Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist art and a short update

Today I was struck by the conversation about the new Mary Wollstonecraft statue by artist Maggi Hambling, unveiled on 10 November 2020 in Newington Green, North London.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons, (c) Grim23

I am deeply interested in Mary Wollstonecraft - I wrote my honours thesis on her views about the role of women in the domestic sphere, her portrait hangs in my hallway and in 2016 a portrait of her that I painted was included in the Trailblazing Women of Herstory exhibition in Melbourne.

Criticism of the new sculpture has been fast and fierce, perhaps in part because this is the first officially commissioned statue of the pioneering ‘mother of feminism’ and it was made possible through 10 years of dedicated fundraising by the Mary on the Green campaign, but largely because the end result is a tiny, naked silver woman on top of an amorphous, roiling mass which seems to have no connection to Mary Wollstonecraft beyond the name on plinth on which it sits.

And even then the connection is weak - the artist has pointed out that this is not a sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft but for her, something a little controversial for many of the people who donated to the campaign in the belief they would be getting a statue of the woman herself.

What do we want from our statues of famous people? In this case, the campaign specifically stated that the statue was intended to balance the over-representation of men in public statues (over 90% of London’s monuments celebrate men) and ‘send a powerful message about what matters to us.’

So this statue needed to clearly be a woman and it is - all too clearly, many have argued - but is one teensy tiny woman really tipping the balance against a veritable army of larger-than-life men? And it needed to send a message that what Mary Wollstonecraft fought for matters to us - here, I don’t think it succeeds.

The writing on the plinth, beyond saying ‘for Mary Wollstonecraft’, reads ‘I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.’ It’s a good quote, but from all the wonderful things she wrote, why choose one that seems designed to cater to the fears of fragile men that feminism is out to take something away from them? (Although to be fair, many of her best quotes are too long to fit on a plinth and should be read in the broader context of her work).

The statue shouts vulnerability - it’s small, naked and in a passive pose. I disagree with critics who argue that it’s sexualised - there is a difference between being naked and being sexualised - but I think there is a point to be made that many of Wollstonecraft’s arguments were about women expanding their minds and their mental faculties rather than believing their value lay only in their bodies and appearance.

The lack of a depiction of Wollstonecraft herself also bother me. We have countless depictions of generic, fictional and mythical naked women; ‘generic naked woman’ feels like a cornerstone of Western art. The chair of the project that commissioned the sculpture, Bee Cowlatt, questioned whether there was a need for lifelike figure statues in our modern world and argued that the sculpture symbolises the birth of a movement. The artist, Maggi Hambling, has argued that the figure represents ‘everywoman’ and that clothes would have limited and defined the figure, preventing others from identifying with her. She additionally argues that women can identify with the figure because ‘as far as I know, she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be.’

I find this shocking. Wollstonecraft argued strongly against worrying about what shape and size you were supposed to be as a woman. She recognised that we have more important things to value in ourselves. Additionally, such a bland sculpture can still only physically represent a narrow band of conventionally attractive, able-bodied women.

Surely a more important part of appealing to ‘everywoman’ is an appeal to the intellect and rationality of every woman, something Wollstonecraft herself argued for recognition of: ‘let their faculties have room to unfold , and their virtues to gain strength , and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale.’

Why can’t we have a statue that inspires us to believe in ourselves, our minds and our abilities, instead of asking us to once again identify with a nameless, naked female figure and be happy with it?

This thoughtful statement from the Mary on the Green campaign will perhaps alleviate some of the concerns and disappointment about the statue. As a side note, it seems artists just can’t get it right when it comes to pubic hair - this sculpture has been criticised for having too much, another recent sculpture evoking a feminist lens, Medusa with the Head of Perseus, has been criticised for having too little.

If nothing else, it is exciting that more people are talking about Mary Wollstonecraft today than they likely have in years and it is heartening to see how many commenters are acquainted (or quickly acquainting themselves!) with her core arguments and ideas.

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If you’ve read this far, thank you! I haven’t kept up with the blog since going back to my full time day job, but I’ve still been practicing away at my digital art! if you’d be interested in the occasional blog post (art I love or don’t love, what I’m drawing, interesting fairy tales I read recently…) please leave me a comment on social media or drop me a quick line at erinclaire@erinclaireillustration.com.

