Okay, so I’m kind of behind on this one. With a posting schedule of once each calendar
week, sometimes things fall behind.
Anyway, as everybody knows, Disney recently released its new
animated movie Moana. The story follows a young girl and future
chief from the Pacific Island of Matanui as she defies her father to sail off
in search of the demigod Maui to make him return an item he stole from the
mother island of Tafiti.
This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Say what you will about Disney, but they’re
often the most interesting when they’re introducing the wider world to lore and
literature that they might not have known about before. At least, to those of us who are folklore
buffs. They did it before with movies
like Mulan and now Moana is introducing people beyond the
Pacific to the legends and myths about Maui.
What did I think?
Honestly, I loved it.
The film is beautiful. The cast
does amazing work voicing the various characters. Dwayne Johnson brings his usual charisma to
the character of Maui. The real stand
out is newcomer Auli’I Cravalho who voices Moana herself. Expect big things from her. The music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i
and Mark Mancina is great. My favorite
is probably “You’re Welcome”, Maui’s song which actually references about five
or six different stories about Maui (Zalka Csenge outlines that on her blog
HERE). And yes, the movie has gotten
praised for centering on a strong heroine and showcasing non-White, non-European
cultures. The movie’s a great time. Go see it if you haven’t yet.
Honestly, the biggest criticism I’ve seen of it from the
critics is that it feels too traditionally “Disney”. Pretty much every online critic I watch
(Black Nerd, Doug Walker, MovieBob, etc) has pretty much echoed the idea that
the story follows almost every traditional Disney trope about the strong, young
princess defying her strict parent to follow her heart, etc.
But I ask, is that really a bad thing? Or at least, might it be a good thing to some
audiences?
Maybe I’m not a particularly good reviewer (and I will cop
to this since I kind of fell into this whole thing). However, while watching the film I didn’t
notice how familiar the story was at all.
Perhaps it’s because for a kid who grew up with the “Disney Renaissance”,
the formula was kind of comforting.
Heck, in his review Doug Walker talks about the “Disney Checklist” and
how you can check off all the tropes as you go along. But the only time that’s ever happened to me
while watching a Disney film was when I watched Frozen, which made a point of subverting a whole lot of the
tropes. By subverting the tropes all
they did was call attention to them which ended up pulling me out of the film
and made it difficult for me to enjoy it.
Moana doesn’t subvert anything. It plays it straight and I’m fine with
that. There are a couple of little
things I noticed. I give the movie props
for actually making Moana good at things.
Remember in Mulan how Mulan
wasn’t very good at meeting with the matchmaker before she left and wasn’t very
good at being a soldier until she went through a music montage’s worth of
training? Moana doesn’t do that. She’s
actually a very good leader-in-training.
Making her incompetent would have been a really easy way of showing how
she “doesn’t fit in”. Instead, it’s just
her wanderlust that sets her apart. The
one place where I could criticize this movie with sticking to formula is the
inclusion of Moana’s animal sidekick Hei-Hei, who is pretty much useless. They could have done without him (I’m still
amazed that they hired Alan Tudyk from Firefly
to voice him. Who hires such a good
actor to just make clucking noises?).
My biggest letdown regarding this movie isn’t about this
movie itself. It’s about how no one else
jumped on the bandwagon. I was hoping
once word came out that Disney was basing a movie around myths and folklore
from the Pacific Islands that publishers would rush to put out books of
Polynesian folklore and legends. But I’ve
been to the bookstores and there’s nothing.
It’s not to say you can’t find anything, but it takes some digging. Before the movie came out, I tried reading Hawaiian Folk Tales by Thomas J. Thrum
and found it a bit hard to get through as an outsider. The combination of names I couldn’t pronounce
and unfamiliar mythology made the learning curve a bit too steep for me. Of far greater help was YouTube, which hosts
a number of animations based on Maori legends adapted by Peter Gossage. Here you can find stories like “Maui and the Sun” and “The Fish of Maui”. Also,
apparently a story entitled The Magic Jawbone collected by Hartwell James is accessible on www.fairytalez.com. I haven’t read it yet but it could be good.
 |
| Yes, the best image I could find was a cereal box. Thanks for asking. |
Anyway, it’s been suggested to me by a colleague that those
of us who are folklore savvy look into some indigenous reviews to find out what
they did well. I tried to find some but
came up a bit short. Maybe my readers
can offer some help (post any links you have in the comments below). The main thing I did find was that many
people have criticized Maui’s design as looking too overweight. Near as I can tell, that’s probably more
because of the visual shortcuts taken in animation than any ignorance or
intended insult. Animation tends to
depict strength through sheer size and they tend to use rounder shapes and
softer textures to communicate that someone is “nice” or “lovable”. So, Disney’s attempt at making Maui look like
a lovable strong-man rather than a big, scary antagonist ended up making him
look kind of chubby.
But anyway, if you still haven’t seen it, go see Moana.
Heck, I may go see it a second time.
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