The Disneyfication of Climate Crisis: Frozen and Moana Through the Lens of Global Warming

Disney’s recent princess films Moana (2016), Frozen (2013), and Frozen 2 (2019) cast the primary antagonist as climate change. These films solve their respective climate issues through love for oneself, one’s family, and the environment. Grounding our analysis in ecocriticism in children’s literature, Disney’s marketing of the films, and their material culture, we argue that these new princess films can offer young viewers an introduction to issues of global warming, but do not wholeheartedly follow through on their ecocritical promise.

Sara Austin is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Miami University in Ohio. Her interest in race, gender, and childhood identity has yielded articles in Transformative Works and Cultures, The Lion and the Unicorn, The Looking Glass: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature, and The Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics. Her current research explores monstrosity as a cultural metaphor for child identity.

Emily Midkiff teaches children’s literature, YA literature, and reading instruction at the University of North Dakota. Her research interests include children’s and YA media, speculative fiction, and visual storytelling. In her forthcoming book about science fiction for young children, she presents the results of her interdisciplinary studies on the genre and the young people who read it.

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