Day 35 - End of Retreat!

Five weeks, it turns out, goes extremely fast. (Yes, I know anyone who’s ever taken leave from their day job could have told me this!). Despite a brief period of extreme anxiety a week or so ago that I hadn’t managed as much art-related productivity as I had hoped, I am happy about the break and even looking forward to my day job, which I am back at tomorrow. But importantly, I’m hoping that I’ve created some habits around doing art (writing and drawing) that will continue. Mostly, learning that I don’t always need a big stretch of time to get some good work done and that a few hours can make a difference.

So, what have I done with five weeks of artist retreat?

Fairy Tales

I’ve written (drafted, really, they are still in need of some good editing!) five fairy tales:

• The Swans - retelling and weaving together four traditional fairy tales that you do not expect to belong together to reveal a shocking secret and a story of revenge and redemption (yes, I’m practicing for a blurb!). This story is the one I am most proud of. I think the tone is a little different and darker compared to my other stories and I’m not sure where it fits or when I’ll get to show it to you, but I really do want to share it!

• The Good Sister - about the rewards for the ‘good sisters’ in fairy tales, the ones who display all the stereotypical gendered virtues (hardworking, kind, obedient etc). What kind of reward is likely for someone who is valued for the way they fulfil others’ needs, even to their own detriment? Will they end up with someone who values this exact trait and continues to take advantage of them?

• The Ogre Husband - when you think you’re marrying a prince but he turns out to be an ogre. What else can I say?! Another take on similar themes to The Good Sister.

• Tiny Amira and the Dragon - about recovering your belief in yourself after a lifetime of being put down and not valued, and how powerful you can be when you truly believe in yourself.

• The Glass Prince - once upon a time, a child is born made of glass. A promise has been made that he needs to meet, but his parents cannot imagine him leaving his room without breaking.

I‘ve also decided, at least for now, not to write one story that I had been meaning to write for over a year. I was hoping to use it to comment on controlling and abusive relationships (heavy stuff, but then fairy tales are full of heavy stuff if you know where to look) but it was too difficult to separate what I wanted to say from what I felt about the issue and too difficult to shape a story out of what started as a litany of examples. Perhaps it’s something I’ll come back to one day with more distance.

Art

I haven’t done as much art as I’d planned, but I have finally made more of an effort to do some digital art, and I think I’m finally getting closer to figuring out what style I want to develop. Figuring it out and actually learning to do it are two different challenges! But at least I’m a step closer. I’ve put some examples in this post.

I’m thinking of doing another fairy tale inktober (I did this last year as well, I should really update the inktober section of this website!). It’s a big commitment in time, but I do love fairy tale illustrations and ink drawing…

Thank you so much if you’ve been reading my (infrequent!) blog these last five weeks. I’ll try to keep making posts - it’s definitely easier than keeping up to a newsletter, although I should definitely send one of those soon!

Day 22 - Finding time

I have a problem that is in all honesty a lovely problem to have - I always have ideas for projects, I get really excited about them, and then I rarely get as far through them as I’d like before coming up with another idea (or life just getting in the way). Blogging every day of this holiday/artist retreat was one! I’m 22 days into it, with less than two weeks to go, and I have been stressing that I haven’t found the time to write as many fairy tales as I’d wanted, I haven’t drawn anything for months, and I haven’t even found the time to write blogs about what I have been doing.

Luckily, some very wise friends and family have been reminding me that I need to also be treating this as a break from my day job and that it’s important to actually do relaxing things, not just productive ones!

So today is just a quick blog post about what I’ve been up to and about finding the perfect place to work!

So far, I’ve finished at least a draft of five fairy tales. One I am very proud and protective of and can’t wait to share with you. The others I am a bit more ambivalent about! The problem with writing is that it’s harder to share than illustrations, but I’ll try to share some tomorrow. The one I like most is a retelling while the others are new stories (although drawing strongly on fairy tale elements and motifs).

