Okay before we start spoiler warning: In order to talk about this
I'm going to have to spoil Once Upon a Time, Frozen, Maleficent, Saturday’s
Warrior and Star Child.
You've been warned.
What exactly is true love? Disney has been
harping on this concept since it's first animated feature Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves. It took true love's kiss to wake up Snow White, it took true
love's kiss to wake up Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, it took true love's kiss to
break Ursula's spell in The Little Mermaid, what is it?
If we take a shot in the dark based on
these and most other movies and TV shows we can guess that true love means the
one you're supposed to be with forever, despite barely knowing them or
sometimes even having officially gotten their names. True love is the power of
love no matter what the obstacle, weather distance, time, magic or common
sense.
And it's the one thing from children's
entertainment that's been criticized the most.
The problem isn't in children necessarily
believing in true love. A five-year-old girl thinking that someday her prince
will come doesn't do that much harm. However, a 25 year old woman who blindly
cruses into a relationship with someone she barely knows because she believes
it's true love, that can be a problem, especially when the guy knows how to manipulate
the poor princess fan.
Everyone has seen this happen.
Lately true love has had a bit of a
makeover form it's romantic roots. The season finale of Once Upon a Time's
first season includes a true love's kiss, but it's between a mother and child.
Frozen broadened the concept of true love by making it an "Act of true
love", so that the act wasn't a kiss but a selfless sacrifice between
sisters. In Maleficent (now for the big spoiler) the curse isn't broken by the
prince, in fact the prince is barely in it. Maleficent breaks her own curse
with her own kiss, and it doesn't even bother explaining if it's the love of a
mother to a psuedo-daughter, or the love of friendship, or part of the curse
itself. 
So does this work? Well considering the
overwhelming popularity of these films, yeah I'd say it works. For audiences at
least. As far as a story telling trope it makes a lot more sense than the person
I just met is automatically my true love and that love is powerful enough to
reverse death nonsense. It creates for some interesting character dynamics and
relationships to be addressed besides romance, like sisters and parents.
Now you wanna know something awesome?
LDS cinema did it first.
Before we had God’s Army (Which I’m talking about next week) and
Single’s Ward, LDS cinema only had a few ponies in it’s stable, one of them
being Saturday’s Warrior. The film was a play BYU made a movie about and
featured the maid from the Brady Bunch as well as a couple of catchy songs. It’s
was pure cheese, a little apocryphal, and generally harmless. One of it’s
biggest plot points was the idea that two characters had met in the pre-existence
and had promised to find each other on earth, marry, and live through the
eternities. In the film they do thanks to some loveable but dopey missionaries.
There’s your typical true love story.
But there was a sequel.
Yes apparently this weird little play/film was so popular someone
wrote a sequel called Star Child. The play was filmed during one performance
and was put to video so somewhere out there this little gem exists, and it is
awesome. The story once again starts in the pre-existence but instead of a man
and woman pledging eternal love it’s two men pledging eternal friendship (Don’t
freak out they’re just friends). The tension comes when they find out that one
will be born into the gospel and the other will not, so thus the one pledges to
become a missionary to bring the gospel to the other. They then, and I’m not making this up, create
a constellation of a child riding a unicorn as a sign of their friendship in
the hopes that some part of them remembers it until they find each other again.
Skip ahead to earth life and our guy born into the gospel has
taken some wrong turns and has become a drinker and smoker, and our non-member
has become a scientist in another country. The inactive member ends up somehow
getting into BYU and becomes roommates with the missionaries from Saturday’s
Warrior, and they make it their project to get him on his mission for some
reason.
More nonsense happens and the guy eventually gets his testimony
back and ends up on his mission to-you guessed it- whatever country we’re
pretending the other guy is in, and on his P-day runs into his buddy from the
pre-existence. I couldn’t find the scene on Youtube but it really does feel
like all those stupid fairy tale scenes when the prince finds his princess, and
yet it doesn’t. There are no romantic ties between these two characters. When
they see each other it really is a moment of quasi-recognition and love, and
with the context I would honestly call it true love.
The film ends on a happy note, everyone gets baptized and married
and whatever and the two men stay BFFs forever, no curses broken, no acts
having to be performed, just love.
So if anyone tries to act all superior saying how innovative
Frozen is, you can now with an air of complete hipsterness to you say we did it
first.
-JOE
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