Decolonizing the Disneyfication of Pacific Culture and History: A Critical Indigenous View of the film Moana from Guam and Micronesia

Vicente M. DiazAmerican Indian Studies and HistoryUniversity of Minnesota Twin Cities

I’m honored to kick off this Guam Museum Lecture series in particular because of the potential for what thinking critically about Disney’s Moana has to do with questions of identity currently raging in Guam today.

More specifically, my critical thoughts about Moana as informed by indigenous culture and history from our region in particular is “purposed,” to paraphrase this series’ slogan of “presentations with purpose,” to intervene in contemporary politics of Chamorro self-determination when those politics are trumped, in the double sense of the being pre-empted by really disgusting politics, by US-based civil rights discourses.

I’m referring here, of course, to the recent federal court finding that the Chamorro-only vote on political status is discriminatory and would violate the civil rights of non-Chamorro US citizen residents of Guam. In my way of thinking, just how it is that a non-indigenous definition of a presumably inclusive “we” of US civil rights discourse can so easily “trump” an indigenous inclusive “we” as understood in the vernacular term hita is not unlike the historical and political process whereby a cultural artifact like Disney’s Moana through the assistance of one group of Pacific Islanders can so easily elide the cultural and historical realities of other groups of Pacific Islanders. What both the recent court ruling and Disney-fied Pacific cultural storytelling have in common is an ongoing history of colonialism that privileges certain conventions of identity in ways that presume to speak for the whole while also marginalizing cultural and historical specificities. Like the Polynesian mash-up that is offered by Disney and its supporters, the recent federal court offers a remarkably simplistic and ahistorical notion of individuated civil rights and liberty that must be protected against the political aspirations of a Chamorro cultural system that can only be imagined as a potential threat to individuated rights that get to stand for universality. Me, I’ve lived in Guam and in the “states” long enough to

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say unequivocally that as a non-Chamorro my cultural and political welfare and well being are better protected by the Chamorro idea of hita in Guam than they are as a non-White US citizen under the discourse of civil rights as applied in the history of United States of America.

Speaking of political fantasies under the United States, I almost forgot that this talk is about Disney ideas of the Pacific.

In thinking about how I was going to structure my talk for this audience and these concerns at 3 am this morning, I looked at the title I sent a week ago, its length and the phrasing used, and thought to myself, “this could be a bit confusing,” So, at 3 am, I changed it to this:

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “gee, academics are long winded” (or maybe just, “Vince is long winded”), and you are right (on both counts). But in our (my) defense, the penchant for long windedness has to do with wanting to be precise and clear, especially in matters that are complex and prone to misunderstanding. My criticism of Moana, alone, is one such example; and to make it speak to emotional and political issues involving the “we” of political status issues, especially the question of whether or not a Chamorro-only vote constitutes a violation of the civil rights of other “US citizens” on Guam, requires clarity and precision. Again, I’ll return to that momentarily.

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The new title is long but much clearer. Actually, if you read it, you’ll notice it is what we call a thesis statement: the film, a splash, is actually part of bigger, larger ‘tidal” wave, comprised of an old colonial idea that is now animated in a Disney cartoon that, I will argue, extends colonialism into the 21st century in neo and “post” colonial forms. To decolonize this “disneyfied” form of colonizing Pacific culture and history, we might turn to a critical view from Guam and Micronesia in particular. That’s much clearer than the original title, right?

Still, for all of the clarity, and the little thing about a splash and a tidal wave, I thought about how else I might really capture my sentiments about all of this stuff, and I came up with a third title:

I like this one a lot better.

No Wanna Moana offers a criticism of Disney’s Moana that connects it to larger colonizing forces, forces that stem from old and deeply entrenched ideas about the Pacific Islands and Pacific Peoples as a place of paradise and a people whose exotic and mystical connections to powerful nature have been understood, celebrated, and especially capitalized for their potential to provide respite and even therapy to Non-Pacific peoples suffering the perceived afflictions of modern civilization.

Such views, contained principally in western ideas about “Polynesia” (as opposed to actual Islanders from that

region, and from elsewhere in the Pacific) are insidious for many different reasons, but none more so than for how they continue to elide actual historical and present-day realities in a Pacific wide region that is remarkably diverse even if there are remarkable affinities among its peoples.

Furthermore, when we understand how Moana – advertised by Disney as ‘culturally authentic’ and ‘historically accurate’ and as confirmed by a small group of so-called “Pacific cultural experts” – perpetuates these problems as a result of eliding and marginalizing differences as a precondition for achieving its “authentic” and “accurate” look and feel, we begin to understand how colonial forces operate in the 21st century through positive and benevolent and loving ideas about culture and identity as well as through the enthusiastic support of contemporary Pacific Islanders.

