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Disney's Pocahontas
Disney's Pocahontas is such a distortion of modern history that it is an injustice, not only to the Jamestown colonists, but also to the children that are Disney's intended audience.
The wilderness, untouched by White Man, is clearly presented as pristine and ideal, harboring benevolent spirits everywhere. Beautiful Pocahontas, the sublime American Indian, is a spiritual environmentalist who knows "her world was more beautiful than any city". It did not matter to Disney that she had never seen a city.
Equally absurd is, John Smith's amazement at the beauty of her wilderness. The writers of Disney's Pocahontas seemed to have forgotten that in 1607 everything was wilderness, including much of Europe. Similarly, they have failed to grasp the enormity of sailing across the Atlantic in 1606, in little wooden ships. Such a trip was as challenging and dangerous for the men on board as were the first flights to the moon (July 1969 to Dec 1972). The trip was not something trumped up by ragamuffin market vendors, but an expedition whose leaders were in direct contact with the Queen.
Consistent with revisionist history and multiculturalism, the Indians in Disney's fantasy are noble victims of white man's material lusting. The fact that Chief Powhatan and his braves routinely ransacked other Powhatan villages for food and tortured any who opposed them is irrelevant. In Smith's own journal Powhatan was described as "very terrible and tryannous in punishing such as offend him". Pocahontas would have known this of her father, but today it is a politically incorrect view of Indians.
Equally 'incorrect' is the embarrassing and telling fact that the real Pocahontas saw the Europeans as having a superior culture. She sought to help the colonists and warned them of her tribe's raids, knowing full well that she was endangering herself. Ultimately, a few years after Smith had left, she abandoned her family and native life to marry one of the settlers (John Rolfe). She even moved to England. Imagine how heroic this decision must have been. She left tribe, family and forest, to sail across an immense sea, with unfamiliar men to an incomprehensibly different culture! This was no casual decision.
Rewriting history, Disney's Pocahontas sets children up to believe in quite an opposite Pocahontas. This Pocahontas fits with the modern Environmentalists' false view that a primitive non-technological life is an idyllic ideal. Adding dishonesty to embarassment, the Disney ending then leaves the impression that Pocahontas chose the 'Eden' of the American forest, explicitly rejecting European cities.
Of course, Disney presents the Europeans, excluding Smith, according to the usual, phony moral 'package' that equates gold-seeker and businessman with 'greedy' murderer. This exemplifies the hypocrisy of multiculturalism. Clearly multiculturalism advocates the moral equivalency of any and all cultures, except Western culture.
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The wilderness, untouched by White Man, is clearly presented as pristine and ideal, harboring benevolent spirits everywhere. Beautiful Pocahontas, the sublime American Indian, is a spiritual environmentalist who knows "her world was more beautiful than any city". It did not matter to Disney that she had never seen a city.
Equally absurd is, John Smith's amazement at the beauty of her wilderness. The writers of Disney's Pocahontas seemed to have forgotten that in 1607 everything was wilderness, including much of Europe. Similarly, they have failed to grasp the enormity of sailing across the Atlantic in 1606, in little wooden ships. Such a trip was as challenging and dangerous for the men on board as were the first flights to the moon (July 1969 to Dec 1972). The trip was not something trumped up by ragamuffin market vendors, but an expedition whose leaders were in direct contact with the Queen.
Consistent with revisionist history and multiculturalism, the Indians in Disney's fantasy are noble victims of white man's material lusting. The fact that Chief Powhatan and his braves routinely ransacked other Powhatan villages for food and tortured any who opposed them is irrelevant. In Smith's own journal Powhatan was described as "very terrible and tryannous in punishing such as offend him". Pocahontas would have known this of her father, but today it is a politically incorrect view of Indians.
Equally 'incorrect' is the embarrassing and telling fact that the real Pocahontas saw the Europeans as having a superior culture. She sought to help the colonists and warned them of her tribe's raids, knowing full well that she was endangering herself. Ultimately, a few years after Smith had left, she abandoned her family and native life to marry one of the settlers (John Rolfe). She even moved to England. Imagine how heroic this decision must have been. She left tribe, family and forest, to sail across an immense sea, with unfamiliar men to an incomprehensibly different culture! This was no casual decision.
Rewriting history, Disney's Pocahontas sets children up to believe in quite an opposite Pocahontas. This Pocahontas fits with the modern Environmentalists' false view that a primitive non-technological life is an idyllic ideal. Adding dishonesty to embarassment, the Disney ending then leaves the impression that Pocahontas chose the 'Eden' of the American forest, explicitly rejecting European cities.
Of course, Disney presents the Europeans, excluding Smith, according to the usual, phony moral 'package' that equates gold-seeker and businessman with 'greedy' murderer. This exemplifies the hypocrisy of multiculturalism. Clearly multiculturalism advocates the moral equivalency of any and all cultures, except Western culture.
read even more