Fixer Upper Spoils The Plot to Frozen (And Here's Why)
Not to feel like a conspiracy theorist, but here's my theory...
While working on my newest video talking about how Disney is Killing Their Found Families in their sequels, I noticed something very peculiar about the song “Fixer Upper” in the first Frozen movie.
It’s a silly song. It’s a bunch of rock trolls singing about setting Kristoff up with Anna after a misunderstanding. I don’t know a lot of music terminology myself, but looking at the lyrics, the first half of the song is making fun of Kristoff. Pointing out his flaws and why someone probably wouldn’t want to date him. But in the fun sort of way– where it’s clearly a family ribbing off one of their siblings. He looks offended, but not too visibly hurt during the film.
The song acts as a bridge between two chaotic moments– Anna being hit by Elsa’s ice magic in the ice castle, and Anna’s frozen heart taking over her body. As it’s a modern Disney movie, these serious moments need to be balanced out with comedy. Or sometimes, to make the story move along a little faster. But most of the time, it’s to the detriment of the whole film, as it can suddenly feel like whiplash.
But “Fixer Upper” is an exception to that rule. It’s silly and goofy, and animated to be funny, but it’s not just the song bridging two plot points to get the story going faster, while providing the families with a bit of respite between two “stressful” plot moments.
It’s a lot more. It subtly foreshadows the rest of the story of Frozen.
(Okay, okay, let me explain.)
At this point in the story, Anna and Elsa, our protagonist and antagonist (not villain– antagonist) are drifting even further apart. Elsa’s just learned she’s caused a chaotic eternal winter after her powers were revealed to her kingdom, and her world is falling apart. She’s very inside her self– inside her anxiety, inside her own mind, maybe even frozen with fear, if you will. As it’s said in the beginning of the film– “fear will be your enemy”. And it becomes Elsa’s biggest adversary.
She’s spent her whole life, essentially, afraid of herself. Their parents’ attempt to bring some normalcy to their family after Anna’s accident, when they’re kids accidentally lead Elsa to develop crippling anxiety regarding her powers. The fear doesn’t necessarily come from the people, as the troll Grand Pabby led them to believe– the fear comes from within Elsa. Her ice castle, which was once full of beautiful blues and cyans, is now full of anxiety-inducing purples and reds.
The mantra of “conceal, don’t feel” is starting to take over Elsa.
On the other side, Anna is hurt. Not just physically (though she doesn’t quite understand that yet), but mentally and emotionally. Elsa kicked her out. Elsa rejected her. Elsa summoned a giant ice golem to forcibly evict Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven from the ice castle fortress she built. Sure, Anna got hurt by Elsa’s magic, but she sees it as a more momentary thing– she’s more focused on the emotional pain of the rejection from her sister again. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, why Elsa never told her about her ice powers, why Elsa is always so cold and distant– her memories of her childhood were changed by Grand Pabby, so she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know. Her parents isolated her to protect her, but also led to her being trapped, lonely, and with nobody to talk to but the pictures on the walls.
Really– their parents were lowkey villains in this film. I get that they were doing their best but look! Both their kids now suffer from anxiety!
Kristoff hauls Anna off to the rock trolls who adopted him when he was young, realizing that Anna was hit by Elsa’s magic and something is wrong as her hair is turning white. The trolls take one look at Anna and assume something completely different.
Kristoff has brought a girl over.
The song “Fixer Upper” starts here. Even as Kristoff and Anna try to correct the trolls, they don’t listen, and start singing about, well, hey, Kristoff has a lot of flaws like this, but he is a really, really great guy.
Like, yeah, he’s blond, and that’s unmanly. But he’s honest! He’s sensitive and sweet, even if he’s a little smelly.
After a bit, the two are separated. The male trolls take Kristoff aside while the female trolls take Anna aside, and they sing to them individually, trying to make the case. And this, friends, is where the foreshadowing for the rest of the story picks up.
The male trolls, upon learning that Anna is already engaged, pull into a huddle to try and talk it over.
So she’s a bit of a fixer-upper, that’s a minor thing
Her quote ‘engagement’ is a flex arrangement
And by the way I don’t see no ring!
So she’s a bit of a fixer-upper, her brain’s a bit betwixt
Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed
If you don’t know the twist of Frozen, sorry for spoiling it for you… About thirteen years after the movie came out. But Hans is a bad guy. He’s not the big villain or antagonist– that’s Elsa, even if we all love her– but it’s revealed he doesn’t really love Anna. “Oh, Anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you,” is said by him at the climax of the film as he reveals he didn’t actually love her the way she loved him. He’s the youngest prince in a huge succession line, so he’s been traveling around to other kingdoms to try to marry into power.
