Analysis on Pocahontas Myth - studentwebs.ColumbusState.edu

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Joann Rivas
English 3145
Professor Green
1 July 2010
Disney's Light-hearted Pocahontas:
Blanketing a Country's Dark History
In 1995, Disney produced a romanticized version of relationships between early Native
Americans and Europeans in the film, Pocahontas. It is controversial whether this movie was
intended to enlighten children about the beginning of America in a story-like manner, or a way to
conceal a dark past and brainwash future generations with this illusion of a happy beginning to
the United States of America. In order to make the Pocahontas and John Smith love myth
suitable for children, it is understandable that Disney needed to alter the story. However,
Disney's version of the Pocahontas myth is not only altered for the sake of violence, racial
content, and ethnic content, it is also altered to be more appealing to Americans and to agree with
their beliefs and culture. The film's purpose is controversial because there is a strong support for
the European settlers and a lack of Native American culture shown. In addition, the little Native
American culture that is shown, is not shown accurately. As a result, children across the nation
are learning a distorted early American history through Pocahontas and sugar-coated songs
taught in grammar school that share the same message.
The most significant factor that a historical movie for children should have as opposed to
an entertaining movie, is historical accuracy. This way, the film will be educational and will not
give the audience false information to soak in. If the purpose of Pocahontas is in fact to educate,
the film can be misconstrued as a brainwashing mechanism to hide the violence between two

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cultures because it gives a false interpretation of the Europeans and Native Americans's
relationship. The reason for leaving the physical violence out of the movie could not have been a
policy of Disney productions, because physical violence is present in other Disney movies of this
time period. For example, in Disney's film The Lion King, which was produced three years
before Pocahontas, there was both verbal and physical fighting among characters. In Disney's
Mulan, the plot of the movie is a young woman who disguises her sex in order to join the
military and fight for her country, and several war scenes are shown. Therefore, physical
violence could not be a possible reason why the Pocahontas film was altered from reality.
In addition to blanketing the violence that occurred between these two cultures, Disney
also hid aspects of the realistic Powhatan culture. For example, the Powhatan language was
completely absent from the movie. Of course, the main plot of the story must be in English, but
the slightest interactions in the native Algonkian tongue of the Powhatans would be a way to
include the Native American culture, accurately. Also, the interaction among each other in the
tribe was the same interaction seen in American society today. Pocahontas is made to be quite
liberal, as she roams around the river area alone, where she is not allowed.
Also similar to
American family relationships, she rebels against her father's wishes and does not have an
interest in Kacuom, the man her father wants her to have an interest in. Pocahontas's rebellion
makes the movie more interesting for an American audience, but drifts away from accurate
history.
While some aspects of Native American culture were ignored, such as their language and
manner in relationships, the Powhatans's interactions with nature were exaggerated. Their
spiritual beliefs were shown as imaginary and magical, such as the talking tree that Pocahontas
often visits, Grandmother Willow, and Pocahontas's best friends, a raccoon and a hummingbird.

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There are two introductory songs that set stereotypes for both cultures for the rest of the movie.
The first song is played when the Europeans arrive to the new land and it is called The Virginia
Company, “For the new world is like heaven, and we’ll all be rich and free, or so we have been
told by the Virginia Company.” This song portrays the Europeans as civilized, productive people
with goals to earn money, glory, freedom, and the land of the natives. The second song is played
about the Native Americans and it is called Steady as the Beating Drum, “Seasons go and
seasons come, steady as the beating drum… Oh great spirit hear our song, help us keep the
ancient ways, keep the sacred fire strong.” This song is nature-oriented with no relevance to any
other aspect of the Natives’s lives. The Native Americans were highly spiritual people and in
touch with nature, but their purpose for living is not established as the song for the Europeans
did. Therefore, they are shown without a purpose or plan, and once again their culture is
portrayed as imaginary and magical.
Finally, as the Powhatan's interactions with nature is dramatized, their personal morals
and values are Americanized. Relationships, female roles, and male roles are changed from
Powhatan beliefs to that of Americans. Was it to make the movie more relatable to the American
people or to enforce to children that Natives and Europeans were similar and therefore
compatible? This would make the grammar school songs about the harmonious first
Thanksgiving more believable, after all. Just as women hold a lower position in American
society, Pocahontas and other women in the movie did, as well. This was so obvious that
Pocahontas was the only one of two women characters to speak in the entire movie.
However, in Powhatan society, women's roles were as difficult as men's roles. Women
were in charge of producing vegetation, caring for domestic duties, making pottery and clothing,
while men were in charge of hunting for meat and fur and for protecting the tribe. Women's