What is next? I’m waiting for inspiration to strike with another fairy tale I want to tell! In the meantime, I could catch up on a project that never really got off the ground - book reviews! Or I could continue with movie reviews - I wrote one of Frozen II last year and I’ve just seen the live action Mulan and have so many thoughts! Or, I could start preparing for inktober, which is just around the corner… I would love to do another fairy tale themed inktober this year. I need to update my website with last year’s illustrations but you will have seen a few that I’ve been sharing on this blog.

cafe reviews

I’ve been to a few different cafes in the last couple of weeks but nothing that has really caught my fancy! Instead, my favourite places to work have been on a picnic blanket in Ainslie, the National Library (so quiet! So peaceful! Such lovely, empty tables to work at!) and today, my balcony! I cleared everything off a table to make it as National-Library-ish as possible (but with a beautiful view of Mt Ainslie!).

Day 13 - What’s (in) an Ending?

Over the last week I've been talking to people about what they expect from a fairy tale. Often, it seems to be a moral or lesson and a satisfactory ending, where as much as possible the virtuous and good characters end up with a happily ever after.

One of the things I want to do with these new stories is use a fairy tale format to highlight gender issues that still exist today. I don’t want us to just look back at the late 17th Century and feel relieved that our gender norms and expectations have changed so much; I want us to look at today and recognise the distance still to go.

There's a question around highlighting common, current issues - are people already aware of the issue, and does anyone want to read about something they perhaps already understand through personal experience? This may be particularly true if it’s a negative thing that they’ve already dealt with or discussed at length with others with similar experiences.

Then there's a second question around endings. There seems to be an expectation that good people get happy endings and bad people must either be punished or reformed. How does this fit with exploring existing issues? Does a story where people are appropriately rewarded or punished for their virtue or lack thereof undermine the actual issues to be explored where one of the problems is that virtuous people do not necessarily get good endings?

For this, I want to reach back to some of the women fairy tale writers in late 17th Century France, at the court of the Sun King. (I haven’t done as much research into this as I would like, and would love to hear from more knowledgeable fairy tale scholars than myself!) The strict expectations about women meant that one way for these authors to be subversive in their fairy tales was not through having their heroines defy expectations and achieve a happy end, but to demonstrate the situation for women, the unfairness of it, through having their heroines upset the social order and be either punished for it or constrained back into being a ‘good’ woman.

I like this idea that we can be subversive through demonstrating, rather than necessarily resolving an issue. It feels trite somehow to always resolve an issue, to not acknowledge that in the real world, breaking social norms has a consequence. And to go one step further, that observing social and gender norms also does not guarantee a ‘happily ever after’ - the good, beautiful girl does not always end up with a prince who respects her and treats her well. I think we can explore some areas of tension in our modern world through stories with endings where the virtuous are not necessarily rewarded and the bad are neither reformed nor punished.

We could argue that this undermines the idea of fairy tales as stories with a lesson or moral (after all, if you’re not showing that virtue will be rewarded, how are you teaching someone to be virtuous?), but I’ve always hated that definition of fairy tales.

(While we’re talking about rewarding virtuous behaviour, it’s also worth considering what behaviour we consider worth of reward today. Is selfless subservience and endless kindness in the face of abuse really a behaviour we value? Or do we value people (especially women) who stand up for themselves, even if it means appearing to break some of the social norms around selfishness and rudeness? Hands up if Cinderella ever annoyed you…)

This gets me back to stories about issues that people can relate to. While we might know that certain behaviours exist in our society and that they are not ok (controlling behaviour in relationships, discrimination against individuals or communities, etc), I think we are often searching for new ways to understand and talk about these issues, even when we have experienced them ourselves. When we read a news article or opinion piece about something we’ve experienced that we know others can relate to, we might share it to say ‘see! This is what I’ve been trying to articulate’, or feel that it has helped us frame an issue differently. We may have talked about workplace discrimination a hundred times with friends who’ve experienced the same thing and still appreciate a new way of explaining it or thinking about it.

I think the fairy tale medium is a good way to highlight issues without having to find a resolution or give everyone the ending they ‘deserve’.

Anyway, that was a long post - I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

(No cafe review today! I have been out and about all day and am enjoying a quiet evening at home. Although I can heartily recommend the Ainslie Bakehouse, where I got breakfast this morning on the go. 5/5 delicious.)

Day 12 - Debating Drafts

In lieu of a blog post over the last week, I’ve had some really wonderful conversations about ideas and draft fairy tales with two very kind and dear people who agreed to test read my first finished story draft. Reactions were very varied, but the conversations have really made me think about what I wanted to achieve with that fairy tale and indeed with a new book of stories, and how this ties into a fairy tale tradition. I love people who challenge my views and make me defend, clarify and update them (especially if they are happy to argue passionately with me for two hours about my draft story - thank you K!!).

