Listen

Listen

I’ve watched Listen before but I never noticed the Harry Potter references until now, my second time watching it.

——

Clara: *peeking out of the TARDIS door, watching herself run away from her date with Danny Pink*

Clara: Is that really what I look like from behind?

——

Doctor and Clara: *sitting and talking about what could be alive at the end of the world on the last planet*

*mysterious noises coming from around them as the ship goes into a low power mode for the night*

Clara: I always thought there was something living in the pipes

I met Ryan Reynolds and told him we was my idol. He kissed me on the forehead, whispered, “You look like a fucking badger,” and walked away.

This cast *chef kiss emoji*

They’re perfect.

So I want to talk about Kristoff and consent

One of the fun things about Frozen is how it makes fun of the idea of love at first sight and actually examines what goes into a romantic relationship. Anna falls head-over-heels for Hans largely because she’s so desperate for company. Kristoff, her ultimate love interest, is the one who challenges this the most and points out how absurd it is to think you’ve fallen in love with someone you don’t even know.

He immediately starts giving Anna a hard time about it.

Even in the middle of their fight with wolves, he can’t resist needling her, as well as bringing up the very legitimate point that one such bad decision might be an indicator that she’s likely to make other ones.

It’s refreshing to have a Disney movie where this trope is challenged, and it serves the added bonus of building up Anna and Kristoff’s genuine relationship. But what really strikes me about it is how well the film manages to avoid taking away Anna’s agency in all this. It would be very easy to diminish her right to make her own choices in light of what a bad choice marrying Hans is, but Kristoff never does this. He might judge her and her decisions, but he also respects her right to make those choices.

When Kristoff takes Anna to meet the trolls, they immediately assume the two are romantically involved. When Kristoff tries to explain that this isn’t the case, the explanation he gives is very telling.

He doesn’t say that he’s not interested in her (which he clearly is by this point) or that she’s a princess who needs to marry a prince. The thing that makes their relationship impossible is that she has chosen someone else. Whatever he thinks of that decision, it is to be respected. And when Grand Pabbie explains that Anna needs an act of true love to save her, Kristoff doesn’t hesitate.

When it literally becomes a question of life and death, Kristoff puts Anna’s experience before his own. It doesn’t matter if he thinks her relationship with Hans is silly or premature. If she says she’s in love with him, he believes her.

Ultimately, of course, Anna and Hans don’t share any kind of love, and she comes to realize that what she has with Kristoff is a genuine relationship. But even though Kristoff knows this, he never tries to push it on her or convince her that she should choose him instead. He’ll give her his honest opinion, but ultimately he knows her decisions are her own.

The last thing I want to talk about is this scene:

By this point, Anna and Kristoff have a developed relationship. They both clearly care for one another. But still, Kristoff is careful not to make Anna uncomfortable with his advances. He asks if it’s okay to kiss her, and doesn’t do so until she has explicitly said he can.

I love that this movie manages to challenge the stereotypical narrative about love, but never devalues Anna’s agency to do so.