The good news is that “our” part of the Pacific – Micronesia – as it is understood through the specifics of its seafaring traditions gives us a good vantage point to see what exactly is problematic about the collective view of the Pacific that Moana offers everyone else.

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However, I want to just as quickly underscore the particular challenge of articulating and mobilizing a collective sense of a Micronesian identity through seafaring in ways that do not lose the specificities of the differences within “Micronesia,” vital differences that might be lost when we invoke a collective and inclusive “we.”

Furthermore, the importance of being careful and precise when the collective “we” is imagined and used in ways that include and exclude is especially timely in Guam, in light of the recent court findings that relies on an “inclusive we” based on the uneven history of civil rights in the United States as a result of racism but also racialist thinking) and especially as the recent ruling misguidedly applies that external standard in ways that prevent a more inclusive notion of “we” based on indigenous notions of Chamorro collective identity struggling politically to develop an appropriate relationship with the United States free of interference from non-Chamorro based definitions of belonging. Let me just say that I disagree with the Court ruling that says that a Chamorro “only” vote for political status will automatically violate the “civil rights” of other US citizens because, in my experience as a non-Chamorro from Guam, I have less to fear being “excluded” and “violated” by Chamorro concepts of a “we” than I have confidence that my status as a non-White person of color US “citizen” will be protected by “civil rights” discourses or by the US Constitution. I’ll leave it to the question and answer forum to elaborate on this. On to Moana.

“So Wrong and So Right”I belong to a small collective of Pacific writers, scholars, activists, and artists that goes by the name of Mana Moana: We Are Moana. Moana, in Polynesian vernaculars refers to the “ocean” (in the film, it is also the name of the heroine, a young girl). Although the term doesn’t circulate in non-Polynesian parts of the Pacific – in Micronesia or Melanesia (in Micronesia, the more important watery units of analyses are “seas” between different islands in reflection of the fact that Micronesian views of seafaring, waters, and stars are much more “instrumental” and “pragmatic” than Polynesian penchants for deifying the natural world), I signed on out of solidarity with those Polynesians who didn’t like what Disney was doing with important icons of their heritage, and because I didn’t like what Disney and other Polynesians who helped make the film were doing with Micronesian seafaring.

When Mana Moana began publicizing our criticisms, we quickly received the scorn of many Pacific Islanders, Polynesian and otherwise, who loved the film and what it meant for advancing Pacific culture. But when Disney rolled out its infamous “Maui Suit” even the most fervent supporter of Disney’s Moana recoiled. For them, the question became, “how could Disney get it so ‘right’ and then get it so ‘wrong’ with the Moana suit?

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For us, however, the answer is simple. Disney got the Maui Suit so wrong because Disney got the Pacific so wrong.

So, what’s so wrong about a beautiful, loving, story about a strong Pacific Islander girl who learns to become a navigator and saves her village from evil forces?

Only these:

*White Supremacy*White Washing Colonialism Through Brown Facing*False “Cultural Authenticity” and Mystification of Native Identity and Culture*Colonial Primitivism, Colonial Nostalgia, and Noble Savagery*Cultural Homogenization (the “Mash Up” Problem)*Unsustainable Cultural and Environmental Practices*Mansplaining*Unethical Manipulation of Children’s affect, desires, through stories that are in fact long form and extended commercials*In cahoots with Trump

And this:When very specific aspects of specific communities in specific parts of the Pacific get to serve as the standard for what a real and authentic Pacific Islander looks and sounds like.

And this (especially infuriating for me):Denial and erasure of Micronesian (Carolinian) seafaring history, culture, and traditional technological development

Especially this:When all those bad things lead to the perpetuation of generic and problematic ideas about authentic Pacific Islander culture and identity such as to produce a standard for how Islanders are supposed to look and sound like in order to be real, as this lousy deal is predicated on the historical denial and erasure of seafaring history, culture, and traditional technological development in our part of the Pacific when, ironically, our part of the Pacific played an essential role in helping other parts of the Pacific, that

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gets chosen to stand as the standard for the entire Pacific, learn how to navigate again.