I also took the time to go for a big hike up Camel’s Hump in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and my legs have definitely been paying for it for the last few days - as always, entirely worth it! I often go hiking with the intention of using the time to think through illustration plans or fairy tale plots etc, but walking is so meditative I find that I rarely think through anything and instead just manage to properly relax and unwind. Probably a more worthwhile goal to be completely honest!

Cafe review - the national arboretum and local press Kingston

I had a lovely coffee and lunch at the National Arboretum yesterday. Although the restaurant is feeling a little less fancy due to COVID restrictions (a bit less ‘table cloths and fabric napkins’, a bit more ‘food court chairs and tables’) the coffee and food was lovely and the views are unparalleled. I will keep trying to find a place to beat them but I don’t like my chances! They open a bit late for any early birds, but I will absolutely be back to do more writing. 4.5/5

Today I’m at Local Press Cafe in Kingston. I would have a view of the lake except the sun is (strangely after a few weeks of rain!) beating down and I’m hiding safely inside! The coffee and food are great and the tables are big and comfortable enough to spread out on. I especially like the mixed and matched cushions on the benches along the walls and that teapots come with a cute tea cosy! Would come back, especially to sit at the outside table next to a flowering camellia with a view of the lake! 3.5/5

Day 4 - mountains and glass

I feel like a lot of my posts are likely to have titles about mountains - I am very much looking forward to fitting in as many hikes as possible over the next few weeks. Glass mountains are of course a common fairy tale construct - impossible to scale, usually found at the end of a long journey, requiring magic or sacrifice to get to the top or, more usually, inside.

Today I was thinking about glass in a different context - a fairy tale I’ve been drafting that I’ve tentatively called ‘The Glass Princess’ (or ‘The Glass Prince’, I haven’t quite worked out my protagonist yet!). It’s one of those stories where I know how it starts and I’m fairly sure I know some of the main messages, but I‘m not sure yet what the central conflict is or how it resolves. Usually I have a solid outline of a story before I start actually writing it, but in this case perhaps I’ll just start writing and see where it takes me.

The main thing I want to explore in this one is the idea so prevalent in fairy tales that disability happens for a reason - perhaps a punishment or a sacrifice - and need to be ‘cured’. I’d love you to tell me your favourite fairy tale with a character with disability, especially if the disability is not ‘fixed’ or ‘cured’ at the end.

Characters with disability and beautiful girls are two of the fairy tale tropes that tend to cause irritating reactions from the ‘fairy tales are all metaphor and symbolism’ crowd. I love my metaphors and symbolism in fairy tales as much as the next person, but I am heartily sick of the idea that beauty is only shorthand for a character’s virtuous nature or that disability is only shorthand for a trial to be overcome. This re-centres able-bodied, conventionally beautiful people as the heroes of our stories, where anything other than that state is a temporary misfortune to be dealt with, while telling people who fall outside this narrow spectrum that their lived experience is a metaphor.

cafe - fallen log in the wilderness

No seriously, that’s my cafe for today. It serves ‘delicious leftovers cooked by my wonderful partner’ and has a view of more logs, also in the wilderness. It’s freezing but absolutely gorgeous and the tranquility can’t be beaten. 5/5

Day 3 - Morals and rewards

The idea of lessons and morals in fairy tales is a very popular one - I have lost count of the number of people who’ve told me that the definition of a fairy tale is a story with magic and a moral (it’s not) - and it definitely deserves a longer blog post than I’m planning to give it here. I’m sure I’ll come back to it again. Today I’m not really thinking about morals, per se, as in ‘you should not steal’ or ‘you should always be kind’, but more about the rewards attached to them, the ‘if you are are kind in the face of unkindness you will end up with a fancy dress and a prince’ kind of messages.

How prominent do you like the underlying themes and messages of your fairy tales? When I’m reading, I like some space to interpret the message myself (although I don’t want it buried too deeply!). But when I’m writing I get anxious - is it too obscure? Will someone miss the point? Or is it too obvious? Have I left no room for this story to mean different things to different people depending on their life and experiences? Today I had to stop myself adding a line into my current fairy tale about good sisters and bad sisters (they’re still called Elena and Greta - help me out here, I beg you) explaining exactly what I meant by the story.

