ALLI JOSEPH
This Thanksgiving the receipts for the opening weekend of the new Disney film Moana rocketed to $82 million domestically and $99 million globally. At this rate the new film is poised to crush Frozen and Big Hero 6.
What’s more, after only a week in business, it is already winning critical acclaim and beginning to rack up award nominations. Maybe most encouraging of all, Native Americans and other indigenous people are loving Moana, which means “ocean” and tells the story of a young Pacific Islander chief’s daughter, a bold, strong and independent teen who sets sail to save her people.
I took my children, who are of mixed ethnicity—part Native American, African American and white—to see Moana last weekend, and I lamented that they would never understand how much progress this represents for the portrayal of indigenous people in mass media. True, they’re little kids, and they should be expected to watch an animated film only with the limited scope and wonder of all children. But the experience impelled me to write about the swelling pride I felt during this film and how my late mother would have felt about it.
indigenous
native to a place; increasingly, this term is used in reference to the groups that lived in the Americas and the Pacific before the arrival of Europeans.
She passed away nine years ago today and was a fierce advocate for equal and civil rights and outspoken about the horrible racist stereotypes of Native Americans, black people and other brown folks specifically in Disney films. She might have actually tipped her hat to this one, as I did. Here’s why.
It’s easy to see why most are loving on the film. This is the first time that a female Pacific Islander is the principal character of a major Disney animation film. She doesn’t need a man. She sails her own boat. The ocean, which is a character in the film, loves and propels her.
Many Pacific Islanders have praised Moana across social media, with tweets expressing joy and optimism about the character and the film. The young indigenous Hawaiian actress who voiced the character, Auli’i Cravalho, knows she has added responsibility portraying the first Disney person of color from the Pacific.
“I carry, of course, such a big responsibility with the Polynesian community and I love it. I really do,” 16-year-old Cravalho told People magazine recently. “It warms my heart every time I think about it.”
Auli’i Cravalho
Closer to home, Natahne Dennis, a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, took her young daughter to see the film last weekend. She wrote on Facebook, “I was watery-eyed through half of it. . . . It’s all about not forgetting who you are and where you come from . . . keeping with your traditions, listening to your elders and respecting the power of all our elements . . . very relative to what’s happening right now.”
Shinnecock Indian Nation
a federally recognized Native tribe, part of the Algonquian peoples, located on the eastern end of Long Island, New York.
Though it’s a film made for children, Moana has a cultural and social relevance for adults as well. I cried, too, at the soaring songs, and their lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which rang out about freedom and the import of knowing where you come from.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980– )
award-winning American composer, lyricist, playwright, and actor of Puerto Rican descent. He is best known for his work on the 2015 Broadway musical, Hamilton: An American Musical, for which he wrote the book, lyrics, and music and in which he acted.
What Disney got right was its portrayal of a strong, teenage female character of color—again, an indigenous person—without a love interest. It is the first Disney film in which the heroine, a bona fide Disney princess though she is, has no male suitor and she’s not interested in finding one. Moana is bright, resourceful, strong and adventurous, making decisions from the heart and based on her heritage that she feels will benefit her people and save their homeland from destruction at the hands of a folkloric demon.
Disney didn’t get it all right, however. Critics observe the corporate animation house stole brown peoples’ cultural mores and identity to make a buck, and didn’t fully consult them on content all the way through. The critics aren’t wrong, but what they expect is not realistic: Making big studio features is a business proposition; crafting a documentary that explores true culture and origins typically is not.
mores (pronounced mo-rayz)
a community’s customs, traditions, and ways of behaving shaped by its social norms.
Cultural appropriation is a common complaint about the media and not surprising here—and disappointing, as Moana is overall an uplifting, beautiful film. But the film’s achievements are not enough for some to cite progress toward more accurate, less-stereotypical portrayal of other cultures in film. In Indian Country Today, Vicente Diaz wrote, “A small but growing movement of Pacific Islanders . . . are expressing outcry, mostly in social media.” Diaz said protesters decry the “company’s trafficking on indigenous cultural heritage.”
cultural appropriation (sometimes cultural misappropriation)
the use of elements of a minority culture—clothing, foodways, music, etc.—by the majority culture, often to the benefit of members of the majority culture and denigration of the source culture. To appropriate something is to borrow and use it without permission.
Indian Country Today
from 2011 to 2017, Indian Country Today was first a weekly online newsletter and later a Web site and multimedia news platform about the Native peoples of North America.
As a Native American and a member of the media who has worked in advertising, broadcasting and Web content creation over the past 20 years, I understand the confluence of imagery, cost and influence that goes into making a successful brand. Those who are angry at Disney managers’ trading on cultures not their own fail to acknowledge or accept the way business is done. We may not like it, but understanding it gives perspective.
confluence
a merging or coming together, as of two rivers.
That said, it is a valid argument to demand consistent and responsible input from respected elders and historians from the culture being portrayed. And if you want change, sometimes you have to accept progress when it comes, endorse it but ask for more—and then observe.
Native American scholars including Kelsey Leonard, a Harvard and Oxford educated Shinnecock tribal member, have urged caution when labeling a film an “accurate portrayal” of indigenous people “especially if we are not from, as in the case of Moana,” a Pacific Island nation, as Leonard put it.
Kelsey Leonard (1980– )
first Native American woman to earn a degree from Oxford University in England, where she received her MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management. She was also the first member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation to graduate from Harvard University, where she studied sociology, anthropology, and ethnic studies.
“If you do not know the oral history, are not from those islands, have never visited those places, do not understand the vast diversity of languages and peoples, then extreme caution should be used in making sweeping claims about this movie,” Leonard said. “If they made a movie about Shinnecocks, I wouldn’t want a Navajo telling me if it was an accurate portrayal.”
Disney has maintained that everybody involved in the production of the picture did their level best to make a responsible film that honors Pacific Island culture, traditions and history. Early reports that director and New Zealander Taika Waititi was consulted through the entire film, were not accurate.
Taika Waititi (1975– )
also known as Taika Cohen, is among the most successful New Zealand film directors. His father is Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, while his mother is of Russian Jewish heritage.
This is the story.
Our readings last week discussed how popular culture stereotypes all of us based on race, gender, and many other factors. Write a paper analyzing ONE of the articles we have read thus far in our textbook. The articles we have read are listed in the previous learning module. Your paper must discuss the argument of the article and summarize the main points. Please use actual quotes from the article. NO OUTSIDE RESEARCH in this paper.