So, what can possibly be wrong about a beautiful and moving tale of a strong Pacific Islander girl who learns to become a navigator while saving her island from evil forces? In the interest of time, in Appendix one, I provide links and references to fuller details of each of these points (especially those listed with asterisks, above) and in the interest of time, I want to elaborate on two examples (items 3 and 4) from that list: False “Cultural Authenticity” and Mystification of Native Identity and Culture and Colonial Primitivism, Colonial Nostalgia, and Noble Savagery

A. Colonial Primitivism, Nostalgia, the Noble SavageLet me begin with Colonial Primitivism, Colonial Nostalgia, and Noble Savagery, and only define them. For elaboration, as I see it, please refer to the two links at the end of this immediate section.

Colonial Primitivism is a term that calls critical attention to a demand, a desire for purity, for closer to nature way of living supposedly to be found among certain kinds of Natives. This demand or desire has little to do with the actualities of the Natives in question and more related to moments of cultural crises within the west, in relation to perceived ills of modernity

Noble savagery, from the idea of the Noble Savage, is the valorized or romanticized idea of the superiority of “man in natural state”. Supposedly, this is an improvement over seeing natives as plain old savages. Not so.

Colonial nostalgia is closely related to colonial primitivism in that it is a specific longing for time in the pre-contact past – prior to colonization when modernization and colonialism tragically messed things up. Such a history pre-empts saving the west from its sins and so it must purge or whitewash the realties of that colonial past – read as contamination – in order to have the ability to imagine and then redeem itself with a notion of purity. The past is typically filled with mystical powers.

In short, these old colonial ideas are what created and sustain certain western obsessions with the category, “Polynesia”, and these are firmly in the drivers seat of Moana at so many levels of narratological and visual and sonic storytelling. More specifically, these problematic ideas about “Polynesia”, which renders it a very useful and usable category for escapism and healing (for modern, civilization-weary westerners) is super charged by the story teller of escapism and fantasy extraordinaire, Disney imagineering. If this is not bad enough, Moana gets to have the veneer of “cultural authenticity” and “historical facticity” to shore it up because it supposedly enjoys the advice of deep cultural experts – Pacific scholars and cultural practitioners – from the region. But the idea that Moana is culturally authentic and historically correct is highly problematic at best.

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For details, see my op-ed pieces:

Diaz, Vicente M. 2016. “Disney Craps a Cute Grass Skirt.” Hawaii Independent 29 Sept. http://hawaiiindependent.net/story/disney-craps-cute-

grass-skirt

Diaz, Vicente M. 2016. “Don’t Swallow (or be Swallowed by) Disney’s ‘Culturally Authenticated Moana.” Indian Country Today Media Network, 13

November https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/opinions/dont-swallow-or-be-swallowed-by-disneys-culturally-authenticated-

moana/

B. False “Cultural Authenticity” and Mystification of Native Identity and Culture

Here, very quickly, because this work is under development, I want to connect two slights of hand with respect to “cultural authenticity” that leads to the mystification of Native culture and Identity. The link between these two will have to do with a prior (parenthetical) claim I made about Micronesian seafaring as “instrumental” and “pragmatic” rather than as prone to the “mystical”. But first, the slight of hand.

Basically, this is how Disney can claim “cultural authenticity” for Moana. Disney hires cultural experts from certain, specific, sectors from certain specific islands in Polynesia, to advise Disney on ‘getting it right’: a highly regarded Samoan tatau practitioner ensures that the tattoos that you see on Maui and other characters are accurate. Ditto with canoes, which are modeled on Fijian “drua” from a very specific part of Fiji. Ditto with some music and dancing, which are also taken from here and there: sometimes you hear Fijian sounds, sometimes it is Tahitian drumming (that might have really come from the Cook islands or Aitutaki), sometimes it’s Hawaiian (especially Moana’s grandmother’s dancing). Sadly, most of the time it is that formulaic Disney sing song – created specifically for children – only this time written by Lin Miranda, a non-Pacific Islander when Broadway credentials. In terms of dance, in Moana, demonized coconuts perform a Maori haka but are named after Solomon Island mythical evil or at least troublemaking creatures, Kakamora.

Indeed, Moana is a mash up whose “authenticity” rests on micro level iconographies from different parts of Polynesia, all which get to stand for non-Pacific viewers as

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“Pacific” culture and identity. Most (not all) Pacific Islanders can tell the difference, but most non Pacific Islanders won’t.

