Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Analysis of Disney's Teaser for their Upcoming Film Moana



Moana: Disney’s Future
Last month Disney announced a new film, Moana, which will be set in the ancient South Pacific world.  Ron Clements and Jon Musker, the directors responsible for Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and The Princess and the Frog, are at the helm of this project.  The film will follow Moana as she sets out across the ocean with the help of the demi-god Maui. According to Musker in an interview, the character, Moana, is passionate and devoted to the ocean. Disney will release the film in late 2016 (Disney).

Figure 1. Press Release Image For Disney’s Moana


Disney animated films have often focused on white female-lead characters, especially in their princess films such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, and others. Even Jasmine, a Disneyified non-white princess, is portrayed as more fair-skinned and Western in behavior than other Arabs in Aladdin (Giroux 139). Despite this history, Disney is changing gears. Films such as Lilo and Stitch and The Princess and the Frog have both made an effort to break up the overall lack of diversity in Disney animated films. Furthermore, Frozen follows this trend by displaying improved representations of non-normed characters despite  still being problematic. America’s diversification demands that these changes continue. Millennials, the generation of people who are entering or at adulthood, are increasingly diverse and are the largest generation of Americans (NPR). They are people who have grown up with Disney and will likely continue to consume Disney products and watch Disney movies. Thus the task of improving diversity of characters is very important to Disney if they want to maintain hold over this large consumer base. Disney’s announcing Moana indicates their push to diversify their films by focusing on Polynesian culture, which has been largely unrepresented in American culture.
In light of this announcement, we can see three primary outcomes of this film: a serious effort to improve diversity, a mere upholding of the status quo, or a short-term upsetting of the norm. In order to understand Disney’s motivations for focusing on Polynesian culture, one should view this announcement with respect to multiple factors including Ron Clements and Jon Musker’s past directorial experience under Disney, the film Lilo and Stitch, and writings by Polynesian authors about the Americanization of their culture.  
The press release (Figure 1) should be analyzed before other sources to gain information on Disney’s intent. Little information has been provided about this movie besides from the directors, the basic plotline, and a press release image. The image traces the story of a girl traveling the wide ocean on a raft towards a mysterious island shrouded by fog; in short, a mythological story that follows a hero’s journey. Though the sail features an ethnic insignia of some form, Disney’s image clearly focuses on the awe and adventure associated with a fabled past. In other words, Polynesian culture is referenced but not the focus in this image. The reader can glean from the article’s text that Maui, who is a key person in Polynesian mythology, is implicated, casting some amount of legitimacy on Disney’s attempt to diversify their films.
Musker and Clements’ have been involved in past efforts at diversification - including Aladdin and The Princess and the Frog – and as a result, they are ready to take on this new task of bringing Polynesian culture to a mainstream American audience. They are appropriate choices if Disney truly desires to hold onto Millennial attention. Both movies, in spite of flawed representations, attempted to show Other as human, or at least human enough to be featured as main characters. Though systems of oppression are not removed, these films mark an important step towards better representation; non-white people are given characters to cherish, even if they are Americanized.
In a similar vein, Lilo and Stitch advances Hawaiian culture by providing an Americanized version. Lilo and her older sister Nani are both shown as living an Americanized but impoverished life but not fully by choice.  Poverty constrains them and makes practicing their culture much more difficult. Nani struggles to care for Lilo while searching for a job after losing her old one. As a result, a social worker almost takes Lilo away from Nani several times during the movie. Thus Lilo and Stitch provides an uplifting depiction because the sisters continually work towards upholding their Hawaiian heritage in spite of institutional barriers. For example, Lilo is depicted doing Hula dancing with her classmates. She also welcomes Stitch into her family by iterating that “ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten” (Lilo and Stitch). From this backdrop, one can be hopeful that Moana will also be empowering for people of color.
At the same time, there is trepidation over Disney trying to depict Polynesian culture. With movies like Brave and Frozen, Disney focused on white lead characters, suggesting that they wanted to avoid controversy that they faced with Aladdin and other films. Disney may, with Moana’s release, set off another controversy. Haunani-Kay Trask’s piece “From A Native Daughter” expresses concern over the Americanization of Hawaiian culture. In particular, Trask notes that, “[T]he historian’s mission has been to justify [Hawaiian peoples]’s passing by celebrating Western dominance. […] And what had the historians said? They had said that the Americans “liberated” the Hawaiians from an oppressive “feudal system.”” (Trask 3-4). Historians tend to whitewash history, painting a picture of the white man as the savior. As a result, Americans and other colonizers see their task as “liberation,” not simply colonization. Trask’s frustration is then a result of history being used to erase Hawaiian culture, rather than a means of exploring and understanding non-white cultures. Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” highlights the nobility with which colonizers see themselves; colonizers are burdened to conquer other lands in other to liberate them. Though the poem was written in context of American invasion of the Philippines, the colonization efforts are perfectly analogous. The concern with Moana is that Disney will continue to pursue a post-colonial interpretation of native peoples, instead of creating uplifting images of them. A simple announcement cannot allay fears of this outcome. Furthermore, the provided press release (Figure 1) suggests that the emphasis is on the adventure, not on creating uplifting images. Thus optimism that Disney will continue to work towards respectfully acknowledging many different kinds of people must be balanced out by their indirect participation in systems of oppression that dehumanize non-normed peoples.
Despite these reservations, Disney appears to be on the right track for diversity by announcing Moana. Jon Musker and Ron Clements’ past efforts, as well as Lilo and Stitch, suggest that Disney is drawing upon its previous efforts to present a film that appeal to a diverse group of Americans. At the same time, the fear that institutional cruelty will be furthered by this film remains strong. Thus Disney is facing pressure to respectfully represent people of color and to create a film that is empowering. As Millennials come of age, this pressure is mounting.  Despite these reservations, Disney appears ready to rise to the challenge and improve their track record on diversity with empowering representations.


Works Cited

Giroux, Henry A. and Grace Pollock. The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.          Lanham, Maryland: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2010. Print.
“Amid The Stereotypes, Some Facts About Millennials.” NPR. 18 Nov 2014. Web.
            Accessed 20 Nov 2014.
“Walt Disney Animation Studios Announces 2016 Film: Moana!” Disney. 20 Oct 2014.
Web.  Accessed 20 Nov 2014. 
Lilo and Stitch. Dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker. Walt Disney Pictures, 2002. Film.
Trask, Haunani-Kay.
            From A Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i. 
Honolulu:  Univ. of  Hawaii Press, 1993, 1999.

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