Frozen (Disney film)/YMMV

""Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, ’cause they have to go through these range of emotions, but they’re very, very — you have to keep them pretty and they’re very sensitive to — you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they’re echoing the same expression.""
 * Die for Our Ship: Kristoff unfortunately suffers from this by some Elsa/Anna shippers. While most fanfic writers prefer to either ignore him or move his relationship with Anna to Platonic Life Partners by making him her wingman, a good number of Elsa/Anna fan works have also portrayed him as a gross slob that makes Anna only notice how much "better" Elsa is.
 * Fan Preferred Pairing:
 * Anna/Elsa. Their being sisters has done little to curb fan enthusiasm for this ship. There are however quite a few AU fics/art pieces that portray them as not being related to avoid this Squick factor... which doesn't negate the fact that canon still informs their interactions, and that this means their fans will see these characters explicitly established as sisters and think they would make a good couple.
 * Elsa with Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians is the most popular non-Elsanna ship, and might just be more popular. They're not even from the same universe but are still largely shipped together (especially by the younger side of the fanbase).
 * Incest Yay Shipping: Anna/Elsa; given the nature of the story has both this and Les Yay. It's not really that surprising, and very little from the film does much to dissuade fans from thinking along these lines. Perhaps best shown by how
 * In Frozen Fever, the multi-tiered cake with two figurines and no candles on top looks much more like a wedding cake than a birthday cake. And then Elsa tells Anna she wants to "be your birthday date", and uses a Red String of Fate to lead Anna to her presents. Furthermore, upon a closer inspection of the family portrait, you can see Anna actually holding hands with Elsa and not her boyfriend Kristoff despite being next to her on the opposite side.
 * In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, "When We're Together", the duet sung by Elsa and Anna, is indistinguishable from a love song.
 * Informed Wrongness: We're intended to see Anna's split-second decision to go off and marry with Prince Hans right after their meeting as a foolish one and she's going after a guy she just met to the point that Anna herself realizes her own recklessness with The Reveal that Hans turned out to be a treacherous prince. However, given that Anna has no social interaction for thirteen years, it's sorta a given that she would want to have any interactions or support whenever possible and to get out of a dark, empty, unhealthy living arrangement with a sister who refuses to talk to her. It doesn't help that neither Elsa or Kristoff are particularly emphatic of Anna's plight but especially the former, who has less social interaction than she does which makes her come off as a huge hypocrite - while she is rightfully called out by Anna, Elsa herself never admits or realize how she doesn't really have the right to call out Anna either.
 * Internet Backdraft:
 * The film was backlashed against before it was even released due to people judging its quality and its meta, based on what they saw in previews, interpretations of creator quotes, preferences towards hand-drawn animation, and complaints over gender and race
 * Those who prefer the hand-drawn style of Disney animation were upset when it was announced that the film, initially announced as their next effort in that vein, would be CGI-animated instead. This was partly in thanks to the success of their newer CGI films like Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, which were positively received even though they weren't hand-drawn, and partly because they wanted to branch further into a different genre of animation than their usual style. Many people expressed disdain towards the film for not being hand-drawn as they had wanted by leaving complaints like "I miss the old Disney!" and "Go back to hand-drawn animation!" in the comments of the trailers.
 * There was backlash when the announced plot was shown to be only inspired by the original story, despite Disney animated films routinely altering the plot lines of their source material, hence the trope name Disneyfication. Although Disney does indeed have a history of loosely-made adaptations, "The Snow Queen's" plotline is rather lengthier and meatier than most fairy tales (with a lot more characters and incident), so it came off as odd to toss most of it out the window when it would seem to lend itself well to film. Although this has already been done before with adaptations of complex stories like The Fox and The Hound and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which were positively received despite the changes they made. The same case apparently happened with this film, as it has garnered critical acclaim regardless of its differences from the original source.
 * Adding original male characters, such as Kristoff joining Anna on her quest, may have been an effort to make the film appeal to boys as well as girls, similar to the approach used in Tangled with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider receiving the relatively same amount of attention. Unfortunately, this gave people the impression that their inclusion was done to make Anna seem more dependent due to her counterpart in the original story, Gerta, taking her journey largely alone. Despite this, much of the focus is still on Anna, and she shows plenty of moments of strength and independence like fighting off the wolves herself, facing her sister alone when they reach the castle, and . In a related case, even though each of them have individual characterizations and strengths, some people have backlashed against this movie for continuing the Disney tradition of having princesses as the female leads, believing the Disney Princess franchise was sending the message of "Girls should only strive to be princesses" (which is unlikely the case, given how most girls grow out of that phase and there are so few princesses in power today) instead of "These princesses have individual strengths and characteristics that girls should admire and follow".