But cultural authenticity – always at least a double edge sword for Pacific Islanders of any group, and always highly political – at micro levels of a hodge podge of practices – doesn’t add up to authenticity of the whole, whatever “the whole” of Pacific culture and identity and history – imagined on “Polynesian” material – is supposed to look and sound like. This is precisely how it is that the category “Polynesia” – as opposed to actual people and cultures that comprise different parts of that region – once again gets to stand for the whole. “Polynesia” – the favored category for western desires and fantasies about paradise, primitivism, and respite from the supposed ills of modern civilization – is the principle iconography for “cultural authenticity” of this “Pacific” film. But select parts of Polynesia gets to stand for all of Polynesia which then gets to stand for the whole Pacific. How odd is it when we remember that Melanesia, which alone accounts for over 80 percent of the Pacific’s population, never gets to stand for the entire Pacific? That Melanesia is Black, while Polynesia is, well, let’s face it, long and still deeply understood to be valorized as “man in the state of nature” – the noble savage – akin to Greek gods and goddesses, and once thought to be Aryan in origin to boot, has much to do with the whole matter.

Which brings us to Micronesia. Micronesia is “present” in Moana, but only in the same way that we know black holes to exist: through the effects it generates. To be sure, there are some identifiable signs that link to Micronesia, but the references to Micronesia are actually erased, not marked, in order for Moana to imagine traditional seafaring and imagine it as an “ancient” practice of Polynesia. Seafaring or voyaging in fact is a big part of this film, as the heroine learns to become a navigator in order to save her island – but I argue that Micronesian seafaring – as well as a more recent, modern history of its role in helping imagine and revive Polynesian seafaring -- must simultaneously be erased as a condition for the film to imagine the power of seafaring in ancient Polynesia.

The necessarily erased-presence of Micronesian seafaring is hinted at in two ways: the use of the term “way finding” to describe traditional voyaging as it is set in the pre-colonial past of this film, and the repeated use of stylized hand-gestures to measure stars from the horizon, as if specifically to measure distance from latitude and other coordinates in a compass of cardinal directionality. In actual history, the term “way finding” and the use of such hand gestures derive from late 20th century histories of building a highly customized and hybrid but eminently effective and teachable form of voyaging as it melded important information from Micronesian, specifically Central Carolinian, specifically from the Polowat school of navigation called “Werieng” concepts and technological uses of stars, as well as through reliance on modern, scientific institutions like Planetariums, archeology, anthropology, corporate sponsorship and brilliant deduction and induction.

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The problem is when, some forty years later, Moana and its Pacific Islander “way finding” advisors decide that the term “way finding” and use of hand gestures get to stand for ancient voyaging knowhow. The problem is the ahistorical thinking but also the historical erasure of specifically Micronesian, Central Carolinian, Werieng technological and conceptual development and innovation, especially when there is evidence and observation in written records, in ethnographic research, and in oral traditions and practice, that the seafaring knowledge borrowed from the Central Carolines, which, among other 20th century factors, made “way finding” possible and imaginable, is a system that is calibrated specifically to the geographic lay of the Micronesian islands across an “east west” axis above the “equator” – with these cardinal directions and the idea of an equator themselves further signifying western modern conventions rather than indigenous Micronesian conventions. The gist of this criticism is how a fundamental part of the Micronesian cultural knowledge that is central to imagining and building “way finding” to begin with gets erased as the precondition for allowing “way finding” to stand, in Moana, for ancient Polynesian voyaging capabilities. And if the erasure of Carolinian seafaring instrumentality and technology is not bad enough – for that is precisely what is colonialism’s sin – the erasure of indigenous distinction and specificity in favor of western based ideas of technology and civilization – in the film, the heroine’s success at becoming a “way finder” is at every turn not depicted as the result of technical mastery, but of the mystical power of the ocean: every time she is lost, and every time she “finds her way” to the right island, Moana the heroine gets the helping hand of the mystical power of the ocean. And, of course, this helping hand of the mystical ocean is the product of imagineering by white male Disney writers. It is in this way that Moana, at the end of the day, is still a story about the mystical, primitive, powerful Pacific as imagined by white men who are still, for whatever reasons, continuing to cast their fantasies and anxieties about America, through moral lessons about young teenage girls primarily from non-white or indigenous cultures and traditions.

