make any sense. Or in other words: If anyone can convince me that making Elsa one of the stepsister of Cinderella (who were cruel to here, weren’t they?) has any worth on it’s own maybe it could work, but you have to try without mentioning Wonderland even once. Give me a good story and not just some wishful family tree and name wordplay.
If Anastasia and Anna are made the same people, that means: Elsa was not born royal. It means a fundamental change in the character’s background and think that could make many Frozen fans rather unhappy and hate the show.
It might be better to leave Elsa’s background mostly untouched, she already is a twist on the tale of the Snow Queen very much to the liking of A&E – so why should they twist that? In the movie she was a misunderstood and thus feared “freak”, whose parents where not that much helpful by locking her away instead of finding someone able to train her to be in full and good control of her powers. Her parents might have loved her but were unable to cope, feared her powers and did her wrong. Elsa’s powers are a force of nature, they can be dangerous, in a good and a bad sense. Enough to work with.
Was it Rumple who trapped her in that urn or did he just get the urn not knowing in detail its story and content?
Did Rumple try to harness Elsa’s power, magic? Did he go after her in the hope to make use of her powers, but being unable to control her and her powers he locked her up?
Was trapping her part of a deal to get something else?So, to me the interesting thing is: what is Elsa’s story, why was she in an urn in Rumple’s dark vault, and not who she might be family related to if. Said I would prefer not to anyone, but if they have to do it, then it has to be part of her story, and not for the fun of family soap. And it has to make sense in her story – unless they want to reduce her to just some prop for telling more Regina and Rumple, as it happened with other interesting characters.
Right, I’ve said as well I see Elsa as their best chance to finally not do only lip service but get real with diversity concerning romance (their other huge problem of being somewhat one-sided if it comes to ethnicity as well should be addressed soon though), but of course not forced just for the sake of it, it has to be a good story. IF they do a romance or even hint a romance for Elsa, then they should take the chance to make it something different, not just another white princess meets white prince (or knight or just nice guy) one.
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Kitsis: I hope so. It would be a lot easier for me and Adam to just write Emma and Hook go out to dinner, then come home and decide whether or not to watch Orphan Black or catch up on Game of Thrones. It would be a great hour. We’re hoping there’s some drama and crisis next year.
My bet is on Emma being more into Orphan Black.
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Yes Yes And Yes to all of this. Oh Myril ! why are you always able to say the Things I am also thinking in such a clear and well put way?… Its not fair
no, just kidding. Im glad you put it so well, this is exactly the same way I feel.
Thanks. And it’s practice, practice, practice. You will find your own good words in time.
I think we all like Carlyle’s and Parrilla’s portrayals of their characters much more than we’d like Rumpel and Regina in real life.
Yeah, guess most of us would run meeting Rumple or Regina in real life.
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Frozen has grown on me, and very much because of Elsa.
But I find it interesting, how people mostly take the Snow Queen of the Andersen story as abysmally evil. She was cold, yes, she took Kai with her, but Kai was already changed by a piece of a mirror, making him see only the ugly and bad in everything (except snowflakes it seems), that mirror was made by an evil troll though and not by the Snow Queen (it’s told in some adaptions that she was responsible for that change as well). The Snow Queen gave Kai a maybe nearly impossible task. The Snow Queen makes Kai forget Greta, but on the other hand thanks to the mirror piece Kai wasn’t seeing that much good in Greta at that time, on could say, it might have been even good for both of them, that he forgot for a while. On surface good and evil in Andersen’s tales sometimes seem to be simple, but it never is in my view in his tales, there are layers to it.
In the original story there is a frozen lake – the Snow Queen calls it the lake of reason – and some people see in using just reason something cold, bare empathy, emotions, something that creates loneliness and emptiness in the soul. A cold heart stands for a heart without love, but as well without hate, it’s worse one can say, no emotions at all.
