"You look like Elsa, mommy!": Media globalization, hyper-consumption and everyday experiences with Disney’s Frozen universe

Disney’s Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019) stand as the highest grossing animated films of all time, and its evolvement into a global brand and franchise demonstrates its power and broad appeal to audiences and young consumers. The Frozen brand’s “encroachment” (Habermas 1984) and “corporate colonization” (Deetz 1992) into the live worlds of children is underscored by its numerous promotional collaborations with media, merchandisers and toy manufacturers: Disney has reportedly collaborated with 67 brands across categories to bring alive and keep relevant the popular Frozen characters Elsa, Anna and more (Creswell 2022). The importance of Disney in general and its princess line specifically has drawn much critique from scholars. The critique on Disney’s representation of gender has been especially harsh with some studies proposing a positive development in recent Disney princess movies such as Brave (2012), Frozen (2013), and Moana (2016). Studies that focus on children’s own reception and negotiation of the gender roles presented in Disney princess movies and merchandising have been scarcer. Television studies have shown that, together with advertisements, animation belong to the media narratives that children are at the earliest able to distinguish as special genres (Dorr 1983), making this a particularly important area to explore further. Interestingly, the parents in a Danish 2003 (Drotner) interview-based reception survey perceived of the Disney name as a seal of quality and therefore set fewer restrictions and rules for their children's consumption of Disney than other media use. The research presented here explores in an empirical study how Danish parents and their children negotiate their experiences with Disney’s Frozen in the context of their everyday lives by investigating the reception and consumption of Disney’s Frozen films and merchandise amongst Danish children age three to ten. Although Disney animations and products are hugely popular in Denmark, there has been few national studies focusing on the children’s perspective on Disney in general and none focusing on Frozen and Frozen II in particular. The aim of the present study is to remedy this research gap.