Is Disney Too Afraid of Being Canceled for ‘Frozen 3’? - Inside the Magic

In The Walt Disney Company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger revealed Frozen 3 would premiere in 2026. He vowed that alongside Toy Story 5 (2026), the next installment in one of the most popular Disney Princess movies would return Walt Disney Animation Studios to its former glory.

Disney and Pixar Animation have had a rocky few years, with poor box office performers like Lightyear (2022) and Strange World (2022). Iger all but admitted that reviving some of the studios’ most popular franchises was a cash grab. This year will also be deprived of new content with the summer release of Inside Out 2 (2024) and the Thanksgiving premiere of Moana 2 (2024).

Conservative audiences blamed a lesbian kiss and a gay teenage boy for recent Disney flops, boding poorly for Frozen 3. Pixar actually removed LGBTQIA+ scenes from Turning Red (2022) and Lightyear but reversed course on the latter after intense protests from fans. Turning Red still has a presence in the Disney parks, but the queer films are noticeably absent.

What does controversy over gay characters have to do with Frozen 3? Well, anyone who hasn’t heard the “gay Elsa” rumors has been living under a rock for the last decade. In an era of Encanto (2021) and Wish (2023), it can be easy to forget that Elsa (Idina Menzel) was one of the first female Disney leads without a romantic interest. Anna (Kristen Bell) had Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), but Elsa was alone.

The rumors only grew with the premiere of Frozen 2 (2019). Instead of looking for love, Elsa once again journeys to find a missing piece of herself. By the end, she learns that she can follow her heart and stand with her family at the same time. Absent any clear romance arc, some fans perceived the Disney Queen’s relationship with Yelean (Martha Plimpton) as subtly queer.

Beyond being the bane of most dads’ existences for the last ten years, “Let it Go” is an anthem for many LGBTQIA+ Disney fans. For many, it represents coming out of the closet as their authentic selves. And it goes beyond social media gossip–An expert in the intersection of children’s literature and queer storytelling published his thoughts on the film in 2014.

“Queen Elsa is approached by some viewers as a queer or gay character, not only because she doesn’t engage in a romantic relationship in the film, but also because she is forced by her parents to suppress and hide the powers that she is born with,” San Diego State University professor Angel Daniel Matos wrote just months after Frozen (2013) premiered.

“Although the movie implies that her parents desperately try to conceal Elsa’s powers because of the danger that they impose to herself and to others, this does not justify the degree to which they prevent Elsa from having any human contact whatsoever,” he continued. “Furthermore, the fact that Elsa’s parents view suppression and isolation as solutions further emphasizes notions of the infamous queer closet.”

Shortly after Frozen II was released, American critic Emily St. James shared her thoughts on the absence of sexuality in both Disney Princess movies in Vox. She noted that numerous Disney Villains have been widely perceived as LGBTQIA+, from The Little Mermaid (1989) ’s Ursula to The Lion King (1994) ’s Scar. And in Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale, “The Snow Queen,” Elsa’s character is the villain.

“So Elsa, because she was at one time meant to be Frozen’s villain, exhibits lots of traits that we associate with LGBTQ characters, rightly or wrongly,” St. James argued. “She isolates herself from society. She has strange, barely understood powers. She lashes out at those who would drag her back to the mainstream. Critically, Elsa isn’t the movie’s villain. Her love for Anna, and Anna’s love for her, is what saves the day by the end of the film, and she learns to revel in her powers once she discovers that she can control them through love.”

Frozen III would be the perfect opportunity to complete Elsa’s arc, making her canonically the first gay Disney Princess/Queen. But at a time when Iger is rebooting Disney’s most popular franchises for guaranteed cash, executives might be too afraid of “cancelation.”

If anything, they’ll again represent the Ice Queen as entirely void of romantic interests and focus on some good old-fashioned Olaf (Josh Gad) fan service. At worst, they’ll shove Elsa into a heterosexual partnership that doesn’t coincide at all with her past, forever closing the door on the LGBTQIA+ community’s reading of the character.

Should Elsa come out as a lesbian or other LGBTQIA+ identity in Frozen 3? Share your thoughts with Inside the Magic in the comments.