More Demands for Change
Well, if you were surprised at the changes to the rides and attractions at Disneyworld, there’s another thing to be surprised at. When I say surprised, I mean that Pocahontas is basically a petri dish of controversy waiting to be picked apart. Which I thought was the point of the movie but what do I know.
You guys I know Pocahontas fiction story is problematic but they also include some real ass quotes or how about when John Smith refers to the Indians as savage and he’s goes like not you and she “just my people?” And love it or hate but she didn’t choose him she chose her people pic.twitter.com/7Jswe0OI6M
— September G. (@septemberguzma) June 25, 2020
In the film Pocahontas, there’s a scene where the main villains sing their villain song about murdering and burning everything down. Titled ‘Savages’, it’s a song about how these racist murdering men view the Native Americans. However, Disney got pretty creative with the implications of the song.
See, it’s not just the white men who are singing the song. There’s a duet to the song that is also sung by the Native Americans. Basically trying to show how both sides are viewing each other as inherently evil. It’s meant to turn the viewer against the characters and create animosity, but apparently it didn’t land that way to some people.
Recently there have been a lot of petitions for Disney to alter and change a lot of it’s older attractions/movies. Song of the South has been universally looked down upon as a racist caricature of African Americans. A look which just recently led to Disney reforming the attraction Splash Mountain at their parks.
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Now, even the actor who played Pocahontas spoke on the controversial subject matter of the song.
“When I first saw it, I was like, ‘Why did we have to go there? Why do we have to go that far, that deep into it?’ It’s so fraught, that word ‘savages.’ So my first instinct was to go, ‘Oh no.’ To see what story it was showing, that both sides were looking at each other in this way of, ‘You’re less than.’ The song really shines a light on that, so ultimately it adds to the story.”
Truth be told, she is 100% right. The ultimate goal of the song is to dehumanize both sides because that is exactly what they’re trying to do to each other. They want to see each other as less than human so that they can feel justified trying to kill each other.
Some may see the song as tone deaf, others may see it as just too mature for a kids movie. Consider this, do you even know the true story of Pocahontas? Because if you want to start a dialogue about something controversial in that movie, maybe start with history. Words are words, they can have meaning, and history is not very kind to the word ‘savages’
However, history is far less kind to Pocahontas and John Smith. Maybe do some research before just bandwagoning, you’d be surprised what you’ll find.
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