Frozen Isn't the First to Use a Platonic Love Solution

Frozen was released in 2013, and I saw it a year later when I was a nanny for three toddlers who had the DVD.  I was excited to watch it with them for the first time, and then I saw it a few more times than I would have liked.  I can't deny it's an entertaining story, but after hearing "Let it Go" for the millionth time, I've become a little jaded to all things Frozen.  Back then, I noticed people on social media talking about how unique this movie is, because in the end, it wasn't a man, but sisterly love that saved Anna.  It strays from the predictable Disney ending of a prince saving the princess.  I thought  they had a point since it is a pretty unique ending.

Then, Disney's 2014 release, Maleficent, came out and some people criticized it for having a similar ending to Frozen.  I finally saw it this year and understood what they meant.  When the prince is unable to save Aurora from Maleficent's spell and the "evil" fairy's kiss of true love does the trick, it does seem like an echo of Anna and Elsa's story.

But I realized I had seen this platonic love solution done much earlier.  In 2006, a chick flick came out called Aquamarine.  It's the story of a beautiful mermaid named Aquamarine, whose father, Poseidon, wants her to marry a merman she's not in love with and he's like "What's love got to do with it?".  She comes to shore trying to prove to her father true love exists.  She befriends two human girls, Claire and Hailey, who try to help her make a lifeguard, named Raymond, fall in love with her.  If they succeed, the two friends get a wish for helping a mermaid.  They plan on using it to stop Hailey from moving away.  In the end, they are willing to sacrifice their wish to save Aquamarine because they love her, thus proving to Poseidon love exists.  Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?

The last piece of evidence comes in the form of a DCOM (Disney Channel original movie) from the year 2000.  If you're a 90's kid like me, I'm sure you heard about Disney Channel marathoning all the movies we grew up watching.  My sister and I were extremely excited about this so we recorded all our favorites.  Last weekend we watched Mom's Got a Date With a Vampire.  I had seen this movie many times before but hadn't really thought about it as an adult.  There was something very interesting about the resolution.  The movie opens with an evil vampire who has put an innocent woman into a trance so he can make her his vampire queen.  A man is able to save her because only true love can break a vampire's trance.  As the camera pans out, we see the main character, a kid named Adam, is actually watching this on TV because he's a monster movie fan.  The point is, we're set up from the beginning to believe romantic love is the key to saving the girl.  Adam and his sister encourage their divorced mother to go on a date with a guy who ends up being a real vampire.  The rest of the movie depicts the kids trying to save their mom from him.  But how will they do that if she isn't romantically in love with anyone?  When the vampire is about to feed on her children, the mother is able to break the trance because of her true love for them.  Everyone is saved by maternal love.
The goal of this was never to discredit Frozen.  It's definitely got modern humor and obviously kids fell in love with it.  But it's not the first to lead the audience to believe a man will save the damsel in distress only to surprise us when platonic love, whether it be friendship, maternal, or sisterly, is the real solution.  I'm sure there are many other examples of this I haven't realized yet and if you find them please let me know.  I'm always interested to discover how seemingly unrelated movies have common themes.