Moana Stereotypes

Moana is a Disney cartoon movie that released in 2016. The movie sets in ancient Oceania in the South Pacific, and it tells the story of young girl Moana teams with Maui on a search for a fabled island to save her people. Although this movie rated as one of the most popular Disney cartoon movies in last year, but many pacific islanders posit criticism on the racial stereotype portray of the appearance of their ethic group. They point out the Maui (the character) in Moana is portrayed as morbidly obese. Pacific islanders feel that the cartoon illustrates a damaging and negative stereotype about Maui’s appearance and culture. Although obesity is an increasing issue in the society, group, Disney’s portray of Maui (the character) as a fat guy is such a bad decision. Jenny Salesa, who is the representative of New Zealand Labor Party with a Polynesian heritage, even

Especially, when it comes to Maui’s culture, not a lot of US audiences know about their culture due to geological distance. Media becomes the only and simplest source for US audiences to get to know about the group. As heuristic model of cultivation suggests that when making judgment, people often base their judgment on examples that come to mind easily, so after viewing Moana, US audiences would easily associate Maui people’s appearance with fat body size and gangster tattoo. In addition, as cultivation theory suggests that long-term cumulative consumption of media content can lead to distorted perception of the reality of Maui’s appearance and culture. If the false stereotypical obese appearance continued to be portrayed in other films or cartoons that associate with pacific islanders, the stereotype would be reinforced and ingrained more deeply in the audience’s mind that might falsely lead them to make the future conclusion that all pacific islanders are fat and wear