Pocahontas : Disney Vs. History

Disney not only fictionalizes accounts from American history, but romanticizes them as well. Since the film is directed towards children, many of them do not learn the real history of Pocahontas before watching the film thus believing the scripted story to be factual. The European men in the film all look like individuals whereas the Native Americans all look the same making it harder to differentiate between them. This could symbolize the idea that all Native Americans are the same in personality and behavior. Pocahontas was the only one in the film that stood out from the pack, she was the exception. Great emphasis is put on imagination and emotions to assist in decision making as the older neoclassical approach of using intellect is rejected.

Walt Disney’s film Pocahontas is not historically accurate, but there is value in creating cartoon interpretations of American history. As a child, cartoons are mostly important for your development, both physically and mentally. Fairy tales help children understand the complexity of life. These visions use various symbols to teach morals and cognitive skills. Walt’s film was based off the legends and folktales surrounding Pocahontas, it was not meant to be historical but to promote racial tolerance.

Pocahontas would be brought back into the picture after the English kidnapped her. She converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe, bringing peace between the two sides. Pocahontas would then be brought to England as an example of a “Savage” being turn to Christianity. After she dies, the peace between the Natives and the settlers slowly diminishes. In March 22, 1622, the Natives would attack the English, killing around 400 settlers. This attack backfires on the Native since the English would attack back more drastically. To end the book, Price talks about John Smiths life after Jamestown and his opinion on the settlement. The story also addresses the beginning of Slaves entry in America, which would be an important part in the history of America. This book overall informs us of early America history.

Another major difference between Disneys portrayal of Pocahontas and Townsend’s portrayal of Pocahontas is her decision to be baptized. Although it would have been seen as a betrayal to her tribe, Pocahontas chose to be baptized, with the consent of her father. Even though it was well known to Powhatan (Pocahontas’ father), that with his consent of Pocahontas’ baptism (now Rebecca), he would lose not his people’s respect, but as well as their trust, he

Many people believe the 1995 film, Pocahontas, to be the true story of a young Powhatan woman. However, the story lacks facts. Pocahontas isn’t even her real name. Matoaka, the real Pocahontas, faced mush more misery than the movie showed. Mataoka’s life in America, life in England, a comparison between the movie and real life, and how fictional portrayals of real people effect society today will show you that Disney’s inaccuracies could change history.

In a scene where Pocahontas and John Smith had their first face-to-face encounter, John Smith who is holding his gun up ready to shoot but instead lowers his gun upon laying eyes on Pocahontas, obviously taken aback by her beauty. This shows how native American women romanticized by the media and portrayed as being mesmerizing to men. Movie-makers had taken a more sexualized approach in creating Pocahontas’s appearance as can be seen by how Pocahontas wears a mini dress that bears much skin and she was given a voluptuous figure with a tiny waist, adding how her hair was placed to attract attention throughout the movie (van Wormer, & Juby, 2015)(Ono, & Buescher, 2001). In the case where Pocahontas sings the famous Colours of the Wind soundtrack, Pocahontas dances in a sensuous way moving very closely to John Smith despite how they just met. This gives off the meaning that Native American women are very open, exotic and a sexualized image (Hopkins, 2005)(R, & Berger, 2004)

Hollywood’s leading animation studio has had many instances of stereotyping and being racially insensitive. Two main examples of their racism towards Native American tribes have been Peter Pan and Pocahontas. In both instances, there have been controversial songs that have the Native Americans at the center. Both depict the stereotypes that are not necessarily true of the tribes.

In the movie, Pocahontas and her tribe are shown helping the settlers survive there first winter by bringing them food and supplies while Smith is already established as the leader. Her tribe then proceeds to ambush the settlers through a harsh battle the following spring for not leaving the land and Pocahontas is banned for supporting the settlers. It is an epic scene of action and dramatic fighting that seems to last for days. The battle most likely never happened though, because not one historian accounts for it. In fact in Alan Brinkley’s text, An Unfinished Nation, it is explained that for two years the settlers led “unrelenting assaults against the Powhatan Indians” and in the process captured Pocahontas to hold for ransom (Brinkly 32).

