Romanticizing the Native American Indian: Pocahontas

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 factually than I ever even realized. Now, coming to the present day and currently enrolled in a class on Native Indian history, a subject that has always fascinated me, I am discovering how foolish I was back then and how unbelievably deceiving that movie really was. After reading the information gathered about Pocahontas during this class, I pondered hard over the following questions: Does the Walt Disney Company version of Pocahontas even remotely portray the story of Pocahontas and the settling of Jamestown accurately? Does Disney have the right to take the facts about a person’s real life story and fictionalize it just for the sake of entertainment? Does this romanticism and fictionalization adversely affect those who hear or watch these stories? There are times during the movie that the Disney version does indeed portray small situations truthfully and other times that are completely false and it is these falsehoods that directly impact the viewers and listeners of these stories. The stories or parts of the Disney version that are most impactful and harmful to viewers are about the physical portrayal of Pocahontas, her life story, the meeting and saving of John Smith and the interactions between her and John Smith’s two nations.

References: [1] IMDB. “Pocahontas taglines”, taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/taglines, October 14, 2009 [2] Calloway, Colin G. “First Peoples: A documentary survey of American Indian History, Third Edition”, Boston, MA.: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008, pg 99 [3] IMDB. “Pocahontas taglines”, taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/taglines, October 14, 2009 [4] Eggleston, Edward G. “The Century: Illustrated Monthly Magazine, The Beginning of a Nation Chapter”, New York.: The Century Co., Nov 1882-April 1883, pg 81 [5] Schmidt, Rob. “Pocahontas Bastardizes Real People” taken from http://www.bluecorncomics.com/pocahont.htm October 27, 2009 [6] Eggleston, Edward G. “The Century: Illustrated Monthly Magazine, The Beginning of a Nation Chapter”, New York.: The Century Co., Nov 1882-April 1883, pg 81 [7] Calloway, Colin G. “First Peoples: A documentary survey of American Indian History, Third Edition”, Boston, MA.: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008, pg 100 [8] Calloway, Colin G. “First Peoples: A documentary survey of American Indian History, Third Edition”, Boston, MA.: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008, pg 99