Tonight I’m watching Pocahontas, and I’m joined by my friends Emily, Grace, and Mickey (so you’ll get to hear some of their thoughts, along with mine :) ). I used to watch this movie a lot as a kid, but I haven’t seen it in awhile. We’ll see how it lives up to my memories of it.
“I’d like to point out that it took this many men to do the same thing Moana did”- Emily.
“His face kind of looks like Trump”- Grace
This is kind of terrible.
Let’s go the fun way!
Not quite as graceful.
They both look so happy about the prospect of marrying.
“Just Around the Riverbend” is my favorite song.
The beaver has more expression than Kocoum. At least the beaver smiles.
Another epic Disney grandma.
Wiggins is a quality person. Ratcliffe, not so much.
Percy is offended.
“It’s all ours.” No. Just… no.
“I blame him for scavengers in the trash cans” - Emily
“Let us hope they do not intend to stay”. *Ratcliffe plants a flag* Sigh. Ratcliffe is really annoying.
“If there are any Indians out there, I’ll find them.” You fail John Smith.
The mist is really cool looking in the waterfall scene.
Is she trying to flirt with him? Before she actually learns to speak his language?
Meeko, why didn’t you let Flit stop this now?
I’m curious how much research they did regarding Native American culture in making this movie, especially when characters are not speaking English. I know historically, they were way off, but I wonder if they tried at all to portray culture accurately.
Smith is kind of a stalker. How did he know where she lived?
I love that Grandmother Willow tries to mess with John Smith before she talks to him.
How does Meeko fit in John Smith’s handbag? That thing looks tiny.
I feel like this was super stereotyped.
I think the “Savages” song is interesting. On the one hand, calling the Europeans “savages” is a cool choice, especially since they are very much the villains in this scenario. The bigger issue, however, this that it portrays the Native Americans’ anger as equivalent to the Europeans’, which is not the case. The Native Americans are justifiably angry-- their land was invaded and at least one of their own was killed. The Europeans are in this for money. It’s pretty problematic to portray it this way.
So the biggest issue with this movie is obviously how it is incredibly historically inaccurate. The movie essentially erases a story of rape and genocide and replaces it with a classic Disney love story, which is obviously problematic. (Although I will say that Disney didn’t try to shy away from portraying the racism of the English toward the Native Americans, and they did a good job of showing how cruel the Europeans were to the native people when they came to America, especially in the character of Governor Ratcliffe). Related to this is the fact that it seems like there was little actual attempt to accurately portray Native American culture. In looking at the credits, there was one Native American cultural consultant (unless I missed anything else, but I don’t think I did). For reference, Moana assembled a team of people to consult with (called the Oceanic Story Trust, I believe). I’m not in a position to say how well native cultures were represented in either film, but I think it’s safe to say Disney tried a lot harder to achieve accurate representation in Moana than Pocahontas. Now the movie in and of itself isn’t bad, if it existed in a vacuum. It’s an enjoyable movie to watch, the music is beautiful, and the scenery looks really pretty. The problem is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and what it does is misrepresent and Disney-fy a culture and history.
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