Disney’s Princess: Pocahontas

Disney's Pocahontas has a storyline, which disregards many elements from the actual history. Disney is also known to apply its own values, morals and themes to existing materials. This tendency can be further analyzed when we look deep into what exactly has been “Disneyficated” in the story of Pocahontas. Pochahontas' Americanized image, “sanitizing” of Pochahontas' age-controversial relationship with John Smith and the exceptional display of non-submissive female traits. Native Americans have always had a hard time being authentically portrayed in the American Cinema, let alone a Native American woman. In the film she wears a one-shoulder skimpy dress, constantly dancing and singing around and her only close friend being a raccoon named Mooki. She is also hopelessly in love with John Smith and ends up marrying him. These are American (Disney) personifications, not Native personifications. Instead of making Pochahontas look authentically Native, they just made her exotically sexy. Many historical events were avoided to maintain Disney cinema's “innocence” and mostly juvenile audience. Including the fact that she was merely 9 when first encountering John Smith. Disney also left out the event of the settlers kidnapping her and her conversion to Christianity. This is Disney's process of sanitizing sensitive materials to maintain children viewers. The kidnapping and conversion are left to simplify the plot and demonstrate a clear contrast of good and evil, leaving no room for ambiguity. Though historically inaccurate, Pocahontas is very independent and active considering other Disney adaptations like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty where the female lead is unconscious for half their