With this policy, the survival rate grew to nearly ninety percent that year. He organized successful trading with the Native American Powhattan. Smith was however captured by him and only spared when Powhattan’s daughter Pocahontas pleaded for his life. This is where the story of Pocahontas comes from. Smith wrote a letter about this encounter to Queen Anne when he heard of her coming to England years later. He wanted to ensure that she would not be treated as someone that could not be trusted. He wanted to show her loyalty to him and to England.

As young children we are often misled to believe that the stories and movies we are exposed to are presumably based on factual history, but are in reality myths, keeping the truthful, important, and fair facts hidden. Amonute is an accurate example of learning the real events that occurred in a person’s life while the typical myth of Pocahontas saved an Englishmen from being killed by her father. In the beginning of the book we are briefly introduced to Pocahontas, the Powhatan people and the English colonists. As the book continues we follow Pocahontas when she is kidnapped, her married life, and her trip to London where she got sick because of foreign illnesses and died. Camilla Townsends “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma” wants Pocahontas’ true story to unfold because she is worthy of respect for her bravery and sacrifice and because “everyone subverted her life to satisfy their own needs to believe that the Indians loved and admired them” (Townsend, pg. xi). I also believe that the author was trying to argue that even though the Englishmen believed that the Native Americans were uncivilized and lived like savages, that instead they were wise people.

Pocahontas was born in 1595, with the given name of Matoaka and later got the nickname Pocahontas. She has been known as the favorite daughter of the powerful Powhatan Chief but she is also famous in history for contributing greatly toward the survival of the Jamestown colony. When the English colonists settled in Jamestown in 1607, there became tension between the Colonists and the Powhatan Indians. During the 1600s, the leader of the Colonists, Captain John Smith was caught by the Powhatan’s men. It has been said that Pocahontas saved Smith’s life and has had great influence on early relationships between the colonists and Indians. During Pocahontas’s life, she has faced many tragedies but triumphs have also played a role in her time.

[5] Gary Edgerton and Kathy Merlock Jackson, in their review of the movie, conveyed these same ideas about Pocahontas. They insist that “The filmmakers at Disney never really intended Pocahontas to be historically accurate, despite all the

John Smith's tales of the Indian princess, Pocahontas, have, over time, encouraged the evolution of a great American myth. According to this myth, which is common knowledge to most Americans, Pocahontas saved Smith from being killed by her father and his warriors and then fell in love with John Smith. Some versions of the myth popular among Americans include the marriage of Smith and Pocahontas. Although no one can be sure of exactly what happened almost four-hundred years ago, most historians agree that the myth is incorrect. Pocahontas did not save John Smith's life from "savages" and never showed any affection for him. The events of her life differ greatly from the myth Americans have created.

John Smith was born in 1580, so he might have been a 27 year old blond and ruggedly handsome young man, but it is doubtful. But as for Pocahontas, she was born in 1595 and probably around the age of 11 or 12 when she first met John Smith in 1607. Pocahontas, when meeting John Smith, being such a small, young girl, not a woman, was not likely to have yet come into the womanly figure that the Walt Disney Company animated, if ever at all. Images of Pocahontas portray her as being shorter and plumper than the Barbie doll figure Disney gave her on screen. The clothing that Disney draws the characters wearing, especially Pocahontas, even rings of falsities because it was customary for them to have loose cloths draped over them. Pocahontas’ level of beauty is often questioned and really not known, but it is known that John Rolfe, not John Smith, fell madly in love with her, so there had to have been something beautiful about this Indian woman or “savage” as he called her when writing to ask permission to marry her.

Pocahontas. Americans know her as the beautiful, Indian woman who fell in love with the white settler John Smith and then threw her body upon the poor white captive to protect him from being brutally executed by her own savage tribe. The magical world of Walt Disney came out with their own movie version several years ago portraying Pocahontas as a tan, sexy Barbie doll figure and John Smith as a blond-haired, blue-eyed muscular Ken doll. Although Disney attempts to instill racial tolerance, inter-racial friendship, and nonviolent resolutions in Pocahontas, they contribute to the inaccurate Indian woman stereotype that has evolved from such stories. While it can be argued that Disney has