Pocahontas: The Controversial Princess

(Image from Wikipedia)

            Of all of the Disney Princess Features, Disney drew the most ire in 1995, when they released Pocahontas. The tale of a young Native American princess (technically, her father was chief) trying to prevent a war and deal with the realization that there’s another people in the world has one rather huge difference to previous features: the heroine was loosely based on a historical figure. As such it’s fallen under attack for being historically inaccurate, and sexualizing the real relationship of John Smith and Pocahontas, who would have been a preteen when they met. While this is not the purpose of my blog, to those critics I will say one thing: talking trees. One of the main characters is Grandmother Willow-a magical talking tree. Why does anyone expect an animated Disney feature to be historically accurate? True, they shouldn’t have used a historical name as they did. It would have been better portrayed as an original story, which it was. That said, that’s how it should be treated: as an original story, not a slap in the fact of history.

            Pocahontas is a free spirit who lives in a village where everyone plays their part. Her father, the chief, is widowed, but they believe the spirit of her mother lingers around them. She is the first of the Disney Princesses to have a gal pal, that is to say, her best friend is another human. Well, perhaps not her best friend, but she has a human friend as well as two animal companions. She, like predecessor Ariel, is curious of what else is in the world. While her father strongly encourages her in certain directions, she feels like it would be settling, and she’s not sure that it is her fate to do so. She is more aware then some of her peers, and proves she can be quite stealthy-a seasoned explorer completely passes her without notice.

(Via Disney Wiki)

            The course of her story is mostly admirable: she encounters one of the pale-faced new comers, and the two try to prevent war between their peoples. She risks her life to do this in the end, so her father does not execute him and cause a war. There is a corrupt politician, the Governor Ratcliffe, trying to find gold and disregarding the fact that the Native Americans had none. He tore apart the land ruthlessly and encouraged his men to kill the Native Americans, which he encouraged his men to call “Savages” and to shoot them on sight. In general people are scared of new things, so she had quite a bit to deal with; and on top of that her father wanted her to marry the best warrior in the tribe and settle down.

            The romance Disney thrust upon Pocahontas was not only the cause of historians screaming, but the most forced romance they’ve ever done. Even in early movies while the princes and their ladies didn’t get much bonding, there were never any particular reason they wouldn’t work out. While Pocahontas was curious about the new comer and observed him, when he turned a gun on her she was able to sense the danger and run. While they got over her he also accused her of being a few rather horrible things. He commented absent mindedly, without realizing why she might be offended, that her people didn’t know better, were uncivilized, and savages. She was quite rightly offended and attempted to take off. When he followed her, she lectured him. From that point on, their entire romance seemed rather forced. When he initially tries to kiss her, she scurries off and says they can’t meet again. When he appears in the cornfield, she appears to be irritated. And yet later Pocahontas can’t get him off her mind? I could accept them maybe becoming friends eventually; but I can’t buy the romance the audience is supposed to see.

            However her ‘romance’ did have one important difference to previous Disney Princesses: she did not follow love in the end. She chose her family and people rather then to go to the other land with the man who’d been wounded saving her father, and it’s suggested he might not even make it back to England for proper medical attention. Unexpectedly, Disney did not give this princess a fairy tale ending; instead there was the question of lost love. Now, it could be because they felt they’d already trespassed on history as it was, but let’s pretend it’s an original story. As an original story this presents and important lesson previous Disney Princesses continued to miss: you don’t need to wind up with a man. Pocahontas did have love, but she did not marry him. Circumstances did not allow, and that is key.

            Now that I’ve spoken to death about the pros and cons about the romance presented in Pocahontas, let’s review her as a character. She is brave, intelligent, curious, and loyal but not to the point in any which way that she can’t make her own decisions. She is capable of being offended, and does not simply shrug off insult. For heaven’s sake, she prevented a war at risk to herself. While I’m not encouraging little girls to risk their necks for men they’ve only known a few days, they should want to avoid violence. Even if she does get a lot of flack for not being “historically accurate”, as Disney Princesses’s go, Pocahontas is a pretty cool role model.