Elsa is the twist on Snow Queen A&E could have come up with, so I am not surprised they’re taken by the movie, by the character. Twisting now Elsa back kinda to the traditional reading of the Snow Queen doesn’t quite sound like something A&E would do either. A capable antagonist to one or more of the main character, mistaken as big bad first, but that doesn’t has to mean evil villain. Seen some good ideas in that direction here and elsewhere.
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Because I don’t believe in damnation the idea of redemption never makes that much sense to me either. What done is done, and there is no payment, no punishment able to ever change that. When someone did something evil and finally understands it was evil and assumes responsibility instead of trying to explain it away with whatever, they have to live with that. No redemption.
But I believe people can change. And if they change and do things differently and do good I won’t held what evil they did in the past against them for the rest of their lives. Even better if they do something to help make the lives of those they made suffer better again, but anything good is a change.
There is no redemption, someone did evil and has to live with that. There might be forgiveness on the side of the victims, but that is of no importance for the one who did them evil, only important for those forgiving, for the sake of their souls, to be able to move on, to see the good still possible in life.
So no, neither Rumple nor Regina are redeemed, never will be. But what they can do is change.
Depending on what they make now of the situation with Marian and Robin would say Regina might be on a way to change. Yes, she lashed out to Emma, but she still can do things differently.
Concerning Rumple: Unless he starts to seriously look for a way to get rid of the curse of the Dark One, to destroy the dagger for good if any possible, but at least seriously goes on a quest to find a way, regardless if he will succeed, I say Rumple hasn’t changed much, at best on the surface. As long as he is the Dark One he will not truly change and stays the big bad of the show.
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As for the topic at hand, I like the idea of Elsa being the first openly gay character on the show. The only thing I wouldn’t want is a ONCE twist where Anna was her lover, instead of sister.The beauty of Frozen was the sisterly relationship
Don’t see them changing that, it would be a great and welcomed contrast to the bad sister relationship we just had with Regina and Zelena, and as much as they might like to put their own twist on characters, that would be too much of a twist even for OUaT. No, don’t worry about them making Anna anything else but Elsa’s sister.
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True, Elsa is a relatively new character, only inspired by Anderson’s Snow Queen, but the Snow Queen in his story is not pictured that much in detail either. Elsa herself is a twist on a character who has been part of our (pop-) culture for a while. They could very well pick up ideas from Anderson’s fairy tale to add.
Disagree that Frozen has not such a broad appeal, compared to who, Peter Pan, The Wicked Witch of the West, Snow White? Frozen is now the highest grossing animated full feature movie, it is in the top 10 of the highest grossing movies (not just animated) of all time. Frozen merchandise is selling great (they even have a shortage problem at the moment). Yes, it’s new, but it has a huge impact. Agreed is a higher risk to use a character that wasn’t already rewritten and parodied multiple times and for years because you’re one of the first to take a different look at it. People might cling too much to the character they met in the movie, but, well, seeing how people reacted to characters and twists on the show so far, think that always is happening, some people can’t let it go.
I don’t understand, why this should mean a change in the show’s policy from attracting new audience to drag out as long as they can. For one, don’t think that it was before all about attracting new viewers. For running show it is always as important if not even more important to keep viewers. And most showrunners have an interest to tell a story as long as they can and can come up with something (good), it’s business, they make a living with it.
Frozen is very attractive to (younger) women, besides that Elsa has gained some interest in the queer community. She is an interesting new character in the Disney Worlds, besides Merida, she is a female protagonist, something still rather underrepresented on screen. Of course she is of interest for OUaT.
The only worries I have at this point: Given the sometimes mediocre and even weak writing, and particular if it comes to character development, of the past two seasons, I am not so sure, if I want to entrust these writers with this character, it might not do Elsa that much good. The show can only win, but the character could lose.
Bringing in now Frozen has rekindled my interest in the show. I find that more intriguing than doing the umpteenth version of Camelot or 1001 Nights, Sindbad, Ali Baba, whatever. The only thing that would maybe get me even more interested again is discovering and exploring (fairy) tales from other cultures, become more diverse in characters and story resources. Otherwise the show would go on tracking only well trodden roads, boring.
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