Pocahontas Movie Analysis

The Disney film Pocahontas can be viewed as a false portrayal of American history. Although it may have been made for entertainment purposes, Pocahontas is regarded to be a coming of age film for children due to its didacticism. The life lessons that one could possibly take away from the film are considerably positive, but the depiction of Native American and European cultures is deceitful. Most Disney films involve “epic romances,” in the case of Pocahontas one is not necessarily needed to convey the message of the film. Even though historical films cannot always be accurate to actual events, this film manages to stray away from the actual historical story of Pocahontas entirely. Due to this, children are presented with false information

Disney, a name that spread around the world; a mass media company; a company with a revenue of more than 50 billion dollars a year; Pocahontas, among other famous story are brought to awareness by Disney to the silver screen. Disney’s1995 Pocahontas movie grossed more than 140 million dollar in total. Disney claims the film is “responsible, accurate and respectful”. But how can Disney make such promises when people’s age and half of the plot never occurred?

There are five sociological concepts I am going to explain. And I will be using scenes from the Disney movie Pocahontas as examples. The five are: norms, role conflict, values, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

The movie does not harm the native’s picture to the world because they were the ones who were weak and hurt in the movie it gave people something to think about like how the English and French could do this to the natives and what are the consequences of the actions that were taken by the French or the British. The movie also gives the feeling of sympathy towards the natives and fills you up with hatred towards the Europeans who invaded the natives land. The movie also shows us the way the natives dressed which were just long pieces of cloths and leather pants which were cut off at the crouch for a relaxed fit, also the way they ate which was hunting deer and elk and gathering berries and vegetables, it also showed their language and a little spiritual scenes when they shot an elk. It gave me anal

As a result, it aims to educate people interested in race relations on why racial tensions have not eased in this rapidly evolving time despite the trend to portray minorities positively. For instance, he cites the example that the myriad of Indian documentaries has given the perception that they enjoy living in poverty, and the public’s response to boost their image does not solve the problem at all (730). Mainly in this essay, Deloria addresses Native American needs, so it pertains to people interested in them specifically, but his message is applied to all minority groups. For instance, he states that Mexicans are only taught that their people have been involved in one side of the Alamo, but not the other, which makes them a victim of image boosting as well (731). As a Native American himself, Deloria is passionate in his essay. He decries the fact that his people are treated differently from even other minority groups in that their characters are sucked out of them so that they become one-dimensional and are only used to fill a single role. For instance, the Indians in the war movies only serve to transfer messages, only to disappear when their purpose has been served” (729). He wishes to highlight this issue and tell people that it is paramount that all people be treated as complex

Stagecoach – a movie that is widely accepted as the most damaging movie for the Native identity – helped to illustrate this image to viewers at the time. As a result, many Americans believed Natives were all uncivilized and violent, leading to nationwide stereotyping and prejudice. The Indian was the enemy of America as a result. Stagecoach also shows Natives being hunted like animals, which sends the image of them being non-human and thus they should be treated as such. Stagecoach and movies like it mispresented Natives for decades and caused a loss-of-identity amongst the Native community because Natives were dressed the same throughout various films. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s where Natives were properly represented on

In the production of the movie “Pocahontas”, Disney should have acknowledged that not all of the historical information included was completely true. Many people were angry with Disney that they had misportrayed the history of Pocahontas and her tribe. In the article, “Bias in Disney Movies: Pocahontas”, Tom Roderick states that “the film’s ‘pro-social’ messages about racial tolerance and talking out disagreements ring hollow” (Roderick 126). Throughout the film, there are many instances where Disney changed up the history a little bit. In their defense, Disney was just trying to entertain but they should have checked with the Powhatan tribe because they were beyond mad. In the novel, “The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History”,

In the movie, Native Americans are often portrayed as spiritual, noble, and free this ideal image of Native Americans captured the world’s imagination at one point. It all began in late 1800s when Native Americans were among the first to shot silent by Thomas. One of the common attraction that made

[4] Disney even goes on further to suggest that their intentions have a modern relevance when they say that “It is an important message to a generation to stop fighting, stop killing each other because of the color of your skin” (Pocahontas 37). It is quite clear that Disney never intended to write or rewrite history, as they have been so viciously attacked for doing. They are writing about tolerance and understanding, while at the same time they are giving back some respect to the indigenous people of America. James Pentecost, the producer of the film, feels that “moviemakers shouldn’t be handcuffed when using real stories as jumping-off places for works of entertainment” (Kim 24). Disney simply liked the idea of Pocahontas; they liked the message that it conveyed, and they made it applicable to Hollywood.

Throughout world history, it is evident that Native Americans have struggled in society ever since the landing of Christopher Columbus in North America. Ever since the film industry began in the 1890s, Native Americans have been depicted in many negative ways by film makers. One particular way film makers degrade Native Americans by making their white characters convert into Indians or “go Native” and eventually they always become better than the original Indians in the film. This notion has been repeated in many films, three significant films were it is evident is in The Searchers, Little Big Man, and Dances with Wolves.

The animated Walt Disney movie Pocahontas is based on a true life story of a young Powhatan Indian girl named Pocahontas who falls in love with John Smith. In the making of the movie, Walt Disney, attempts to relate to the early 17th Century historic event of Europeans settling in Jamestown; however, Disney did not portrait the true story. Disney rewrote the story by making it a beautifully romantic and animated love story like a Cinderella fairytale.

Typically referred to as ‘Indians’ in popular culture, Native Americans were traditionally seen in Westerns as the antagonists. The Western genre typically tells the story of the colonisation and discovery of America, which saw the major Hollywood studios revive the interest in the Western. Westerns draw on “historical actuality, a romantic philosophy of nature, and the concept of the […] savage” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3). Westerns often split the “depiction of the Indian, with the cruel and treacherous [Indian] balanced by the faithful [Indian]” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3) which resulted in the portrayals of Native Americans witnessed in films today.

Back in 1995, as a 20 year old woman, I was, absolutely, still in love with everything Disney. I was still very much enamored with the romance and fairy tale aspects of all their stories and movies. So when the Walt Disney Company released the animated feature “Pocahontas” in the summer of my 20th year, I had to see it. At the time, I thought I had hit the jackpot with this movie. “An American legend comes to life” is the tagline to get viewers interested in this movie. [1] A heroin, whom was a beautiful Indian and a love story, who could ask for more from a Disney movie, I thought to myself. Now, being ignorant of the true facts about the Indian woman Pocahontas and even about Indian culture and history itself, I took this story more

To begin with this essay, I will be focusing on two pieces of media. I had recently read a book named "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and watched a movie called "Easy A". People say that Easy A is a good portrayal of The Scarlet Letter. Don 't get me wrong, the movie shares some of the same themes and the movie is influenced by the book, but in reality, Easy A is not a good portrayal of The Scarlet Letter.

In this paper, I will write about “Thelma and Louise” (1991) movie. I choose a last scene of the movie which the police came to arrest them in the Grand Canyon (from 122 to 125 minutes).