Pocahontas Vs Pocahontas Research Paper

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Pocahontas vs Pocahontas
Disney’s Pocahontas won numerous awards for its animation and music. It won two Academy Awards for ‘Best Music, Original Song’ and ‘Best Musical, Original song’. It won a Golden Globe for ‘Best Original Song-Motion Picture’ and won an Annie for ‘Best Animated Feature’. A positive aspect of the film is the way Disney shows Pocahontas as a peacemaker. She helps the Powhatan Indian Tribe and English settlers form somewhat of a civilized relationship. I enjoyed most of the songs and I do agree that for its time, Pocahontas was well animated. Although Pocahontas is a wildly popular movie, it is filled with many inaccuracies and historical errors in comparison to the real Pocahontas story.
Pocahontas’s real name was “Amonute”. …show more content…

When the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, Pocahontas would have only been ten or eleven and John Smith would have been in his mid-twenties. Disney’s Pocahontas changes the girl’s age to create a romantic relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith that would be deemed acceptable. In reality, Pocahontas and Smith’s relationship would not have been romantic. They would have been friends, teaching each other their own languages and exchanging gifts. In Pocahontas, as Smith is about to be killed by Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas jumps over Smith to prevent her father from killing him. When asked to stand back she says “I won’t. I love him father” (Pocahontas, 1995). Since their relationship was not romantic, Pocahontas’s rescue of John Smith would have been a strictly diplomatic act and her reasoning for saving him would not have been because she loved him.
Disney also distorted the way Pocahontas looked and behaved. Historically, Powhatan children wore little to no clothing, except a deerskin, apron-like cloth around their bottom half in the winter. Children had a mostly shaven head apart from a long, braided pony tail in the back. Helen C. Rountree states that Pocahontas most likely would have been stocky because of studies done on Late Woodland American women’s skeletons. She also includes that John Smith mentioned Pocahontas was short …show more content…

The makers of the film should have represented the complications concerning the Englishmen and the Native Americans in a more respectful manner. The song epitomizes the dehumanization of Native Americans carried out by the English. Not only the Englishmen sing this song, but also the Native Americans. “Savage” means uncivilized and primitive and is an offensive stereotype. The English called the Native Americans savages and for Disney to have the Native Americans in the movie sing about a derogatory name is wrong. Below are some of the

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