Disney's Frozen: As in frozen in the past

Next up on our list of the 10 highest grossing movies since President Obama took office is "Frozen" from Disney.  A late addition to the list, Frozen is now the highest grossing animated movie of all time, currently occupying the number 5 spot on the list with $1.143 billion in revenue. (Boxofficemojo.com)  Moving up our list with a bullet, Frozen wasn't even in the top 10 when this blog started a few weeks ago.  One key to its success is Disney released Frozen in 41 languages (R. Keegan, "LA Times"), exhibiting their understanding of the importance of international revenues.

First the good: it's a fun film with a strong female protagonist and some beautiful music.  Disney hired Jennifer Lee to adapt the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Snow Queen" for Frozen.  Disney then hired a veteran composer (Christophe Beck) and veteran Broadway singer (Idina Menzel) to give the movie a highly polished musical production.  Casting Kristin Bell in the protagonist role (Anna) capitalized on her star power and showed off her surprisingly strong singing voice.

Now the bad: it's virtually all white, except for the voicing of some non-human trolls.  The movie is set in a fictitious land - Arendelle.  There is a no justifiable reason the movie needed to exclude people of color.  Incredibly, this is a pattern with Disney.  Of the movies reviewed so far for this blog, Disney has had the worst ratios of non-white actors/characters.

Quite coincidentally, this week the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team was recorded criticizing his girlfriend for "associating with black people." (TMZ)  Apparently Mr. Sterling is also counseling his cross-town neighbors at Disney about their movie casting decisions.