Admiral Robert Papp, a high-ranking Obama administrator, wants to use the magic of the movie "Frozen" to sell America's children on climate change, but he got a cold shoulder from filmmaker Disney.
Speaking at the Arctic Frontiers conference in Norway last week, he told the story of a "bright young lady" in his office at the State Department who "has to be the biggest fan of that Disney movie in the entire United States."
According to Papp, this prodigal superfan "came up with a very brilliant idea, that to raise the awareness of the American public, we might employ Disney to come up with some public service announcements, and use Elsa, and Anna, and Sven, and Olaf to tell the story of the Arctic to educate the children in the United States."
Papp, who was appointed the U.S. special representative for the Arctic last summer, agreed that the State Department should get involved with the film. He soon had his staff arrange a meeting with a Disney executive,
National Journal reported.
"You’ve taught an entire generation about the Arctic," Papp said in his conversation with the Disney rep. "Unfortunately, the Arctic that you’ve taught them about is a fantasy kingdom in Norway, where everything is nice. What we really need to do is educate the American youth about the plight of the polar bear, about the thawing tundra, about Alaskan villages that run the risk of falling into the sea because of the lack of sea ice protecting their shores."
As he continued to lay out his plan to turn the beloved Disney characters into mouthpieces of the federal government, he said he "could see the executive getting more and more perplexed."
Finally, the executive stopped him.
"Admiral, you might not understand," he told Papp. "Here at Disney it’s in our culture to tell stories that project optimism and have happy endings."