Reading Response to "Redesigning Pocahontas"

Edgerton and Jackson's text "Redesigning Pocahontas" was not at all what I expected. I expected a very argumentative piece about racism in Pocahontas but instead was delivered a text displaying the various view points surrounding the issue. Instead of a conclusion saying something like "the film is very racist" or "the film addressed race issues in a progressive way," the conclusion was, "Whether "subversive" or sexist, "daring" or reactionary, Pocahontas is a deeply conflicted text." This indicates that the deepest the analysis got was that there are many view points. I feel like I could have reached this conclusion with little research.

That being said, I did learn a lot from the text. Its lack of analysis gave it more of an expository than argumentative feel. The history of the film was new to me and quite fascinating. Clearly money was a main motivator behind the film, in an attempt to follow up in the success of The Lion King. However, Disney executives did also want to smooth over some of the "public criticism from various ethnic groups over racial stereotyping in their most recent productions" (Edgerton and Jackson 90). Additionally, they wanted the "spunky heroine" that had been seen in some of their recent movies. They wanted Pocahontas to be beyond beautiful, so they modeled her after 4 women, taking the best features from each (only 2 of which are Native American). I was impressed that Disney consulted Native Americans and had Native American actors, as opposed to just guessing and using white actors That being said, though, they made some very obvious mistakes. Disney must have known about these inaccuracies, stereotypes, and generalizations but I suppose they just chose to not do anything about it. That fact feels almost worse than if they did not put in an effort to begin with.

I was amazed by the vastly different viewpoints presented specifically within the Native American community. The very first testimony is from Russell Means, a former Native American activist who played Chief Powhatan, who felt that the beginning of the film was so accurate in its portrayal of the European motives for coming to America. I value Means' opinion a lot, as he was extremely tied to the issue. Because of that, I was thoroughly on board with this view point. That is, until Shirley "Little Dove" Custalow McGowan's testimony. Custalow McGowan was the main Native American consultant for the movie and she thoroughly objected to a lot of it. She claimed it is historically inaccurate and she wishes neither her nor Pocahontas had their names attached to the film. 

One point I found interesting and had never considered before was that the first white man Pocahontas saw was the first one she fell in love with. I can't decide if there really is anything to that, but it certainly is not something that had even jumped out at me while watching.

Finally, the duration of the story felt so distorted in the film, as pointed out to me in this article. The film feels like a 3 week adventure but really it spans over 2 full years. While of course a lot had to be left out in such a short children's film, it just felt off.