A ‘Wrap’

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The reason why I “No Wanna Moana” is because, under the claim of cultural authenticity and historical facticity, this film is actually a highly romanticized desire for primitivism and purity as imagined by a bunch of white guys with a very rich company that can spend lots of money to buy experts who for different, both good and bad reasons, are willing to provide the veneer of cultural authenticity, or, as one Pacific scholar put it, willing to provide “window dressing” for Disney. But we also already know from the list of what else is wrong with Disney, that for the last couple of decades, “cultural authenticity” – “getting it right” – is also the company’s mode of operation for marketing merchandise, trademark, licensing, as well as for selling hotel rooms, theme park experiences, luxury cruises, and even selling “news” and information, since Disney Corp is also owner of major news outlets in the US and around the world. We know that Disney target advertises to children at the level of affect and desire, especially to create future nostalgia, so that a lucrative cross generational market is maintained when these kids become parents and grandparents, and so the demand continues for plastics and flame retardant Halloween costumes wherein anybody gets to play Islander, complete with “authentic” tattoos. Of course, we can’t discount Natives who find value and opportunity and fame and fulfillment in Disneyfied stories of Islander likenesses. But I contend that we are in much better position to assess the political stakes of such emotional and cultural investments when we interrogate the politics of inclusion and exclusion that operate explicitly and implicitly in efforts to represent Pacific culture and history and identity in splashes like Moana that ride the crest of a tidal wave of colonial, neocolonial, and postcolonial discourses. What might such a critical interrogation have to offer those of us in Guam who are also thinking about the politics of inclusion and exclusion in relation to the categories of identity that hold sway?

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Appendix One: References and Links to Critical Material

For more information, see Disney’s Distinguishing Features: Tracking a Track Record of Coloniality See Mana Moana: We Are Moana, We Are Maui facebook page for details https://manamoana.wordpress.com /

I. White Supremacy through Nostalgia: Race and Early Representations of Native Peoples and African Americans Dawson https://manamoana.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/zip-a-dee-doo-dah-from-uncle-remus-to-maui-huffington-post /

Brode D. 2006.Multiculturalism and the mouse: Race and sex in Disney entertainment. Austin: University of Texas Press.

II. Shifting Gears: White Washing Through Brown Facing with “Cultural Authenticity” Breaux, Richard. 2010. “After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and

Cashes in on its Racist Past.” Journal of African American Studies. Published online 16 July, and accessed via Academia.edu

https://www.academia.edu/1529970/

III. Shifting Gears: Faux “Cultural Authenticity” and Demystification of Indigenous Narratives Tevita Ka’ili’s detailed exegeses on Maui as Genealogical Ancestor and Indigenous Model for Social Justice) Ka’ili, Tevita O. 2016.  Interview (in

Tongan) in Vākē Tali Folau [Tongan Radio] https://soundcloud.com/.../tala-o-maui-letio-vake-tali-folau

Ho'omanawanui, Ku’ualoha. "Mo'olelo as Social and Political Action, Responding to Jack Zipes (De-Disneyfying Disney) and Waziyatawin (From

the Clay we Rise)" https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/.../1/hoomanawanui.pdf

IV. Colonial Primitivism, Noble Savagery, Colonial NostalgiaDiaz, Vicente M. 2016. “Disney Craps a Cute Grass Skirt.” Hawaii Independent 29 Sept. http://hawaiiindependent.net/story/disney-craps-cute-

grass-skirt

Diaz, Vicente M. 2016. “Don’t Swallow (or be Swallowed by) Disney’s ‘Culturally Authenticated Moana.” Indian Country Today Media Network, 13

November https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/opinions/dont-swallow-or-be-swallowed-by-disneys-culturally-authenticated-

moana/

V. Homogenization/Cultural Mashup “The problem with Moana is, unlike our real stories that always center on specific people in specific places, this is an abstraction of some mythic region.’ Kanaka Maoli scholar, Mary Tuti Baker. In other words, It empties substance in favor of escapist fantasy.

VI. Unsustainable Cultural and Environmental PracticesTina Ngata with Sonali Natkarhar of Rising Uphttps://www.facebook.com/pg/manamoanawearemoanawearemaui/videos/?ref= page_internal See esp. 06:55 to 08:30 see also Ngata, Tina. 2016c. “Table Manners” The Non-Plastic Maori 28 March https://thenonplasticmaori.wordpress.com/2016/03/

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http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-trump-panel-meeting-20170203- story.html

VII. Colonial and Patriarchal White “Mansplaining” (“Just because there are brown advisors doesn’t make it a Brown Story” (Ngata). See also Ngata and Keala Kellyhttps://manamoana.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/reclaiming-mana-moana-tangatawhenua-com/

VIII. Unethical, Morally Reprehensible Manipulation of Children’s affect, desires, through stories that are in fact long form and extended commercials 

Teaiwa, Teresia. 2016. “I was once seduced by Disney, but no longer.” E-Tangata 9 October http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/teresia-teaiwa-i-was-

once-seduced-by-disney

IX In cahoots with Trump http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-trump-panel-meeting-20170203-story.html

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