Disney's Historical Inaccuracies in Pocahontas and Racial Stereotyping in Peter Pan
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| Disney's Pocahontas (1995) |
Disney's Pocahontas and its flaws
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| "How a young Pocahontas might have looked Unknown British Museum" (Retrieved from the NPS website.) |
An iconic Disney princess movie, which many kids growing up in the '90s and early 2000's (like myself) have experienced, Pocahontas does a good job as coming across as an entertaining romance musical film. However with that being said, it flops horribly in terms of its historical accuracy and its portrayal of Native Americans.
Historical Inaccuracies
You probably already know the biggest historical flaw with Pocahontas herself in the movie based on documented history, but if you don't already know, Pocahontas was in the age range of nine to eleven years old when the English made contact with the Powhatan. On top of this, according to the National Park Service at the Jamestown settlement, Pocahontas as a child in the Powhatan tribe probably would have worn little to no clothing.
Being a pre-pubescent child, Pocahontas did not have any romantic involvement with John Smith, and various documents state that she and John Smith were nothing more than friends, as she was recorded to have been bringing food to the settlers and participating in various fun activities, mainly cartwheeling.
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| "Captain John Smith, Unknown Artist" (Retrieved from the NPS website.) |
It only came with the narrative told by John Smith that the story of the two being romantically involved came to be. After leaving Jamestown, John Smith wrote a story of his time there labeled, "A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of note, as hath happened in Virginia." This short entry (with plenty of spelling errors) was written in 1608, and describes a rather pleasant interaction with the Powhatan tribes, noting their hospitality and his overall good experience. Something worth noting here in the lack of Pocahontas' name, as she does not appear in this account. It only comes with his second entry sixteen years later that we hear her name. In this story, labeled "The General Historie of Virginia," this account describes a hostile narrative of John almost being executed by the Powhatan chief until a young girl by the name of Pocahontas came to rescue him at the last moment (just like the movie.) Coincidentally, this story has an eerily similar plot to another account he wrote on his journey to Turkey where he describes a young Turkish princess saving his life similar to how Pocahontas did (Nice plagiarism, John.)
Although she did not end up with John Smith, the Pocahontas franchise can be credited with getting one detail right in the life of the Powhatan girl: in the 1998 sequel, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, the character of John Rolfe bringing Pocahontas over to the old world is a true detail in her life, however the movie fails to highlight the fact that she died due to the many many diseases that overtook her poor unvaccinated soul and lead to her demise at age 21.
In total, Pocahontas is not properly portrayed as the playful Indian girl she has been accounted as in numerous historical documents as she is in the movie franchise.
Disney's Racist Portrayal of Native Americans in Peter Pan
Compared to the historical inaccuracies of Pocahontas, Disney surely couldn't have done worse in the past, right? Wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Disney's arguably worst case of racial profiling in a movie, 1953's animated classic feature film, Peter Pan.
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| John, Michael, and the Lost Boys tied up to an Indian totem pole. |
The first appearance of the Native Americans in this movie happens when the children are circled by a group of bushes with feathers and spears, the bushes then reveal themselves to be Indians, who kidnap the children but not before tying them to a stereotypical totem pole.
With a first glance of these newly-introduced characters, it is without a doubt safe to say that this is a very racist depiction of Native Americans. Their skin is almost blood-red, their hair covering their squinting eyes, and humungous noses covering their faces as they hit their drums and sing chants.
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| The infamous tobacco pipe scene in Peter Pan. |
The next biggest offender we see in this movie of the Indians is at the bonfire scene, where the chief bestows a stereotypical feathered headdress as a gift of gratitude to Peter and proceeds to smoke a tobacco pipe with the other people around the fire. The other men of the tribe start a borderline offensive song while they drum and smoke from the pipe.
The part that definitely stuck out most to me has to be when John started smoking from the tobacco pipe, in which he gets sick and his face turns a bright red. This is immediately met with one of the lost boys literally saying, "What makes the red man red?"
Moral of the Story
Although over time, Disney managed to portray Native Americans in a less offensive way, both the historical inaccuracy and racist portrayals of Indigenous people in America remains a huge flaw in Disney's films involving Native Americans produced throughout the twentieth century.
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