--- description: But "Sleeping Beauty" and "Harry Potter" are genius, says the controversial author of "12 Rules For Life" in an interview with TIME title: Why Jordan Peterson Thinks "Frozen" Is Propaganda image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt93e1842377d5f5cd/698929fc86f68e48c76e885d/10q-jordan-peterson.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Why Jordan Peterson Thinks _Frozen_ Is Propaganda, But _Sleeping Beauty_ Is Genius  by [Belinda Luscombe](/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large Mar 9, 2018 5:07 PM CUT  Daniel Hambury—Evening Standard/eyevine/Redux  by [Belinda Luscombe](/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large Mar 9, 2018 5:07 PM CUT _Psychology professor Jordan Peterson’s recent book_ _has risen to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. The Canadian academic has become a controversial commentator, including on his own YouTube channel. But before he was widely hailed and attacked for his stances on free speech, political correctness and transgender pronouns, he wrote a book about myths, fairy tales and religion, called_ Maps of Meaning_. TIME spoke with Peterson about his new book, his sudden rise to fame and his views on the news, at length_ [_here_](http://time.com/5175974/jordan-peterson-12-rules-book-interview/ "undefined")_. But he also spoke about why he detests the 2013 animated movie_ Frozen_; TIME has included that portion of the conversation below._ **In your new book 1** **_2 Rules For Life_** **, you’re very critical of** **_Frozen_** **. Why do you call it “deeply propagandistic”?** It attempted to write a modern fable that was a counter-narrative to a classic story like, let’s say, _Sleeping Beauty_ — but with no understanding whatsoever of the underlying archetypal dynamics. You could say that Sleeping Beauty was raised out of her unconsciousness via a delivering male. Another way of reading the story is that unconsciousness requires active consciousness as an antidote. And the unconsciousness is symbolized in that particular story by femininity and active consciousness by masculinity. I could hardly sit through _Frozen_. There was an attempt to craft a moral message and to build the story around that, instead of building the story and letting the moral message emerge. It was the subjugation of art to propaganda, in my estimation. **Not just a lovely story about sisterhood?** No, not just a lovely story about sisterhood. No, ‘fraid not. No, you don’t spend tens of millions of dollars on a carefully crafted narrative that’s just a lovely story unless that’s what you’re trying to tell. That isn’t what the people who made _Frozen_ were trying to tell. Not in my estimation. **You regard it as more propagandistic than say,** **_The Little Mermaid_** **?** Those other movies are based on folktales that are maybe — some of those folktales have been traced back 13,000 years. **Aren’t we allowed to make up new stories?** Not for political reasons. **Who gets to choose what’s propaganda? I mean, they’re Disney movies. None of them are super subtle.** Well, that’s a good question. I wrote a whole book, _Maps of Meaning_, about that. It’s about 500 pages long, and it’s an attempt to answer that really complicated question. A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of I could say the world, but it’s actually a being. _Harry Potter_’s a good example. So Harry’s the hero, right. But he’s tainted with evil. There’s a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It’s well balanced. And in the propagandistic story, you don’t see that. You see the darkness all being in one place and the light all being in one place. **Isn’t the darkness and the light in Elsa, who has the power to freeze things, for good or ill?** The most propagandistic element of _Frozen_ was the transformation of the prince at the beginning of the story who was a perfectly good guy, into a villain with no character development whatsoever about three-quarters of the way to the ending. **He was a villain the whole time! He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing!** That’s how it turned out in the end, but there was no indication of that at the beginning. **That’s good story craft — not tipping your hand. Like** **_The Crying Game_** **.** It’s certainly possible that I’m wrong about _Frozen_, although I don’t think so. **Let’s make a bet. In 10 years, if** **_Frozen_** **hasn’t fallen off the** [**top 20 great Disney animated movies**](http://www.imdb.com/list/ls059541704/ "undefined")**, you have to write a public retraction.** I’ve made a video about [_Sleeping Beauty_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUhzBvYfoOk "undefined") and about [_The Lion King_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iLiKMUiyTI "undefined")_._ And I’d like to make one about _The Little Mermaid_ and _Beauty and the Beast_. And I could make one about _Frozen_ too. That might be a good way of answering that question. Though I didn’t care for it at all. I doubt very much whether people will be watching _Frozen_ in ten years. **I think they might. Very catchy tune.** It is a catchy tune. _This interview has been edited and condensed._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/"},"headline":"Why Jordan Peterson Thinks Frozen Is Propaganda, But Sleeping Beauty Is Genius","datePublished":"2018-03-09T17:07:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:26:55.340Z","description":"A brief debate with the controversial author","url":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/","keywords":["Interview"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt93e1842377d5f5cd/698929fc86f68e48c76e885d/10q-jordan-peterson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Belinda Luscombe","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt93e1842377d5f5cd/698929fc86f68e48c76e885d/10q-jordan-peterson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"10q-jordan-peterson","caption":"","creditText":"Daniel Hambury—Evening Standard/eyevine/Redux","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/","name":"Why Jordan Peterson Thinks Frozen Is Propaganda, But Sleeping Beauty Is Genius"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Disney's Frozen Official Trailer","description":"Disney's Frozen Official Trailer","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/FQxk1ZM2/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-03-09T17:17:27.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FQxk1ZM2.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5176537/jordan-peterson-frozen-movie-disney/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```