I’d wager the above isn’t a phrase most people are used to 
hearing. Still, two guys indeed sat around watching Frozen recently, and I was one of them. Don’t ask what led to this because I don’t remember all the details of that night — only that my roommate, who chooses to remain nameless (his name’s Brett), ended up receiving the movie from Netflix, and for some reason (I haven’t ruled out the possibility of witchcraft), it ended up in the DVD player.
Typically, when you receive a Netflix movie (so inviting in that red envelope), you’re pretty sure that watching it will be a good idea — or, if not a good idea, at least something you chose to happen. Sometimes, however, you find yourself confronted by one of those “well, I guess we have to watch this” feelings, especially when you’ve just moved into this apartment and had no idea the movie was even in Brett’s queue to begin with. But so many people had said good things about this particular animated success that I thought, Hey, you never know — we could have another WALL-E on our hands…
The movie details the lives of two royal sisters who were close until a childhood mishap turned one of them into a real ice queen. There were some magic little rock trolls in there, too, and one of the girls may have been half troll or — well, I can’t remember. Somebody should have died of hypothermia; I’m certain of that. But maybe singing about every random thing keeps you warm. Speaking of that, the songs in the movie can cause problems (mostly whistling-related problems) long after you’ve ejected the DVD and accidentally put it out with the recycling.
Once finished with Frozen, Brett and I almost immediately streamed Bronson, a fictionalized biopic in which Tom Hardy portrays a man who’s been called “the most violent prisoner in Britain.” We didn’t beat on our chests afterward or anything, but there was a harmony in the room as palpable as a sigh of relief. And I wondered if maybe we’d been improved somehow, crazy as it sounds, by watching that girly, snowy thing first instead of just rushing headlong into a film about a real guy who once got nude and slicked with butter before fighting twelve guards. You see, the harmony never would have existed if we hadn’t rolled our eyes for an hour and a half before watching “Charles Bronson” pummel everyone he met.
And maybe what little good we got from Frozen will help to bring that harmony for the rest of our days, stealthily strewn over every troubling moment like the finest sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar or a serene dusting of snow. I’d be fine with the latter, for sure; “the cold never bothered me anyway.” Sorry, I had to.
Life has mostly gotten back to normal since the incident. Brett and I watch Die Hard every other night, but that’s only a little more than usual, and I’m finally down to just three bacon-and-steak sandwiches a day. I still find myself whistling “Let It Go” sometimes, though, and not as ironically as I’d like. It’s possible that I may be forever prompted to whistle it — and perhaps even sing it — every time someone uses the words “let” or “go” in my presence. I feel pretty confident, though, that forty or so push-ups right after such whistling/singing will again produce the harmony I spoke of earlier. And here, at last, I come to the point: Maybe nobody should be just a Bronson person or even just a Frozen person; maybe we should all be Brozen people.
Imagine, for instance, what would happen if most violent jihadists tempered all their jihading with a little snickerdoodle-baking. The jihads would probably begin to taper off, don’t you think? I’m not kidding. Intermittent discussions involving ratios of cinnamon and sugar would have to have an effect. Hey, even if there was one less jihad a month, we’d have a positive.
And think of the person who lives only for snickerdoodles and nothing else, always baking them and trying out new recipes to the point where they’re just sick to death of snickerdoodles. What if that person began their own “jihad” regimen of sorts by, I don’t know, moonlighting as a jammer in a local roller derby. They’d probably find themselves once again looking forward to some warm, soft snickerdoodles after taking an elbow to the face. Sure, I’m dealing in exaggerations here, but isn’t that what humans are accustomed to doing?
The point I’ve made isn’t a profound one, not exactly ground-breaking; no monument of me will ever be constructed because I’ve drawn something valuable out of a night where two guys managed to sit through every minute of Frozen without screaming. If such a monument did one day exist, it would surely feature a bad picture of me and the word “Duh” etched underneath. Nevertheless, feel free to ponder what I’ve written here while I go eat a few bonbons and watch the Mad Max: Fury Road trailer again.