Pocahontas (1995)
From early on in the studio's history, Disney has made a point to embrace and use other cultures to tell stories and give a more worldwide perspective. This is a rather complex initiative when it comes to morals. While the embrace of other cultures is an overall positive thought and can have genuine meaningful results, the reaction within the United States to Saludos Amigos and the breaking of false ideas surrounding life in South America immediately comes to mind, Disney has also consistently dropped the ball with actually using these voices in the creation and production of the films. This has led to worthwhile claims of appropriation and harmful messages working their way into these representations. No film quite stands on such shaky ground, however, as 1995's Pocahontas.
Coming at around the halfway point in the famed Disney Renaissance with some even seeing it as a turning point where the studio started to lose momentum and results, before one can discuss the quality of the feature as a film, its identity on a core level demands to be addressed. Rather than being based on a piece of mythology or a fairytale, Pocahontas is based on the life of the real life Powhatan woman of the same name who was captured and eventually brought back to England by English colonists in the early 1610s. Disney is not new to rewriting history and giving established stories a more positive outlook that is in line with the brand, but to adapt and rewrite the life and suffering of a real woman who tragically lost her life at the incredibly young age of just 20 or 21 is a rather notable low for the morals of the company. While the studio clearly should not be using the genocide of indigenous peoples of the Americas for any story considering fundamentally the studio is not in a place to tell this story with authentic gravitas or facts, to take the body and name of a victim and replay her story as a love story is simply revolting. The lack of indigenous voices behind the scenes should be obvious. It should be noted, however, that the film at least did have indigenous voices throughout the cast, a standard that Disney would break less than a decade later in Brother Bear. While this review will strive to analyze the feature on its merits as a cinematic effort, at no point should this moral identity of the film be lost and any conversation surrounding the film should be actively aware and mindful of this darker side to the project. For those who would like to look deeper into this, worthwhile articles can be found here, here, and here.
Moving to the film itself, it is not one of tremendous quality. Starting where the film does succeed, the animation is often beautiful throughout the feature. Pocahontas comes at a time where Disney was willing to experiment tremendously with color and style with every feature not only being beautiful, but also unique. Specifically in the song sequences, the film transcends its own visual style and embraces experimentation to great results. It is hard to find many Disney song sequences as strong or as fitting as "Colors of the Wind" or as grand as "Savages". Speaking of songs, that is the other big highlight of the film. The soundtrack is easily the part of the film that has survived in the zeitgeist for the longest with Judy Kuhn doing a beautiful job with every song she is given as the singing voice of Pocahontas.
The deeper messages of the film are also rather solid. While the film fails to do much new, and the wider context of the film does tremendously hurt its effectiveness, the overall message of wrongful judgment is a worthy one. With the audience seeing the beauty and love found from Pocahontas and her community, the labels put on them by the English colonists provide younger audiences a unique question of worldview that maintains its relevance to this day. While this might not be the right lens for this story to be told, this is a good message to be expressed and is sadly one that would cause social turmoil if it was shared in the modern political climate.
While these sides to the film are strong, the story itself is rather dull in execution. The characters throughout the film lack much depth or personality. Many simply fill narrative requirements in a vein similar to early Disney works such as the prince in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) is a conflicted yet ultimately innocent protagonist who is caught between the wishes of her family and the desires of her heart while John Smith (Mel Gibson) faces a similar predicament on the other side as he has to choose if he will support the other English colonists or stand up for Pocahontas. The villain, Governor Ratcliffe (David Ogden Stiers), is an average greedy force of gluttony who has no care for anything but making money and has deeply racist roots to back up his agenda. None of these characters provide anything new or that worthwhile with the most successful emotions from the project never coming from their dynamics or writing.
While a conversation surrounding the morals of Pocahontas deserve attention and space, it is worth knowing that the film itself is also a rather weak outing for Disney. Feeling strangely reductive in character and plot, the only way one could realistically tell that the film was even made during the Disney Renaissance would be the film's technical side. With results like this, it makes sense why neither of the directors, Mike Gabriel nor Eric Goldberg, ended up staying at Disney for long.
Coming at around the halfway point in the famed Disney Renaissance with some even seeing it as a turning point where the studio started to lose momentum and results, before one can discuss the quality of the feature as a film, its identity on a core level demands to be addressed. Rather than being based on a piece of mythology or a fairytale, Pocahontas is based on the life of the real life Powhatan woman of the same name who was captured and eventually brought back to England by English colonists in the early 1610s. Disney is not new to rewriting history and giving established stories a more positive outlook that is in line with the brand, but to adapt and rewrite the life and suffering of a real woman who tragically lost her life at the incredibly young age of just 20 or 21 is a rather notable low for the morals of the company. While the studio clearly should not be using the genocide of indigenous peoples of the Americas for any story considering fundamentally the studio is not in a place to tell this story with authentic gravitas or facts, to take the body and name of a victim and replay her story as a love story is simply revolting. The lack of indigenous voices behind the scenes should be obvious. It should be noted, however, that the film at least did have indigenous voices throughout the cast, a standard that Disney would break less than a decade later in Brother Bear. While this review will strive to analyze the feature on its merits as a cinematic effort, at no point should this moral identity of the film be lost and any conversation surrounding the film should be actively aware and mindful of this darker side to the project. For those who would like to look deeper into this, worthwhile articles can be found here, here, and here.
Moving to the film itself, it is not one of tremendous quality. Starting where the film does succeed, the animation is often beautiful throughout the feature. Pocahontas comes at a time where Disney was willing to experiment tremendously with color and style with every feature not only being beautiful, but also unique. Specifically in the song sequences, the film transcends its own visual style and embraces experimentation to great results. It is hard to find many Disney song sequences as strong or as fitting as "Colors of the Wind" or as grand as "Savages". Speaking of songs, that is the other big highlight of the film. The soundtrack is easily the part of the film that has survived in the zeitgeist for the longest with Judy Kuhn doing a beautiful job with every song she is given as the singing voice of Pocahontas.
The deeper messages of the film are also rather solid. While the film fails to do much new, and the wider context of the film does tremendously hurt its effectiveness, the overall message of wrongful judgment is a worthy one. With the audience seeing the beauty and love found from Pocahontas and her community, the labels put on them by the English colonists provide younger audiences a unique question of worldview that maintains its relevance to this day. While this might not be the right lens for this story to be told, this is a good message to be expressed and is sadly one that would cause social turmoil if it was shared in the modern political climate.
While these sides to the film are strong, the story itself is rather dull in execution. The characters throughout the film lack much depth or personality. Many simply fill narrative requirements in a vein similar to early Disney works such as the prince in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) is a conflicted yet ultimately innocent protagonist who is caught between the wishes of her family and the desires of her heart while John Smith (Mel Gibson) faces a similar predicament on the other side as he has to choose if he will support the other English colonists or stand up for Pocahontas. The villain, Governor Ratcliffe (David Ogden Stiers), is an average greedy force of gluttony who has no care for anything but making money and has deeply racist roots to back up his agenda. None of these characters provide anything new or that worthwhile with the most successful emotions from the project never coming from their dynamics or writing.
While a conversation surrounding the morals of Pocahontas deserve attention and space, it is worth knowing that the film itself is also a rather weak outing for Disney. Feeling strangely reductive in character and plot, the only way one could realistically tell that the film was even made during the Disney Renaissance would be the film's technical side. With results like this, it makes sense why neither of the directors, Mike Gabriel nor Eric Goldberg, ended up staying at Disney for long.