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opinions were respected in the Powhatan culture, which could be why the Chief accepted
Pocahontas's wishes not to kill John Smith in real life. Dundes believes that Disney's version on
this scene, one of the most important scenes of the movie, portrays a Powhatan woman's role
correctly, "She tells the chief, which is her father, not to hurt or kill John Smith, and her voice is
heard." However, Disney quickly takes away this female's hierarchy with Pocahontas's line,
"But I love him." Dundes says, “Her actions, while overtly heroic, with far-fetching
consequences, center around a relationship—her feelings and urge to protect the object of her
love, which is a feminine role” (2). In other words, her actions are based on emotions rather than
rational thought, which is most commonly a role portrayed in women, more specifically
American women. The fact that she is being heard is positive, but it is because of her emotions
and she is standing against her father and her tribe for the European man, John Smith.
Dundes explores another reason behind Disney’s choice to make Pocahontas be portrayed
with female gender roles and be so nurturing to John Smith, “Pocahontas’ actions also
correspond to age-old depictions of admirable American Indian women as those who save and
aid White men, are the object of White men’s sexual desire…” (2). Therefore, Pocahontas’s
actions could be based on the perspective of American, male creators of the film. Borthaiser
questions the same concept when analyzing the physique of Pocahontas, since the thirteen year
old Pocahontas who met John Smith is shown as a woman in Disney's film, “Glean Keane,
supervisor animator of Pocahontas, claims that she was based on American models, but is
‘different than the Caucasian kind of look’. Pocahontas is ‘more of a woman than a teenager’
and with this change comes sexuality. Her voluptuous body reflects the Western male vision on
exotic women: she has the body of a Western woman but has the exotic features that make her
other than Western women” (1). Dundes’s explanation for this is that “When a Disney animation

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is made on another culture, it cannot be produced without the interference of Western paradigms”
(2). Western paradigms are
also evident in a few added and deleted scenes throughout the film. For example, Disney
manages to add a scene in the film where John Smith dodges a bullet aimed at the Chief of the
Powhatan tribe. There is no evidence that this occurred in early American history, but Disney's
reason for adding it into the movie could be to have a peaceful European, as Pocahontas is the
peaceful Native American. Disney's Pocahontas did not incorporate the issue of race, which was
the main reason of the dispute between the two people. In Pocahontas, both cultures are
oblivious of the significant difference in each other's skin color. This was an extreme shock for
both the Native Americans and Europeans to see a people so different, but this issue is swept
under the table by Disney, since an issue so grand would make it more difficult to have a
harmonious ending. Also, it would be unlikely that a people so different would fall in love
during this time period.
It is also
interesting how such a detailed romance was created about Pocahontas and John Smith when
their relationship is truly ambiguous. The little information that is known about Pocahontas and
John Smith's interaction is that there was a significant age difference in the two. John Smith
does not discuss Pocahontas in detail in his writings, so the possibility of an intimate relationship
between the two of them is unlikely. In addition, the dramatic differences between the two
people's skin color, culture, language, and lifestyle made it unlikely that they would have a
relationship of any kind, since naturally humans are afraid of the unknown, and also neither were
immune to the other's bacteria. If these facts are so, why does early childhood education dwell on
the Pocahontas and John Smith legend rather than teach history with evidence that proves its
occurrence?
Instead

