Let It Go: An Anthem for Girl Power

Disney’s movie Frozen has a song in it called “Let It Go” that seems to have taken on a life of its own. I loved the movie, and I know my son enjoyed it, but…it obviously didn’t resonate with him the way it did with me.

In fact, as I was caught up in the story and song (and the new reclining lounge seats in the theater were a lovely bonus), he turned to me and said, “It’s good and all, but I think there’s too much singing.”

Well, Doug Downer, what’s up with that?

I’ve since read countless Facebook comments from my friends with little girls remarking that their daughters know the song by heart and won’t stop singing it. It is so popular that Disney re-released the movie in a sing-along version.

So…why? Why is this song so popular?

Well, just take a(nother) listen…

It is a captivating song about embracing your power and letting your fears go to become the person you were meant to be. Who doesn’t love that?

Yet it is definitely something that has caught on with girls more than boys. Granted, it’s not the typical movie that would become a boy’s favorite—after all, it is about two sisters (“ew!”) and their story, so it is not necessarily something that boys would gravitate toward, but I think there’s more to it.

Though Disney can’t seem to have a female lead that isn’t storybook gorgeous, the song’s message is not about embracing the power of your sexuality but rather your true gift…whatever that might be. If you notice in the clip, it doesn’t take Elsa long to hone that gift into amazing beauty once she decides to declare it.

And now, lookout people, because I’m about to go uber soapbox here.

We need to embrace who we are—all of us—but we need to particularly teach our girls that they need to embrace who they are and not try to fit into the cookie cutter mode of what is “expected” of women in this culture.

Maybe our girls are rocking out on it because they need to hear that it is okay to let it go and be themselves. Maybe they need to hear it more than we are saying it. Even in 2014. And maybe we grown women need to hear it, too.

Like the words in the song, we need to not care about what others say and let go of that “perfect girl” and the “good girl” and find out what beauty lies within us.

It seems like a non-argument to raise each other up for our true gifts and encourage our own truths, but that’s not what we as a society are teaching really, is it?

In this culture of celebrity and over-sexualized objectification, I think we have a lot more work to do.

I remember learning long ago how even in body language females are taught to “fold in” while males are taught to stretch out, and I find it to be true—women are encouraged in general to take up less space.

And then I see little six-year-old girls in dance class being taught how to bump and grind like grown women and wear full makeup and dress beyond their years, and I wonder what message they are taking away from that.

And girls who only want to be cheerleaders (go ahead and call it a sport, but it is rooted in cheering the boys on rather than participating in the sport itself) because they don’t want to “be a jock,” and I wonder why that label is so unappealing to them.

Please know that I am not saying that being a dancer or cheerleader is inherently wrong—but I do think that we need to pay attention to the messages that might lurk within.

After all—if that is the true gift for someone—to dance or do complex cheerleading mounts, then go for it! But if it is done because of “shoulds” and fears of not wanting to stand out in the “wrong” way, then I say we need to LET IT GO.

Let it go. Forget what the world sees in you or expects of you and look for what makes your heart truly beat…and then DO it.

Without apology. Without worry that you will be seen as less.

Because it is only when you let it go and let yourself be who God made you to be that you can be all the MORE you were meant to be.

Even if it means being out in the cold…just remember to tell yourself…

…the cold never bothered me anyway.