I want to use this story to play with the idea that hard work will earn you the reward of not having to work hard any more. Some traditional fairy tales spell this out beautifully - the girl who spins is visited on her wedding day by three ‘aunts’ who convince her husband never to make her spin again - but for most it’s an underlying assumption. Cinderella will never have to work a day in her life once she’s married the Prince.

But how do these girls get to the point of being rewarded by marriage? Through displaying typical ‘feminine’ virtues of hard (domestic) work, obedience and kindness. And in the real world, if someone wants you because they value these qualities in you, they don’t suddenly change what they value because you’ve demonstrated an ability to fulfil it once. Perhaps the usual reward for being a good, obliging, hardworking girl is to be a good, obliging, hardworking girl all your life.

Additionally, people don’t only behave virtuously because they’ll be valued for it. Perhaps it’s something they themselves appreciate - are they going to give up a behaviour they value just because they’ve already been rewarded for it?

I’m almost finished a draft of this fairy tale and am very much looking forward to hearing thoughts from some of my lovely test readers, who I appreciate immensely!

In the meantime, I went looking for old artwork of sisters and came across this one from 2016.

cafe review - lSR7

Today it’s surprisingly grey outside, given it was sunny and beautiful when I arrived at the cafe. However, I have the best view, looking down on the street from the second story of Lonsdale St Roasters 7 and watching all the passers by; or rather, watching their different coloured umbrellas.

Atmosphere: I have to admit, I already knew I loved it here before coming. It is high up (always a personal favourite) and there are big tables where it’s easy to spread out my notes, books, pens and tech. The rain outside when I’m right next to the window only makes it better for writing. The staff are friendly and the music is upbeat but not overpowering, easily fading into the background while I’m writing.

Coffee: (no food today) is wonderful, which is standard for this string of cafes!

Would I come back? Absolutely, a lovely place to write. 4.5/5

Day 2 - Troll Princesses

I was thinking about good sisters and bad sisters and it reminded me of a Swedish folktale by Helena Nyblom called The Changelings. The sweet, angelic baby princess Bianca Maria is swapped with a terrible little troll girl. The story (beautifully illustrated by one of my favourite golden age illustrators, John Bauer) mirrors the lives of the two girls as they grow up. While Bianca Maria is sweet and obedient to the point of irritating her brusque, no-nonsense troll mother, the troll princess is the terror of the castle, horrifying her human mother who dearly misses the child she expected her daughter to grow into (but doesn’t suspect that the troll child is in fact not her child).

An interesting juxtaposition is the fathers. The troll father loves Bianca Maria because she is so delicate - he treats her a bit like a dad with the kitten that he said he didn’t want (you know the one, he now spends all his time cooing over the kitten, letting it sleep curled up in his jacket and feeding it whatever it wants). The King loves the troll princess (even though he’s somewhat terrified of her) because she speaks back to him and is wild and self-assured.

Incidentally, I think I’ve found a new favourite author. Helena Nyblom wrote her first fairy tale at age 54, in 1897, eventually writing more than 80 fairy tales, many with strong feminist tones. The tone of this one is clear - although at first glimpse it feels like the troll princess’ terrible behaviour is contrasted unfavourably with Bianca Maria, who embodies traditional ideas of feminine virtue, the reader is encouraged to empathise with the troll princess, who is clearly caged by gendered expectations and constraints that go against her natural behaviour and inclination.

Although the girls don’t grow up together, I feel like the story still falls broadly into the ‘good sister, bad sister’ narrative and I want to explore how I can write a fairy tale where the characters are vastly different but both sympathetic.

When I first discovered John Bauer I really enjoyed a year of painting troll girls, so here is some of my seldom-seen art from 2013, of a troll daughter trying to decide on her favourite teacup.

Cafe review - the knox

Today I’m at The Knox in Watson, with a view of the courtyard.

Atmosphere: peaceful and warm. The heaters are on and it’s a surprisingly mild morning in Canberra today (especially given the snow forecast for Friday!).

Food: delish, I had the famous pumpkin bread and a very nice coffee.

