Now with all the issues, people have with Disney, one of the films that have legitimate grievances is Pocahontas. And as you can imagine, because there ARE legit grievances to be had with Pocahontas, sites like Tumblr have an absolute field day with it. Personally, the more research I did on the situation around this film, the more I was actually fascinated by it.

I know it's easy to write this movie off but how it came to be is a lot more nuanced than you think. It actually was gonna be a story closer to what happened in history but then Jefferey Katzenberg's overwhelming desire to get another Oscar nomination (after BatB) clouded Disney's judgment and it resulted in the controversial admittedly weaker entry into the Disney Animated Canon we have now. Kinda like how the "meta" "woke" crap is affecting modern Disney films today, sacrificing the story for what's marketable. Although I do feel Pocahontas still has a lot more "heart" put into it than most of the revival films.

In my research, I was surprised when I found out that the myth surrounding Pocahontas and John Smith, this Native girl falling in love with an English man and saving him from execution by her father, has actually existed for centuries, in plays, films, literature, pop songs (Peggy Lee's Fever) and paintings like the one below, way before the Disney film. Of course, if you look deeper into history you'll find that this tale was actually something that was more than likely fabricated by John Smith.

But the folklore of these star-crossed lovers really took on a life of it's own. The story and image of a native girl draping her body over a white man as he's about to be killed by her father are probably as familiar to the public consciousness as stories like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. It's kinda like Mulan, taking a very basic synopsis (a woman disguised as a man joins the army) and just writing a story from that, or more comparable, Anastasia, a movie that's more accurate to the urban legend surrounding Anastasia rather than what actually happened.

It's the same thing with Pocahontas, retelling an iconic age-old urban legend but I agree that this film (and Anastasia for that matter) didn't have to use the real names. Even if you changed the names, the film would still have more in common with its folklore than Princess and The Frog, Tangled or Frozen. But you know, being "based on true events" was too good of a marketing strategy to pass up, like we've been saying, doing what's marketable when writing a story isn't always the best idea.

I know some of you are asking "Why does it have to be inspired by the myth? Why can't it just be an original story?" Well, the execution part where Pocahontas saves John from getting his head bashed in is pretty iconic and specific and they made sure to put that scene in the film, again even if you change the names, the familiarity is still there, even more so than Disney films that actually keep the original names.

Plus, I think this may be a contributing factors as to why Brave and Moana are such weak films. Maybe if they had a template to work off, these films wouldn't be such a mess, especially Brave. It's just a thought. I like the idea of Disney's major films being based on pre-existing stories (I am one of those people who thinks of the Lion King as a retelling of Hamlet) because it's fun to compare it to the source material.

I do think it's unfair to give Pocahontas such a hard time when we've had ridiculous and wildly inaccurate stories about historical figures like Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, and as we've mentioned Anastasia but I also think it's intellectually dishonest to deny that a big part of the issue is that this film is the MOST popular story surrounding Pocahontas.

If I were in charge at Disney I would

A) put a disclaimer in all re-airings and re-packagings of the film.
B) rename and redub the film, songs stay the same since they don't mention names.
C) use these live-action remakes as an opportunity to do what Disney, and all of Hollywood, didn't. Tell the truth about what really happened.

Unfortunately, Disney would probably be too scared to do that in this day and age, because y'all know the internet, even if they actually fully utilized Powhatan consultants this time, people wouldn't be satisfied no matter how hard they tried but if something good can come out of these remakes at least it should be this. We'd have a film that tells the truth, and the 1995 film that tells the myth can just be categorized with fantastical/historical movies like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (it's still mind blowing a film with that title exists)

Basically this is just my rant about why I'm cool with Pocahontas but there are issues that could be rectified if Disney was willing to try.