Upon finding Arendelle and being there when Elsa’s powers are revealed, he realized he could find a way to imprison/trap/kill Elsa while marrying the sweet, innocent, naive Anna to become king.
Of course; that doesn’t happen. But the lines sung by the trolls are almost ironically prophetic. Like, they’re singing in a way that would get rid of Hans– arguing that the engagement is “flexible”, since Anna has no ring. Maybe they can tell something is wrong about it, but don’t say it outright.
Once Hans is out of the way, of course, Kristoff and Anna become the true couple of the story. But it’s not until after the climax, when everything is to their “new normal”, where Kristoff and Anna are dating, or “courting”, or whatever you want to call it in a Disney film before they get engaged/married.
Arguably; the line “So she’s a bit of a fixer-upper, her brain’s a bit betwixt”; is the trolls acknowledging or noticing Anna is stuck between two people. Hans and now Kristoff.
And then we have the lines sung to Anna, which are a lot gentler than what the male trolls sing to Kristoff.
We’re not saying you can change him, ‘cause people don’t really change
We’re only saying that love’s a force that’s powerful and strange
People make bad choices if they’re mad, or scared, or stressed
But throw a little love their way (throw a little love their way)
And you’ll bring out their best
True love brings out their best
This is sung in obvious reference to Kristoff. Obviously, people don’t really change, except love can bring out the best in people. Kristoff might stay smelly, awkward, clumsy– all the things they rag on him about, but when you’re in love with someone, it can bring out the best in yourself.
But deep down, the lyrics are focusing not on Kristoff– but on Elsa.
The second plot twist of Frozen is not that Kristoff is able to save Anna from freezing– it’s Anna who saves herself with an act of true love.
After Hans puts out the fire and leaves Anna to freeze to go kill Elsa, who escaped– and he would take over the kingdom by default, I guess– Anna manages to get out into the frozen fjord with Olaf’s help. The storm is really picking up. A lot of characters are moving at once.
Kristoff is trying to find Anna, worried that something has happened. Realizing that he’s in love with her.
Anna is trying to find Kristoff, realizing she’s in love with him, and she needs him to help unfreeze her.
Elsa is trying to escape. Hans had captured her and chained her into the dungeon of the castle, but her ice gets so cold she can shatter the iron to escape.
And Hans is trying to find Elsa, to try and finish things off so he can assume control of the throne.
It’s very chaotic, but Hans catches up to Elsa first, and tells her that Anna died because of Elsa’s magic. That Elsa hit her heart, and Anna froze. This breaks Elsa further than we’ve seen in the film. Even her blizzard freezes around her, and she falls onto the ice, broken.
When the blizzard freezes, Anna can see Kristoff again, running across the ice. But she can also see Elsa and Hans. Elsa, collapsed, in mourning. Hans, behind her, lifting his sword. She’s at this point starting to freeze, as frost covers her cheeks and her hair is snow white. She has a choice– be saved by Hans, or save her sister.
And Anna saves her sister. She blocks Hans’ sword, using her last breath as an act of true love to her sister. Which thaws her out in the end.
The entire stanza sung by the trolls to Anna is telling her, essentially:
“People make bad choices when they’re scared. People can hurt you when they’re scared, including people who love you. But love them, and it can bring out the best in them. Love them, and maybe they can actually change.”
The act of true love at the end– Anna sacrificing herself to save Elsa– is twofold.
One. It counts as the act of true love that thaws Anna’s frozen heart. She returns to normal, warm and flesh and human again.
And two– it shows Elsa the meaning of love. Elsa has pushed Anna away for almost their whole lives. Not that Elsa could explain everything to her easily, including after the death of her parents. But Elsa sees this act of true love, and it does change her a bit inside. It makes her realize something.
That she’s not alone. She’s already tired of hiding herself. And Anna almost killed herself to save Elsa from being killed. That sort of sacrifice doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s a lightbulb moment for Elsa. Anna loves her. That love thaws Elsa’s own frozen heart– metaphorically– and she realizes she can’t keep using her fear to control her. “Conceal, don’t feel”-- allowing fear to be her enemy– isn’t the way that her powers will work. Doing that hurts people.
So she lets the love in. And she’s able to thaw the frozen fjord, and they all live happily ever after.
The song “Fixer Upper” is such a minuscule song. You could argue it’s one of the less popular ones on the soundtrack, especially after “Let It Go” blew up following the release of the film. But it’s arguably just as important– or even just a little more– than “Let It Go”. The song doesn’t just poke fun at Kristoff. It’s a clever way to tell the audience how the story is going to end.