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of giving facts, grammar school creates a child friendly celebration throughout fall season, to
enforce the same false information as Disney's Pocahontas. Children are taught about Native
Americans as a whole people, rather than individual people with their own tribes and cultures.
Natives and their early relationship with Europeans sound so pleasant since the deaths, spread of
disease, and slaughter of cultures are excluded. I remember singing songs about harmony and
the friendship of the two cultures as they shared American land and celebrated with the first
Thanksgiving dinner: "The Pilgrims learned from the Indians/ How to hunt wild turkey and deer./
They learned to fish and to plant corn,/ Had food to eat throughout the year." I cannot fathom
why the deaths, disease, and dying cultures were replaced with turkey, cornucopias, and love. Of
course, it would not make sense to teach a class of eight-year-olds about such a sad story, but the
truth is being stretched too far by calling the Natives and Pilgrims best friends. There is also the
infamous song, "This land is your land, this land is my land," which also gives children the
illusion that there was not problem in maintaining peace in the 1700's. Unfortunately, after being
taught this concept for about ten years, children go into high school with a preconceived notion
of early American history.
High school is spent admiring
the European heroes that helped civilize the "savages" in New England. Conflict among the
Europeans and Natives is finally revealed in high school, but the inequality towards the Native
Americans is not the main focus of a typical lesson. Instead, Europeans are glorified for having
goals for America and learning about the goal of manifest destiny seems to overshadow that of
The Trail of Tears. Nonetheless, what I gathered in high school was that the disputes between the
two cultures were irrelevant since little had been mentioned about them in school. In addition,
my grammar school singing and Disney movie watching, there was a harmonious feast that
united these people and Pocahontas and John Smith helped blend the two cultures.

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However, The Bedford Anthology of American
Literature reveals that the beginning of early America involved several hardships for both the
European and Native American people. Pocahontas' life is shown in a different way than it was
in American stereotypes. Rather than Pocahontas and John Smith having a romantic
relationship, and the Native Americans and Europeans being the best of neighbors, the anthology
honestly states the hardships for both parties. After the Europeans sailed sixty-six days and faced
several deaths of their people, they arrived to the Americas. With the arrival of these
newcomers, a great majority of Natives died when coming in contact with the Europeans because
they were not immune to the bacteria and diseases they carried. Several European encounters
with the Native Americans were recorded through manuscript such as John Smith's encounter
with Pocahontas and the Powhatan people.
John Smith barely mentions Pocahontas in
his writings, and what he does say about her hints no kind of intimate relationship between the
two. The Bedford Anthology has a passage from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-
England, and the Summer Isles, describing John Smith's interaction with Powhatan, and nearly
being killed by the Native Americans. However, as the natives were "ready with their clubs, to
beate out his braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile,
got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death," he mentions how
the Powhatan princess saves his life. Smith briefly mentions Pocahontas's presence, besides the
fact that she saved his life (119). The context of his writing conveys her as another "savage," yet
Disney portrays their relationship as being harmonious and romantic.
The Bedford Anthology of American Literature also
gives information of Pocahontas's life after her meeting John Smith. As for Pocahontas's
romantic life, she does have a relationship with a European, but not with John Smith, and not as

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willingly as she was in the Disney film as she frolicked along the Virginia forests. Pocahontas
was kidnapped by the Europeans, taught English, converted to Christianity, and finally became
Mrs. Rebecca Rolfe after marrying John Rolfe. Her husband then brought her to England where
she became infected with tuberculosis and died.
Pocahontas' popularity began as a celebration of her being civilized by the Europeans,
since it was proof that the "savages" of the new world could be domesticated into the European
ways of life. However as time passed, the devastation that the Native Americans faced brought
upon another reason to admire the Pocahontas myth: the reason this ambiguous woman grew so
popular to the American culture could be because she is a symbol of a somewhat positive
relationship between these two cultures. As Disney did, erasing the kidnapping, the force into
Christianity, and marriage, and the lethal trip to England, what is left is a husband and wife of
different races, a people so different, living harmoniously.
It is important for children in grammar school to be introduced to different parts of early
American history. If Disney can produce child-friendly movies that include disputes such as The
Lion King and Mulan, a movie that serves as a historically educational movie should have
permission to include realistic disputes between the European and Native Americans. If early
childhood educators want to teach about the first Thanksgiving, the children should be given an
age-appropriate lesson on the hardships that our ancestors, whether European and Native
American, went through in order to gain a civil interaction with one another. By preparing
American youth with the United States history that does not have gaps, they will be better
prepared to comprehend when these topics are discussed more thoroughly in their higher levels
of education.
Works Cited

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Borthaiser, Nóra (2008). A Whole New World [Electronic Version]. Americana: E-journal of
American Studies in Hungary, 4, 5-5.
Dundes, Lauren (2001). Disney's Modern Heroine Pocahontas: Revealing Age-Old Gender
Stereotypes and Role Discontinuity Under a Facade of Liberation [Electronic Version].
Giamo, Michael. Pocahontas. Disney, 1995. Film.
Smith, John. From The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles. The
Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Bedford: Boston, 2008: P. 110-119.