Tight Race for Best Song

Who knew that the Best Song category would turn into such a contentious mess? On the one hand you have the frontrunner, Idnina Menzel’s masterful Let it Go, which not only does everything a Best Song is supposed to do – thread through the narrative of the story, highlight its main theme and celebrate the meaning of the film overall. No song does that better than Let it Go. It comes at a pivotal moment in the plot where Elsa, the lead, has been run out of the village and is now free to finally let her power loose.  I know because I’ve seen the film four times now at the behest of my 15 year-old. No other animated film has ignited the younger generations, especially of young women, like Frozen which dares to present a Disney princess who does not need rescuing from any man and in fact doesn’t even have a love interest. The main thrust of the film isn’t about a man saving her ultimately but about sisters saving each other.   These little changes make a difference, particularly to the children who will now grow up thinking differently about what it means to be a princess.

Let it Go, however, has formidable challengers, chief among them the mighty U2, who will perform at the Oscars. U2 sings the song for Mandela, which means it has the Weinstein Co. behind it.  The power of Bono is not to be taken lightly.

They won the Globe, but will they win the Oscar?  Right behind them is Pharell, also incredibly popular after owning the Grammys.  And Karen O’s Moon Song also to be strongly considered, particularly if voters love Her enough to want to give it an extra award.

The most catchy, other than Let it Go, has to be Pharell’s Happy. What a brilliant, catchy tune that one is. I could see it winning just on that basis alone.

Frozen has become a cultural phenomenon, having made $369M. It is a powerhouse of a film – not bad for one that doesn’t have a central male figure, eh? It joins Jennifer Lawrence’s Hunger Games and Sandra Bullock’s Gravity as those gender defying blockbusters of this past year.