Everywhere I turn these days all I hear and see are references to Frozen. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s that little Disney movie that has turned the mother-daughter world into a parody gawking, kumbaya lovefest. It’s like a cult! On one side, you have normally quiet suburban mothers belting out ear-damaging renditions of “Let it Go” across YouTube. On the other side, legions of little girls are batting their eyelashes and saying, “That was awkward,” over and over again while pretending to ride baby unicorns.
I’ll admit, I was hesitant to watch the flick. All of the hoopla has nearly caused me to puke in my mouth. Plus it has big shoes to fill. A movie being dubbed the modern-day Beauty and the Beast meets Lion King better deliver.
Last Sunday, my daughter and I finally sat down to watch this supposedly epic film. We made it all of twenty minutes before I was ready to gouge my eyeballs out with a soup spoon and she was scaling the walls like Spidergirl. I immediately texted my husband. “This movie is shit.”
“Frozen is shit?” he quickly texted back.
“Yes. Frozen IS shit. It’s not THE shit. It’s complete shit. I don’t understand the obsession.”
I never expected the chain of events that followed my mouthy, but innocent remarks.
“The women here think you’re crazy. You should let Aless watch it.”
Huh? What? What’s happening? The women at your work think I’m crazy? Because of a movie? I didn’t text any of this to my husband because I was too busy pacing the floor like an angry whale.
Ping. Another text message.
“The movie is supposed to have a good message and empower little girls. All of the mothers here love it and think you should give it a chance. Aless should see it.”
Screw all of you. Aless is two and doesn’t know a unicorn from a dwarf Nigerian milking goat. But for my own self-doubting purposes, I turned the movie back on, scooped Aless up, and tried again.
“Bob Bob? Bob Bob? BOB BOB!”
Aless’s desperate wails for SpongeBob over TinkerIcecube were clear enough. This movie was not going to happen no matter how hard we tried to see pineapples under the sea or fall in love with all things aquamarine.
As I hit the end button, I immediately felt like a bad mother. What was I doing wrong? Every little girl on the planet dreams of morphing into Anna (or Elsa or both!). Legions of moms are pinning crafts that consist of snowflakes made from toilet paper and waffles cut into the shapes of reindeer that look like moose on Prozac. There are ringtones to feed the needy. The iconic Mommy Shorts has a cheat sheet outlining The Seven Stages of a Frozen Obsession. Even dads have lost their damn minds! Families have moments together because of Frozen. Memories are being created because of Frozen. Entire birthday parties are modeled after Frozen. Yet, all I wanted to do was punch the TV screen!
Maybe it’s too early for Aless. She’s only two after all. Yes, she loves Tinkerbell and watches Nickolodeon until her eyes are glazed over with Dora backpacks and talking pigs. She even enjoys Ruby’s bitch sessions, which are totally justified since apparently Ruby and her little brother, Max, are latchkey kids. (Where the f**k is their mother?) But me? What’s my excuse?
Ping….ping, ping, ping, ping. I was about to find out.
“Maybe you’re too stressed to appreciate the movie?”
“I’ll watch it with Aless later.”
“She’ll watch it with me.”
“Did you try to watch it again?”
Does he realize I’m about to become the first killer whale to eat her mate?
“Hello?”
I finally replied, “Let it go.”
Whether or not he understood the reference, whether or not he shared my response…it didn’t matter. I was now clearly on one side of the boxing ring and all of the women he worked with were on the other. It was Team Frozen versus The Melted Mutha.
Was I really crazy? Was my inability to see past the death of Mufasa overshadowing my ability to accept that a new Disney movie now reigns supreme?
My friend Lulu (it’s fictitious to protect her from being pelted with frozen tomatoes) would surely know.
“I hate Frozen. Aless hates Frozen. We couldn’t watch it. Does that make me a bad mother? Is she a freak of nature?” I texted with frenzied madness.
“WTF is wrong with you?” she replied. (See? I can always depend on her.)
“We tried watching Frozen a few times and neither of us liked it. It sucked ass. Now I feel bad. Am I a bad mother for not liking what is supposed to be a life-changing movie?”
“Calm down. Frozen is definitely not life changing. Not everyone likes caramelized onions. That doesn’t make them bad people.”
“Oh for hell’s sake. Caramelized onions are not trending. They’re not the stuff dreams are made of. We’re talking Frozen here!”
“I’m sure there are other mothers and daughters who hated the movie. Have you tried googling it?”
Googling it! Eureka!
I should not have googled it…
This is what I found…
Carly from Ever Clever Mom thought she would hate the movie, but ended up loving it.
One dad hated the song, but thought the move was the shit. (Did he mean it WAS shit?)
Other than a few negative reviews, talk about a hidden gay agenda (get a grip people!), and mention of several elderly women going insane after their grandkids made them watch it repeatedly, that’s all I could dig up on this movie.
What does this tell me? That 99.99999 percent of the world loves Frozen and I’m an anomaly! I’m a movie scrooge!
After having a near panic attack, I once again snatched Aless from her happy stuffed animal world, sat her on my lap, and turned the movie back on. As soon as she caught sight of chubby humans ballroom dancing instead of a talking sponge singing out of tune, it was over.
“NOOOOOOOOOO! Off! Mama! Off! NOOOOOOOO!”
I did what any good mother would do…I let her go. I let it go. I did. If there’s one thing Frozen has taught me, it’s to let it f**king go. This shit has been drilled into my head.
So for all of you redecorating rooms into icy wonderlands and baking cakes that look like Scandinavian kingdoms, I have just one thing to say…
Your obsession with frozen has labeled me a bad mother. Thanks bitches!
