Right-Wingers Call Frozen a Gay Indoctrination Film

The Disney film Frozen isn't just a nice animated musical; according to some commentators on the right, it's part of a conspiracy to turn children gay.

Fundamentalist Christian minister Kevin Swanson made the claim in a recent edition of his Generations Radio program, and some others have joined the chorus as well. They don't offer much evidence of gay subtext in the movie, although they make clear their horror at anything that could be construed as a positive message about being gay.

"How many Christians are taking their kids off to see the movie Frozen, produced by an organization that is probably one of the most pro-homosexual organizations in the country?" Swanson asked on his show last week. "You wonder sometimes, I'm not a tinfoil hat conspiratorialist, but you wonder sometimes if maybe there's something very evil happening here. If I was the devil, what would I do to really foul up an entire social system and do something really, really, really evil to 5- and 6- and 7-year-olds in Christian families around America? ... I would buy Disney."

Cohost Steve Vaughn added, "Then you would start making all these nice little movies that throw little things in there that make sin look enticing, in fact some of the worst of sins, make it look enticing or at least to start to indoctrinate slowly, turn the heat up on the frog in the pan."

Swanson and Vaughn aren't the only ones denouncing Frozen as pro-gay propaganda. "There is a fear campaign mounting against the film," observed Caitlin Dixon in a Daily Beast column published today. She traces the campaign's origin to a February post by Kathryn Skaggs, who maintains a blog called A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman.

Skaggs began that post by saying, "The gay agenda to normalize homosexuality is woven into Disney's movie Frozen not just as an underlying message -- it is the movie."

But Skaggs, like Swanson and Vaughn, offers little support for that claim, Dixon remarked: "The only proof of 'gay messaging' Skaggs provides is the suggestion that the main character Elsa's magical power is a metaphor for homosexuality: She is ostracized by the public and even her family, just like the 'demonization of homosexuals by society.' Elsa's non-magical sister Anna's shotgun wedding to someone she barely knows is meant to illustrate how 'heterosexuals diminish marriage.' And, of course, the happy ending wherein Elsa's family and community finally accept her for who she is sends the message that gays (Elsa) are not the problem, but rather society is the problem for rejecting them."

While LGBT people and their allies are happy to find supportive messages in any venue, it appears that Skaggs, Swanson, and their ilk are on thin ice with their argument that Frozen is an indoctrination film. But they've shown themselves willing to grasp at any straw in their continuing efforts to demonize gay people. As Dixon concluded, "If you're legitimately concerned about a Disney movie turning your children gay, you might be just the choir Swanson and Skaggs are preaching to."

Find audio of Swanson's program at Right Wing Watch.