 * The release of the first teaser trailer was a two-minute slapstick short unrelated to the plot that introduced Olaf and Sven. People seemed to think this 2-minute teaser was the full trailer and represented the entirety of what the film was going to be about, not taking into account that 1) the plot announced beforehand was revealed to be more than just about a snowman and reindeer, 2) teasers don't usually reveal much about the story in general and typically feature content not in the actual film, and 3) that this may be a case of Never Trust a Trailer. Many people instantly labelled it as a "dumb kids' film". Thankfully, later trailers were released that revealed more about the plot and proved that it was not just a simple slapstick film about Olaf and Sven.
 * Lino Disalvo, the head of the animation for the film, expressed that he had difficulties with animating the female characters, because he had trouble conveying emotion through facial expression while also ensuring that they were pretty. This description of what audiences subconsciously expect when watching animated characters was widely interpreted as "emotions make women look unattractive, and it's exclusively women who have to look pretty while emoting at all times" instead of a comment on the demands animators have to meet (justly or not).


 * A single short clip (about 1 or 2 seconds long) of an animation slip-up involving Elsa's hair phasing through her arm (albeit hidden by the rest of her body) has become the latest rallying point for the film's Hatedom, causing people to accuse the animators of being lazy hacks. It's probably worth noting CGI vs. hand-drawn/traditional effects causes a Flame War regardless of what movie it crops up in, with many animators and movie fans refusing to accept anything CGI, regardless of quality. (The fact that the snowflakes Elsa summons from her hands in the first chorus of "Let it Go" are all identical has also attracted some flaming, though to a far lesser extent.)
 * When interviews came out about how Oscar academy voters voted for 2014's nominees, it was felt to put a damper on the movie's wins because very few of them cared about animation at all.
 * No Yay: Other than the fact that it's, well, incest, many who dislike the Anna/Elsa pairing feel that shipping the two ruins the message of the film, that platonic/familial love is as strong and wonderful as romantic love. Shipping the two ignores that, looping back around to "romantic love is the only love that matters"; fanfics that try to bypass this by making Anna and Elsa unrelated makes it worse by turning it into a standard A-meets-B-and-instant-love, exactly the opposite of the movie's message (Although there is something to be said about the film's message having already been ruined via a Broken Aesop; see Relationship Writing Fumble below).
 * Older Than They Think:
 * Many claim this is the first Disney film to teach girls not to marry a man you just met (Enchanted), not to rely on a man to save you (Mulan), focus on sisterly love (Lilo & Stitch), show that romantic love isn't the only type of love that saves the day (Aladdin), or have a strong-willed princess (Brave). All of those have been done in previous Disney Animated Canon movies, often multiple times.
 * Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre version of "The Snow Queen" seems to have been an influence on the film. The Snow Queen is also portrayed as being the Big Good, rather than a Wicked Witch like most adaptations, and also makes the Summer Witch her sister (which makes for a similar contrast between Anna/Elsa). Anna herself even bears more than a passing resemblance to Melissa Gilbert, who played Gerda.
 * It's now common to compare any "I Want" Song or "I Am Becoming" Song to "Let It Go," never mind that such songs have been a staple of Disney films and have appeared throughout musical media for decades.
 * This is NOT the first animated movie starring a red-haired princess who has two men interested in her, . That was The Secret of Anastasia, a Mockbuster of Don Bluth's film Anastasia.
 * Relationship Writing Fumble: The message of the film is that romantic love isn't the only type of love, and Elsa and Anna's relationship is used to represent familial love being just as strong and important. However, this falls flat since Elsa and Anna act more like jilted lovers around each other than actual sisters. The coronation scene where Anna becomes flustered and starts tripping over her words when Elsa calls her "beautiful", not to mention her reaction to Elsa's new appearance when they reunite, are both loaded with subtext, Elsa hiding her powers can easily be read as an allegorical coming-out story, she has serious Power Incontinence for the first time after Anna announces her engagement (when it's established that this happens because of pain and fear), and Anna's "I love you" at the end comes across seeming more romantic than any interaction she has with Hans or Kristoff due to them not getting as much screentime with her. Hell, there's even some very awkward merchandise that almost seems to portray them as a couple. Also, it's really common for Disney movies to end with the princess kissing or embracing her lover; Frozen ends with Anna . This has led to Incest Yay Shipping for some, and No Yay or Squick for those averse to these kinds of pairings.