Female Empowerment on the Rise in Disney Movies at LAST! :)

Dear readers,

First off, I'd like to wish you, your family and friends and other loved ones, and everyone else out there--including myself--a wonderful, peaceful, safe, and beautiful new year. May 2014 bring with itself lots and lots of joys, love, and blessings for us all. And peace for this world. 

I had a terrible 2013, and I have been longing for 11:59pm December 31st to pass, and I'm delighted to announce that I was in a moment of extreme happiness, hope, and gratitude at exactly that time. I won't try to keep you guessing why, so let me tell you.

So I am currently visiting my sister to help her move to her new apartment (it's beautiful, and may she find much happiness and peace here - this year and always, aameen!). We decided that, yes, we've had a terrible year individually and collectively, but we (hopefully?) learned something from our experiences and will try really, really hard to be happier in future unexpected and depressing situations. So we decided to start off by watching a movie late at night. Last night, we watched "American Hustle," and we both hated it. Thought it was a dumb, pathetic, stupid, lame movie - not our type and an absolutely waste of our time. So don't watch it. But what we DID enjoy and had a great time watching and absolutely, absolutely loved was - - ta-daaaahhhh ... Disney's "Frozen"!!! OH MY GOD, you guys!!! It's such an adorable and beautiful movie! Since we hated yesterday's movie, we decided that Disney couldn't disappoint us in terms of its charactorial depictions (the cartoons are always so adorable! Their expressions rock!) So we went ahead with "Frozen." But my sister is at least as much a feminist--and hence anti-female representation in most Disney movies, other media, and most films worldwide--so we were like, meh, let's just enjoy ourselves anyway; at least we're guaranteed a laugh wit the characters' expressions and moves.

Turns out, "Frozen" is actually the best movie we've ever watched in a theater. The story is nice, the characters are hilarious, the movie is hilarious, and the female characters--OH EM GEE! Disney has pleasantly and so happily surprised us with how far it has come in terms of its female portrayal! 

Sure, there's a princess who dreams of finding "true love" the first day she gets out of her home (long story), and she's later told that she'll freeze to death (long story) and the only thing that can prevent that from happening is a touch of true love. She thinks it means a kiss from the man she "truly loves" and everyone else thinks that means that, too. And the audience is expected to think that, too. And we do. And then there's this really beautiful twist at the end that made me, a feminist who's rarely pleased with the movies she watches, SO happy! :) Plus, the girls are independent, strong-willed, can take care of themselves and don't need any princes in shining armors to save them from anyone or anything. And in this one funny scene, this guy tells this princess, "Well, I'd do it, but I have you with me and you don't know how to climb mountains, so" and before he can finish his sentence, the girl's already started climbing. He doesn't even know her and thinks that already and is shocked many times. Ahhh, there's always beauty in the dispelling of myths and assumptions, especially gendered ones! And lastly, "true love" finally means something beyond, far, far beyond simply loving and desiring a man!

So! Just to say - if you didn't think about watching "Frozen" before, consider it now! Disney sucked once upon a time, but it rocks now! 

The movie gave me hope. And I was smiling brightly with my sister at 11:59pm on December 31st, minutes after the movie had ended, happy, hopefully, thankful, and excited for the future ahead. I read our watching the movie as a sign that the next year is going to be full of joys and joys and love and peace and celebrations and happiness, inshaAllah.

May we all be blessed with a wonderful new year ahead, this year and every year. Aameen!