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As though I could be more obsessed with Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez! It turns out that Kristen and I are both products of the Williams College Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies department. And I loved what she had to say about her approach to writing the songs for Frozen in this recent interview on NPR (P.S. Sunny and Kaki’s favorite song is “We Know Better” – it’s well well worth a listen):

If you have the deluxe CD, you will see my very strong strike across the bow at all princess-myth things in the form of a song called “We Know Better,” which was a song that was cut. But it basically was these two princesses bonding over all of the things that the world expects and thinks of them. [The world thinks] that they’re perfect and sweet and sugar and spice and all things nice, and it was the two of them misbehaving and being fully well-rounded children with all the good and bad and imagination and mischief that I really feel that it’s important for our girls to be allowed to be.

It got cut, but you can tell the whole movie is full of this point of view — as much as [screenwriter and co-director] Jennifer Lee and I could put in it, because we’re both Park Slope moms, we both went through the ’90s, we took the women’s-studies courses, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to push my kids on the swing at the playground if I had written a movie where the girl wore the puffy dress and was saved not by anything active she did, but by being beautiful enough to be kissed by a prince.