Would I write here again? Probably - the tables are a bit small for an easy setup but I like the feel of the place, with little sparrows hopping through the courtyard, and the delicious food! 3.5/5

Day 1 - artist retreat

For the next five weeks I’m taking leave from my full-time day job to focus on art - both illustration and writing. I’m thinking of these five weeks as a type of ‘artist retreat’. Even though I’ll mostly be staying in my home city (thanks COVID), I’m going to try different places to write and draw and make the most of being able to go for a walk in the middle of a weekday and explore places I’ve never been.

During this five weeks, I am really excited to work on some art goals that I’ve not had much of a chance to focus on this year.

• First, and most excitingly to me, I am working on another book of fairy tales. I have so many ideas, but not much ink on the page, as it were.

• Second, I want to improve my digital art - I haven’t yet managed to get a clear idea of even what style of art I’d like to do digitally, so I am looking forward to experimenting with this.

• Finally, I want to do some more ink illustrations, practicing with composition and adding more detail.

This blog (which I’ll try to update frequently) will be a way to keep me accountable to myself for getting some work done - I’d be devastated if I took all this leave and didn’t achieve these goals - as well as a way to keep in touch with anyone who might be interested to follow my progress or stay up to date with my work. Goodness knows I am terrible at sending a regular newsletter!

Good sisters and bad sisters

“Elena was as unlike Greta as she could be. Where Greta was neat and tidy, Elena was disorganised and messy. Where Greta was mild and well-behaved, Elena was quarrelsome and outspoken. Where Greta was industrious, Elena was lazy. Or perhaps we should say she had no interest in tedious tasks that were always undone by the next day.”

Today I’m working on a fairy tale that plays with ideas about good sisters and bad sisters. You know the type - good sisters end up covered in gold, or with jewels falling from their mouths when they speak, or married to handsome princes. Bad sisters end up covered in pitch, retching toads or dying miserable and alone in the woods.

I want to rework the idea of the jealous stepmother as the ultimate villain, look at why we value the hardworking, obedient and kind ‘good’ sisters (who really benefits from their hard work and happy nature?), and explore the kind of rewards that can await people who are too accomodating of others’ need and expectations at the expense of their own.

(p.s. I am not convinced by the names ‘Greta’ and ‘Elena’ - do you want to name a fairy tale character? Send me suggestions!)

Cafe reviews!

I’ve discovered that I really like writing away from home (possibly because, due to COVID, home is now also the office for my day job). So I’m going to see if I can find a favourite place to work by trying as many coffee shops and restaurants as I can over the next five weeks.

Today I’m at Assembly in Braddon, with a view out the window onto Lonsdale St.

atmosphere: lovely - easy to find a spot to sit spaced away from others, music is not too loud (this may be helped by the fact that I’m here on a Monday mid-afternoon!) and it feels light and airy. Assembly also has a lovely back courtyard with big comfortable wooden tables and benches. Today there’s an artist out there painting a mural across one of the walls. There is a big TV showing sport in the middle of the main room, however, it’s fairly easy to find a spot without a clear view of the TV and it doesn’t dominate the space.

food: delicious. I’m eating spiced chicken skewers and they’re very more-ish.

Would I come back here to write? Absolutely. 4/5

Frozen 2

The review ahead is dark and full of spoilers, so turn back now all ye who would rather see the movie first!

Frozen 2 sets out to be a story about finding yourself and where you’re meant to be, but it’s really a story about colonisation.

There are a lot of things I loved about this movie. The relationship between the sisters, including an excellent section of dialogue where Anna reminds Elsa of what she has achieved without any magic when Elsa suggests a journey is too dangerous for Anna; the humour (Olaf explaining the plot of Frozen is an absolute highlight); and some powerful songs. I honestly enjoyed the movie and recommend it. What I want to focus on in this review, however, is the colonisation narrative. To be fair, I think the movie tries very hard to approach this topic sensitively and the fact that it approaches it at all is fairly radical for Disney, but the way it was handled struck a few sour notes.

From the outset it should be fairly clear to the audience (at least the adult audience!) that the dam built 34 years before the events of the film is going to be the central contention of the story. There is no suggestion that Arendelle’s neighbours, the nomadic Sámi – sorry, Northuldra – people, wanted the dam. Arendelle building it in the middle of their lands smacks immediately of colonialism, ignoring indigenous knowledge and imposing potentially inappropriate land management practices.

