In 2013, Disney released "Frozen," a film that continues to dominate the hearts and minds of little girls everywhere to this day. No matter how many more "princess" movies Disney releases, "Frozen" remains the go-to film for young girls to watch ad nauseam, for parents to buy costumes and paraphernalia, and to blast on repeat in the car, no matter how long the journey.
The film is so insanely popular that even little boys who haven't watched the movie know who the characters are by virtue of the fact that the girls in their class bring it up from time to time. Case in point, my son is almost four and hasn't seen the film once, but he knows who Elsa is.
But the film's success made it so influential that many companies even outside of Disney have tried to replicate its formula in various ways. The right mixture hasn't been found yet, as nothing has come close to matching the impact the film had, not even its own sequel; and a part of me believes that might be because the core of the film has been tried and tested so much that it's become cliché.
Yet, despite the fact that the idea has run its course, studios won't stop doing it. If you don't know what I'm talking about yet, then once I rip the veil off, you won't be able to unsee the pattern, much like the arrow in the FedEx logo.
The core of "Frozen" is the importance of the bond, trust, and love of sisterhood. The film makes this clear as the love interest of one of the princesses ends up being an evil villain. To be fair, the real love interest ends up being the unlikely one, but the center of the film was the relationship between Elsa and her sister Anna. I don't want to give the impression that I think this is a bad thing; in fact, at the time it was a refreshing take on the genre, and it was well established as a story beat from the beginning.
But since then, the idea of a romance between a man and a woman hasn't truly been seen since 2010's "Tangled," which is currently getting a live-action reboot that I'm sure will rearrange some of the romantic aspects.
Regardless, you can see how focused the "sisterhood" has become in movies directed at little girls since. "Maleficent" was something of a story about a woman who formed a motherly bond with a girl she cursed. "Wicked" took the story of "The Wizard of Oz" and made it into a tale of two women's friendship. "Brave" focused on the relationship between the princess and her mother, the queen. "Encanto" focused on the relationship between the heroine and both her grandmother and sister.
The live-action "Snow White" remake was going to make the love interest a tertiary character, with lead actress Rachel Zegler hinting they're unimportant enough to be cut from the movie entirely. One could tell the rewrites gave the character of Jonathan (downgraded from prince to thief) more prominence than the movie originally intended.
And that brings us to the new entry. A "reimagining" of the story of Cinderella with the focus now going from Cinderella's plight of escaping her horrific life of servitude and abuse at the hands of her evil stepmother and stepsisters to — you probably guessed it already — teaming up with her stereotypical adorkable stepsister "Lilith" to save the day.
Think Cinderella’s stepsisters were the villains? Think again. STEPS, a new animated film, premieres November 20.
— Netflix (@netflix) September 17, 2026
Starring Ali Wong, Amanda Seyfried, Stephanie Hsu, Nikki Glaser, Daniel Radcliffe, Young Mazino, with Peter Dinklage, and Bette Midler. pic.twitter.com/AXqy7GqsAM
What I have to wonder is: it's clear this concept is hit or miss. So why keep pushing it?
It wouldn't be nearly as suspicious if it were paired with a classic romance option, which women and girls both tend to gravitate toward. It's not that there's no market for happily-ever-after with Prince Charming, but no studio is producing that kind of film, at least not in any capacity that would equal what we got before 2010.
So one has to wonder: Is this just the market trying to beat a dead horse that once ran like the wind, or is there something else going on here? Given the cultural/political climate, I'm suspicious it's the latter more than the former.
We all know the gap between men and women is ever widening in our current day, and the modus operandi of modern feminism, which has infected millions and millions, is "anti-male no matter what." Feminism is so gung-ho about the sisterhood that a woman can even murder her three innocent children and still be celebrated as a goddess rising.
Well... a goddess rising so long as she's not a blonde bombshell appealing to the male gaze without disdain for the men she's showing off to.
I've been in this game long enough to know that patterns are usually plans, and with Hollywood studios being dominated by leftism, and feminism being one of its chief tenets, the "sisterhood" goes from looking innocent to sinister. Stripping out the idea that a romantic relationship is a goal of a girl's life and replacing it with the "sisterhood" is something that I know for a fact modern feminism would love to have happen.
And it's not hard to see that one plus one equals two.
As far as I'm concerned, this is one more attack on our culture.
