Project Report

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

In current society today, technology is advancing at a rapid rate and with so much exposure to the media it is difficult to control what is being seen by children. Disney is one of the largest and most successful companies in the film industry. From children 4 years old to adults and every age in between, Disney has found a way to create films that entertain all ages. The seemingly innocent content of Disney movies are enjoyed from a very young age; however, behind the colorful and lighthearted storylines of many Disney films lies many unreasonable social ideologies that children may be subconsciously becoming accustomed to. In her work, “Where Do the Mermaids Stand,” Laura Sells discusses the hidden messages in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Sells explains how this movie expresses a hierarchy of gender and exaggerated femininity by demeaning the role of women in society. Susan Jeffords, author of “The Curse of Masculinity,” discusses similar ideologies in her article. This article looks at Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and focuses primarily the role of men and the how they perform to fit into this white male system by means of upholding hegemonic masculinity. The two articles “Where do the Mermaids stand” and “The curse of Masculinity,” bring to attention the reinforcement of the white male system, the racialization in the white male system, and the reinforcement of hegemonic masculinity in beloved childhood Disney movies.

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”,

The film Pocahontas, produced by Walt Disney films, portrays the tension between the Powhatan tribe and English settlers during the establishment of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the "New World." In examining this film using the article "Ten Quick Ways to Analyze Children's Books for Racism and Sexism," it quickly becomes apparent that although there are forms of racism as described in the article (what will be referred to as ‘traditional media racism'), the crux of the film's racism is beyond blatant stereotyping and marginalization. While the white settlers clearly have a conquering ideology laced with ideas of racial superiority, this attitude is offset by Powhatan's steadfast adherence

[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.

Implicit ideologies are seen in film dialogue, music, and content. Through a deeper level of interpretation, viewers can understand what is implicitly implied through a films messaging. Pocahontas, a classic Disney movie, is based on a legend that surrounds a Native American woman. Pocahontas reinforces the normative ideologies of interracial relationships, the misinterpretation of Native Americans, and gender stereotypes in an effort to appeal to children of all ages and teach them morals.

“There is no evidence that Pocahontas met smith or any other English person before the end of 1607, when the captains exploratory party was captured, he was brought to her father's village , and she supposedly rescued him from death .” (307). People, like myself, who have only watched the movie would be amazed by this sentence. It is helping you learn what actually happened in our American history. There are many sentences that dumbfounded me just like this one did and this is just one of the many facts that I didn't know about. I now have been educated about our past and what actually went on during this time in our

Hi, how are you doing? I am writing you because I've submitted my project 4 and when I view the preview it appears there is a few glitch in my assignment. I downloaded the document from BlackBoard to my Macintosh and it appeared to be fine as a word document, but I would like to make sure everything is good on your end before the deadline in case I have to make any

By far the most questionable stereotype and misinterpretation in the film is the way Disney chose to portray Pocahontas, specifically her age, characteristics, and body image, which according to historical records and cultural belief, was completely inaccurate and therefor unauthentic. The article Using Critical Race Theory to Analyze How Disney Constructs Diversity, once again provides insight into the differences between the Disney film and the authentic native culture. It says, “When Compared to White Disney heroines, Pocahontas is portrayed as sexier, more sensual, and exotic, bare skin

The objectives of this project are to: (1) Create a writing workshop at In The Meantime, collect stories from Black gay men that are central to South Los Angeles; (2) To document theses stories; (3) To have the video of these stories added to the collections at various local and national institutions; (4) To have the stories performed at three differing spaces [In The Meantime, Holman United Methodist Church, and the ONE Archives]; (5) Have the stories and memorabilia, relating to Black gay life in South Los Angeles, archived at In The Meantime; and (6) Have the stories and memorabilia exhibited.

Many Americans grew up watching Disney movies. As a child, these films probably seemed innocent. However, scholars would disagree as Disney has been under heat for having racist elements in their movies. One film in particular that has received the attention of many scholars is Dumbo. One Scholar, Sheri Joffe wrote A Critical and Contextual Analysis of the Changes in African-American Character Representation in Disney Animated Films from Dumbo (1941) to The Princess and the Frog (2009), discusses how Disney portrayed blacks. The main topic of the thesis was on how in both films, black characters and caricatures were depicted in a negative light. For the purpose of this essay, only the depiction of black characters and caricatures will be discussed. Joffe analyzed how in two scenes Dumbo had problematic illustrations of blacks. After researching the topic, scholars are of two minds of whether or not Disney was racist in the film Dumbo.

Many people are familiar with Disney’s Pocahontas. But few know the actual truth about Pocahontas. What is her story? What impact do movies of this kind have on Women’s history and should movies like this be used as historical accounts?

Disney’s Pocahontas is the first animated film to be based on an actual person and event. It also is the first Disney film to display interracial relationship. After all of these years growing up watching Disney movies, this is the first time I have watched Pocahontas. Knowing the historical context before watching the film really helped me understand how much of the film was historically accurate. I will be discussing what really happened during the time, then I will compare the historical accuracy of the film to the actual historical event and finally stating my overall impression of the film.

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

Even though people only learn it from English report, but it doesn’t mean that this history would be able to change to whatever the people want. Unfortunately, Disney changes the story of Pocahontas although Disney does some researches on Pocahontas because they think that “it’s too violent and sad” (29). Therefore, the Disney makes a few changes or “adjustment.” For example, the ages and appearance of Pocahontas would be completely different between the Disney movie and the history. In the true history, Pocahontas “was not a voluptuous young woman when she met John Smith but a ten-to twelve-year-old girl” (29). Instead of being a girl in the movie, Disney recreates the image of Pocahontas to a young woman even though they have done some research on “paintings of the real Pocahontas but [they think that she] wasn’t very impressed, so [Disney] made a few ‘adjustments’” (30). So, Pocahontas looks totally different because Disney’s decisions about changing the truth of Pocahontas. I think that this is not a clever way for Disney to make some changes on Pocahontas’s appearance and ages