"Frozen" (Sub)Fandoms Transform Elsa Into The New "Girl On Fire"

Fan made poster by nickart

Note: Yes, I was going to include this in my list of back-up articles but realized I'd referred to this in my previous post on Frozen and thought it deserved it's own slot, considering the amount of information and the linkage I wanted to include. As such, though, the first line links to the main article that has a really nice summary of the meme and it's popularity.

Frozen fan art and sequel speculation leads to trend of portraying Elsa as a fiery or Phoenix-like queen and the new 'Girl On Fire'.

It was inevitable that someone would head down this path but it's proven to be a "hotter trend' (groan) than expected. 

I'm sure the popularity of Katniss in her flame dress (from Hunger Games/ Catching Fire) and Daenerys, Mother of Dragons (from Game of Thrones) have helped the idea along but there's no doubt people just love this idea. 

I like the speculations of the phoenix-like character (who has a lot of similarities to Cinderella if you read them) and the This Could Have Been Frozen POC Tumblr crowd are loving this too, showing ethnic, asian and desert-homed version of Elsa. Some of it is silly and fun. Some of it seriously works.

Over the last few weeks, fans have spontaneously evolved a thriving sub-fandom around an alternate universe (AU) version of Elsa, the tormented snow queen, in which she has the ability to control the element of fire instead of ice. Replacing her austere blue and white color palette for every possible shade of red, the fandom has churned out fanart, song lyrics, GIF sets, and fanfiction devoted to the fiery queen. 

Do a Tumblr search for "Frozen fire" or "Elsa fire" and you'll be amazed at just how much there is on this theme. People have redone Let It Go as Let 'Em Burn, complete with altered animation & animated fire footage... (it's very well done from lyrics to animation but the singing is a bit hard on the ears, so consider yourself warned). There's even a nouveau-style fire queen t-shirt.

I find it really interesting that it's my home country, Australia, that has really cottoned on to this meme. While we do get snow in a few places, many Aussies haven't experienced snow and ice on the sort of scale Frozen shows but we're extremely familiar with sunburn and fire.. 

From a dedicated Aussie Tumblr:

“Mimis are fairy-like beings of Arnhem Land in the folklore of the Indigenous Australians of northern Australia.
They are described as having extremely thin and elongated bodies, so thin as to be in danger of breaking in case of a high wind. To avoid this, they usually spend most of their time living in rock crevices. They are said to have taught the Aborigines of Australia how to hunt, prepare kangaroo meat and use fire. They are like humans but they live in a different dimension.”

— also because Mimis. They’re the closest thing this country has to the trolls in Frozen.

I must admit, ever since seeing the amazing animation of the flame-Esmerelda in Hunchback of Notre Dame, I have really loved the idea of a fire elemental or phoenix-like character. 

There's so much potential to play with art on such a theme: lava castles, phoenix birds, dragons, all those scary-but-real fire phenomenons of nature...

Fantasia 2000 did a jaw-dropping job of transforming Mt. St. Helen's into a Firebird but it's not quite the same as a character with a story arc, conflict and various motivations. 

What do you think? Would you like to see a fairy tale fire heroine (or hero)? 

Stories for the Season: Fire & Ice

Here's a story that most of you won't know. It's actually a full length 'ice-ballet' devised by world champion skaters Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean and Australia's most famous contemporary choreographer Graeme Murphy.

It's called "Fire & Ice" and has gorgeous sets, costumes and scenery for both the Fire land and the Ice land (in which most of the story takes place) as well as a lot of inventive and beautiful choreography. While it isn't specifically about Christmas it definitely has that seasonal feel- music included. I don't think it was out of convenience or by coincidence that saw this film originally have a Christmas release.I'm positive I've read fairy tales similar to this (Japanese? Russian?) but time is against me to research this properly. If you know of any tales please do add a comment with the title and/or link.

Here's a story description of "Fire & Ice" from Wikipedia:

Fire and Ice is a full length company piece creating narrative ballet on ice. Set between the Planet of Fire and the Planet of Ice, it tells of a love story between a Prince of Fire and a Princess of Ice. It is a full set piece with visual designs and effects depicting different locations on the two planets and telling the story.

The piece opens with Dean performing actually ballet within the catacombs of the Plant of Fire, while seeing Torvill in the blue flames of their alter. Upon diving in he finds himself upon her planet. He meets her, and after taking some time to adapt to her planet, they fall in love. She gets called away to a Royal Ceremony but she rejoins him later. The following morning they are discovered and a violent attack is carried out on the Fire Prince by her own people. She pleads with her father to have mercy on him but he banishes her from his sight and the Fire Prince is left trapped in a prison of ice. Later the Ice Princess sneaks back to him and melts the ice with all her strength, leaving her close to death. The Fire Prince revives her and they are together once more. Meanwhile the Prince’s own people have witnessed his fate in the flames and have arrived on the Planet of Ice. A war breaks out which ends in the death of both the Prince’s and Princess’s fathers. Devastated and alone, they find each other once more and grieve. As time heals their wounds and their love endures a distant archway appears, touring over the icy mountains. We watch them make their journey towards the arch and finally enter and make their break for freedom and a new life together.

Torvill and Dean devised Fire and Ice in Australia with Graeme Murphy, sold it to LWT (London Weekend Television – part of ITV). It was written by Tom Gutteridge and Carl Davis and rehearsed and filmed in Germany ready for its UK television premier in Christmas 1986.

You can find out more about the production HERE and occasionally DVDs surface like the one below and become available to own (yay!). I gather it's also available on the 'Dancing On Ice' DVD from 2006.Some lovely person put up the whole ice-ballet on YouTube (in 19 very short parts - between 30 seconds and 5 minutes each) and I've made a playlist so you can press "go" and watch them all automatically play in order. Just press play.

Enjoy!