Inaccuracies Of Disney And History

When it comes to the topic of Disney and how it represents history and culture in its films, most will agree that Disney’s portrayals are highly inaccurate. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is that Disney is working to better portray non-American cultures and history in their films. Whereas some are convinced that Disney has and still is inaccurately representing the history and culture of many other people such as the Chinese and Native Americans, others believe that Disney is now beginning to accurately portray Polynesian history and culture in their newer films and may continue to improve upon other cultural representations in future films. In the article, "Cultural Deformations and Reformulations: A Case Study of Disney's Mulan …show more content…
According to Caitlin Gallagher, “The Historic Jamestowne website wrote that Smith was 27 years old at the time (the real Smith was sans dreamy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes) and the Disney film bumped Pocahontas's age up significantly to go the romance route with the two historical figures.” (Para. 5). The movie Pocahontas was based on a Native American child named Amonute, nicknamed Pocahontas, who assisted Captain John Smith in around 1607. The Disney film changes Pocahontas to be an oversexualized woman, but in real life, she was only around ten or eleven years old. When it comes to Disney films, Disney is always trying to force a romantic relationship between their two main characters, and even a story that is a part of history is not off …show more content…
For example, the Oceanic Trust made sure that everything from the curtains in Moana’s home all the way to inaccurate lyrics in songs were changed in order to accurately represent Polynesian culture. The biggest change though was to Maui, he was originally drawn bald, but the trust believed that there was no way Maui would have been bald and demanded that they add more hair until he finally became the character we see in the film. The original idea for the film did not even have the character Moana in it, she was only later added to the plans when the directors saw the women in Polynesia. There were only a few cultural inaccuracies in the film Moana, but they were all minute and not things that caused a big fuss. The two inaccuracies in the film were the use of the plumeria flowers in the film, and Moana being able to govern her people. The reason that the inaccurate portrayal of Moana was allowed, was because some Polynesian cultures do allow women to govern their people and since the film is a mixture of cultures that one inconsistency was