The long-standing ― and largely tongue-in-cheek ― debate over Elsa’s sexuality in Disney’s “Frozen” franchise was finally settled on “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend.
Kate McKinnon played the ice queen in a live-action sketch on Saturday’s episode of “SNL” that was designed as an outtake from the forthcoming DVD edition of “Frozen 2.” In the skit, Elsa and Anna (played by Cecily Strong) give the classic song “Let It Go” a coming out-themed revamp called “We All Know.”
“We all know, we all know! We’ve all known since you were a tween,” Anna sings. “I don’t care what Disney says, the Twitter storm rages on!”
“The lack of romantic interest doesn’t bother me anyway,” Elsa chimes in.
The remainder of the skit playfully skewers the lack of diversity in children’s movies, with appearances by Kyle Mooney as Olaf, Kenan Thompson as Matthias and J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans as Kristoff.
Since the 2013 release of the original “Frozen,” Disney has been applauded for breaking away from its tried-and-true princess narrative and for depicting Elsa as a strong and independent female protagonist.
In the years leading up to the film’s 2019 sequel, “Frozen 2,” the company has been petitioned to make Elsa a lesbian, with the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend repeatedly trending on Twitter.
With Disney taking some steps to diversify its programming and a third “Frozen” movie likely in development, members of the cast and creative team have addressed the speculations of “is she or isn’t she?” in interviews.
“I can’t promise anybody that that’s what’s gonna happen,” Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa, told PrideSource in 2016. “But deep down, am I really happy that it’s causing people to talk about it and have these kinds of conversations? Yeah, I am.”
In a 2018 interview with HuffPost, “Frozen” co-writer and co-director Jennifer Lee offered a faint glimmer of hope that Elsa could, in fact, find a girlfriend in a future installment of the franchise.
“Where we’re going with it, we have tons of conversations about it, and we’re really conscientious about these things,” Lee said. “For me ... Elsa’s every day telling me where she needs to go, and she’ll continue to tell us. I always write from character-out, and where Elsa is and what Elsa’s doing in her life, she’s telling me every day. We’ll see where we go.”