For obvious reasons, we get a very Arendellian perspective throughout the film, which is a shame because we both miss an opportunity to have stories about colonisation told from an indigenous perspective and because a Northuldra perspective could immediately make sense of the events of the film without the need for a large part of the plot. For example, the unexpected Northuldra attack on the Arendellians is only unexpected if no one considers the Northuldra perspective.

Following this attack, the Northuldra’s elemental spirits shroud the forest in an impenetrable mist. This is supposedly a punishment for the fighting, but it’s a punishment that disproportionately impacts the Northuldra people, whose land the mist covers, while Arendelle continues to prosper – and apparently teach children a very one-sided view of the past, adding to our colonisation narrative.

In the present day, after Elsa accidentally wakes the Northuldra elemental spirits, she, Anna, Kristof, Sven and Olaf discover that the Northuldra people and those Arendellians who survived the fighting have been trapped inside the mist for 34 years. Some Northuldra have never seen the sun or sky. Still, it’s a Disney movie, so they’re all remarkably cheerful about it and quickly accept Anna and Elsa, particularly once the women have a moment and realise that their mother was Northuldra.

Unfortunately, Elsa and Anna were never given the opportunity to learn about their cultural heritage and have nothing except a song and a scarf to connect them to this culture. One has to wonder about the prevalence of racism in Arendelle if the King and Queen felt they could never reveal the Queen’s heritage to her own children, never mind the general population.

Their shared heritage is enough to bring the Northuldra and remaining Arendellians together, but it’s apparently not enough to inspire Elsa and Anna to actually have a chat to their Northuldra kin about what happened 34 years ago. Instead of asking why the Northuldra attacked the Arendellians or whether they have any theories about the mist, Elsa decides to travel to a mystical river in a far-off land to get some answers. The answers are right there Elsa! Why do we need a magical solution? Probably because the alternative would deny the colonisers a redemption narrative that involves coming to an independent realisation that what they did was wrong.

Because, of course, the problem is the dam, which the Arendellians built with the express intent of weakening the Northuldra. We also find out that Elsa and Anna’s grandfather murdered the Northuldra leader in cold blood, precipitating the previously unexplained Northuldra attack on the Arendellians.

This realisation makes Elsa’s decision to seek the ‘truth’ at a mystical river instead of just asking the Northuldra even more uncomfortable. When are the indigenous people impacted by the colonial actions of the Arendellians allowed to tell their own stories and be believed? There is a disconnect between the way the main characters appreciate the wisdom of the Northuldra elder and the friendship of the younger generation, but don’t seek a Northuldra perspective of events. The Northuldra are used as a plot device but are never given a voice.

At this point we should also be asking why the spirits imposed a punishment that disproportionately impacted the Northuldra, who were clearly acting in self-defence. A friend suggested that it’s not my place to question how another culture’s deities decide to mete out justice, but remember that this was a plot choice of the Disney writers who felt that punishing the victims in this scenario was appropriate. The strength of the continuing Northuldra culture in the face of this adversity is never really acknowledged.

The destruction of the dam is positioned as the resolution of the story and here we do get a slightly more powerful plot point, with Anna having to choose whether to destroy the dam (and provide some kind of reparation to the Northuldra) knowing that if she does, it will also destroy Arendelle (which has been evacuated and is just an empty city at this point). This is a bit drastic for Disney however, and is toned down by Elsa saving the day at the last moment with a wall of ice that prevents the dam waters from destroying the city.

The Northuldra do not take part in destroying the dam, denying them an opportunity for symbolic justice or control over their lives and lands. Resolving the story by destroying the dam also means we don’t have to ask any difficult questions about Arendelle’s attitudes towards the Northuldra and whether these have changed in the last 34 years, or what justice for past wrongs might actually look like to the Northuldra.

Everyone lives happily ever after, presumably especially the Northuldra, who only had to wait through 34 years and one Arendellian Queen’s journey of self-discovery to get their land, water and sky back.

As a side note, there is a lovely folklore link in the movie with Elsa taming a water horse, called Nokk. Nokken are shapeshifting water spirits from Scandinavian folklore, similar to the Kelpie from Celtic folklore. I’ve included below a few of my favourite Nokken illustrations from Theodor Kittelsen (1857 – 1914), a brilliant Norwegian illustrator.