What Is The Relationship Between Walt Disney And Powhatans

When a layman is asked to describe their idea of a Native person’s relationship with nature, it is the author’s experience that, most often, the description will involve Pocahontas’ song, “Colors of the Wind” – and not with unfair cause. Disney’s version of Pocahontas and the Powhatans embodies the “steward of the environment” trope in an extreme way, and the cultural ubiquity of the supposedly historical film makes it a powerful vessel to impact peoples’ perception of Native life. However, Disney’s unfortunate portrayal of all Native people being inextricably connected to and a natural protector of the land does more damage than cultural education – by stereotyping a people group based on one aspect of their cultural identity and minimizing
their actual, historical beliefs, Disney does the Native people a great disservice, and only further solidifies incorrect and harmful ideas and stereotypes into the cultural imagination.
Disney’s depiction of the Pocahontas’ interaction with Grandmother Willow is a dramatic (bordering on heavy handed) depiction of nature as a personified source of wisdom and magic. Later, Pocahontas sings of the virtues of embracing the natural world, extolls appreciation of the earth in an existential way (as opposed to for the resources it provides), and advocates unity with nature in “Colors of the Wind”. As she sings, she and John are seen as moving with the animals and water, jumping over waterfalls and leaping through the trees in her “stirring anthem to animism” (Kempley). Even among the tribe in general, naturalism rules – when the white men are classified as a threat to the Powhatans, the seminal judgment of the white men as evil is not based upon territorial encroachment or even their violent nature, but upon their misuse of the land.
It would be incorrect to say that Disney entirely misrepresented the Native’s appreciation and unity with the land – in “Colors of the Wind,” for example, Pocahontas mentions the Sacred Hoop, an actual Native concept of unity in all things (Allen 59). However, Disney falls into the dangerous practice of hyper-emphasizing a specific facet of a societal identity to such a degree that it becomes the only societal identity. While it’s most likely that this was an artistic decision for the sake of clearly demarcating a conflict that gives Pocahontas the majority of its plot, it nonetheless downplays the humanity and complexity of the Natives. This unfortunate classification only lends power the prevailing narrative of Native Americans being primarily identified by their love for nature, defining them by their naturalist and conservationist tendencies. This hallmarking of a civilization by a single concept is a fundamental misrepresentation of Natives.
People are often eager to perpetuate native narratives such as the Noble Savage, and Pocahontas is no different.
However, Disney takes a unique approach to this narrative through the alternate romanticization and vilification of Native violence. The Anglo-Powhatan conflict is radically simplified (to the point that the actual conflict could more accurately be called distant artistic inspiration than a historical source) in Pocahontas – however, of particular interest is not the conflict itself (which was undeniable and complex (Stebbins)), but rather the contrasting portrayal of the conflicts shown in the Disney film – that with the Massawomecks, and that with the
Anglos.
In one of the first scenes with the Natives, Chief Powhatan says that they have defeated the Massawomeck tribe, and that the village is safe once more. In typical Disney fashion, what would have likely been an (at least somewhat) bloody conquest is idealized and glossed over – the war was justified, because the Native people are now safe. Disney’s casual disregard for war actually dehumanizes the Natives: it’s an easy way to distance ourselves from the Natives if we idealize their conflicts, allowing us to box the narratives into the Noble Savage narrative without concerning ourselves with the complexities and pain that appear when humans war with each other – just as the idea of a Native connection to nature is conveyed with mythical and mysterious intensity, conflict among the Natives is similarly portrayed as something outside of the white man’s understanding.
This judgment of disrespectful simplification and mystification may seem harsh (and perhaps unfair; it is a children’s movie, after all). Contrasting the Massawomeck conflict with the Anglo conflict, though, more clearly illustrates a disparity. No judgment is passed upon the Powhatans when they return from war (in fact, it’s used as source of honor and pride within the tribe), but the preparation for the battle with the white men as portrayed in the song “Savages” clearly illustrates that the Powhatans are going to war with the white men due to their perception of difference inherently being a threat. Disney has their native narrative cake, and eats it too: conflict is acceptable, reasonable, and honorable when one tribe wars against another. As soon as the Natives set their sights on the Anglos, though, the primary reasoning for the war is flawed and fueled by an eagerness for revenge. Essentially, the “savages” are noble, until their conflict butts against the Anglos, at which point their reasoning is flawed. Disney’s contrasting portrayal of these two conflicts caters to both extremes of a Noble Savage narrative – either the Natives are neatly self-sufficient, their achievements and conflicts both relegated to their own world and not worth investigating, or their decisions are biased and inaccurate (especially as they pertain to white interactions), and conflict can be easily attributed to their savage, warlike tendencies. Tragically, neither of these extremes gives the Natives respect and a capacity for self-actualization; instead, it allows for the easy dehumanization of them by making their decisions either irrelevant or based upon incorrect precepts.
Most fundamentally, though, Disney develops the idea of the natural, unified-with-the-earth Native through manipulation of the environment itself.
As a direct example, Grandmother Willow is, in fact, not a native species to America, and a tree of that type would not have existed on the East Cost at that time (“Weeping Willow”). Throughout the film, though, they typically flat landscape of the East Coast is manipulated to be convenient for plot points – there are certainly no enormous waterfalls to be found as close to the coastline as portrayed. Weather is also manipulated; scenes of the English encampment during dire times show stormy skies, and then cut immediately to the bright, sunny Native village. Storms seem to roll in and out of the coast during conveniently dark and light plot
points.
Generally speaking, the manipulation of weather is a plot device that is more than appropriate for a storyteller to use. However, when used within the context of an area populated by Natives and whites, there arise issues. The most pertinent issue is the ability to portray weather and the earth as able to be adversarial or benevolent. For a movie that so vividly expresses a Native relationship with nature, this can cheapen the connection to the Earth – the Earth loses some of its potency as an entity in and of itself when it becomes an obvious plot tool for the writers, and almost becomes a sort of cultural appropriation as a complex and spiritual relationship is reduced to whatever is convenient for the plot. It seems that if portraying the Massawomecks and Natives in general as naturalists was so important to Disney, the least that might have been done would be to portray the environment they live in as it actually was.
The idea that a historical creative work does or doesn’t owe a debt to the people groups it portrays is a complex issue, to which there may not be an answer. Nonetheless, Disney does have an obligation to at least be aware of potential issues, stereotypes, and oppression that its work can further. Unfortunately, it would appear that, in the case of Pocahontas, Disney decided to value storytelling over sensitivity to Native stereotypes. Once again, the Native steward of the environment stereotype re-embeds itself into the cultural psyche through the reformation of natural life into a plot device, and marginalization and generalization of Native practices – this time with the eminence of Disney at the helm.