Pocahontas
Postcolonial prostitute or poster child for
Native Spirituality?
Pocahontas as
“colonized”
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According to Rowlett, there are 4 elements
in the Pocahontas story that reveal the
“colonized” nature of the Disney story…
– A) she falls in love with a conqueror
– B) she saves conquerors from her own
people
– C) she wholeheartedly embraces the
conqueror’s culture
– D) Her body, and her reproductive
powers, are co-opted by the
conquering culture
Are all 4 of these elements really found in
the Disney film (as opposed to narratives
about the “historical” Pocahontas)?
Savages, savages…
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According to Rowlett, “the English troops and the Native American warriors are shown
as morally equivalent” in this scene. Rowlett p. 70.
According to Pinsky, however, “by this time in Pocahontas even a child can see that
this is a false, belated symmetry. There is no moral equivalence in this battle.” p. 163
What accusations do the Europeans make about the Natives? What accusations do the
Natives make about the Europeans? Does the film privilege one set of accusations
over the other?
What visual “pun” does Disney use in this scene as a commentary on European
accusations?
Disney’s factual “errors”
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According to Rowlett:
– Pocahontas portrayed as older than historical Pocahontas
– Pocahontas looks more Asian than Native
– No romance with John Smith
– Native spirituality is “absurd hodge-podge” - no anthropomophized
trees or pet animals
According to the Schweizers:
– No conversion to Christianity
– No mention of Ratcliffe’s true fate at the hands of Natives
– No mention of fate of Pocahontas’s real mother or marital practices
of her real father
– Pocahontas transformed from Christian convert to “cover girl for
Native American philosophies and present-day ecological concerns.”
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How do these “errors” help shape the film’s “message?”
• Does it matter (why and to whom?) that the film is not
“historically” accurate?
Pocahontas a “love addict?”
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“In Disney’s cartoon and in its recent
sequel, Pocahontas appears as
something of a love addict. She is
madly in love with Smith in one
episode, then he leaves and Rolfe
comes along. She is wildly smitten
again…Consequently, Disney,
Hollywood and other producers of
popular culture promulgate and
reinforce over and over again the idea
that a young woman’s pathway to
happiness lies in being swept away by
a strong male who will marry her.”
Rowlett p. 74
Does Pocahontas teach girls to be “love
addicts?”
Does Pocahontas teach girls that their
path to happiness lies in marriage?
Does Disney generally teach this
message?
Pocahontas reinforces
imperialistic structures?
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“In the Disney cartoon, then, when Pocahontas leaves her people in favor of
seeking her fortune with a white man in a foreign culture, the stamp of
approval is given to the ‘couple’ as the primary unit of society rather than the
community, which would have centered on the mother’s kin group.” Rowlett,
p. 75
Does Pocahontas leave her people to seek her fortune with a white man in
the Disney film?
Would Pocahontas’s historical community really have put the emphasis on
her mother’s kin group?
Has Disney’s Pocahontas been given
“words to speak in praise of [colonizing
powers] as conquering heroes”? Is she
“worth saving and assimilating because she
recognizes the specialness of the
conquerors, making her the mirror
which magnifies their own
glory”? Rowlett, p.75
Colors of the Wind
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“What they created was a script about religious conversion - but not to
Christianity. In the Disney version, it is Captain John Smith who experiences a
politically correct religious conversion… Captain John Smith embraces
animism, and it defines the entire film…This is not simply a movie about
tolerance, but about achieving tolerance through a particular spiritual channel.”
Schweizer & Schweizer, pp.155-156. True?
Pocahontas’s missing conversion
John Chapman, The Baptism of Pocahontas, 1840
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“It takes a historical icon that has been used in the past to legitimate their view of
America - Pocahontas’s conversion representing native recognition of the
superiority of Christianity, and with it the justification of European conquest ‘to
build a great nation, under God’ - and turns it against them.” Pinsky pp. 154-165.
Is Pocahontas anti-Christian by omission?
Is Pocahontas pro-Native American spirituality?
Does Pocahontas advocate a “post-Christian era of religious democracy?”