Comment: Damn you, Disney!

You’ve read about my issues with Disney before. But this time I have something kind of positive to say. We took out “Pocohontas” from the library and we all watched it together. (My rule of screen viewing of any kind: ALWAYS watch first with the kids. Otherwise you will not understand why your child uses the expression “squeeze her like a pimple”. (It's Willy Wonka's line.) Otherwise your jaw might break as it drops to the floor in front of the large audience of people at the grocery check-out line.)

So even though it’s, well, Disney, the heroine in the eponymously-named “Pocohontas” actually does something. She thinks, she acts, she feels, and she ultimately stands by her family and her heritage, not her man. Wow. Revolutionary albeit who knows how (in)accurate it is relative to the true story. I’m curious now and will have to look it up. We didn’t learn about Native Americans in Canada. So there’s not a lot of lore to unlearn. Somehow though I’m sure Disney took some artistic liberties with the script.

Anyway, not only does the star of the movie think (and sing) for herself, she is athletic and (of course) good-looking, and not Caucasian with blonde hair, thank God.

I praise Disney for having a female lead who doesn’t just wait for the man to arrive to solve all her problems. John Smith causes more problems than solutions, but his arrival catalyzes her maturation as a member of her tribe. (Am I possibly reading too much into this? I don’t think the five year olds on the playground are discussing feminism, but you never know.)

Why I curse Disney in this instance is due to the swelling music at the end of the film, when Pocohontas has made her decision not to follow the man, and she’s standing proud and tall, and the wind (which has colors one can paint if one is sufficiently tuned in) is blowing and the music is swelling. I watched that part today with my kids and it gave me the shivers.

How manipulative. How embarrassing. How very Disney. There’s something universal they manage to tap into in spite of their general prehistoric takes on femininity. They, gasp, can make a cynical old mother have a frisson of feeling, a little shiver of recognition with the cartoon character on the screen.

Well played, Disney. Well played.