Anyone that knows the slightest bit of history, is well aware that Disney's Pocahontas is full of shit, to put it mildly. This is hardly surprising, because Disney has a long history of racist imagery in their films and it is well known that Walt was no friend to people of colour. Just look how long it took to make a Black princess and all the fucked up shit that went into creating her. With Pocahontas, not only do you have the most ridiculous of gender stereotypes, children learn that a first nations princess was desperate to save the White man. I suppose the fact that Smith was known to tell this story using various women is unimportant, because if a White man is speaking about First Nations people, it just has to be the truth right? It also doesn't help that Smith is narrated by Mel Gibson, of "I hope you get raped by a gang of niggers" fame. Oh, I know that people were not aware of his mega douche nature at the time of the filming, but I find it quite ironic that he was cast as Smith.
Every time one of these Disney post pops up, someone comes along to tell us that we are reading to much into it. It's just a cartoon. It's not like kids spend an inordinate amount of time watching television. It's not like kids can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Consider the aforementioned to be snark. Letting kids watch this ignorant nonsense without informing them that they are being brainwashed is wrong and neglectful of our duty as adults. Re-inventing history is not just Saturday morning fun. Telling the oppressors history harms people of colour -- and that is what this supposedly harmless little cartoon does. I suppose if you don't give a damn about how racism harms First Nations people, and more specifically First Nations women, drink the kool aid. But if you do care, even a little, watch the following.
Transcript
My glares burn through her.
And I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the essence of her beauty is, well, the essence of beauty.
And in the presence of this higher being,
the weakness of my masculinity kicks in,
causing me to personify my wannabe big-baller, shot-caller,
God’s gift to the female species with shiny suit wrapping rapping like,
“Yo, what’s crackin shorty how you livin’ what’s your sign what’s your size I dig your style, yo.”
Now, this girl was no fool.
She gives me a dirty look with the quickness like,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
so I’m looking at myself,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
But looking upon her I am kinda feelin’ her style.
So I try again.
But, instead of addressing her properly,
I blurt out one of my fake-ass playalistic lines like,
“Gurl, you must be a traffic ticket cuz you got fine written all over you.”
Now, she’s trying to leave and I’m trying to keep her here.
So at a final attempt, I utter,
“Gurl, what is your ethnic makeup?”
At this point, her glare was scorching through me,
and somehow she manages to make her brown eyes
resemble some kinda brown fire or something,
but there’s no snap or head moement,
no palm to face, click of tongue, middle finger,
roll of eyes, twist of lips, or girl power chant.
She just glares through me with these burning eyes
and her gaze grabs you by the throat.
She says, “Ethnic makeup?”
She says, “First of all, makeup’s just an anglicized, colonized, commodified utility
that my sisters have been programmed to consume,
forcing them to cover up their natural state
in order to imitate what another sister looks like in her natural state
because people keep telling her
that the other sister’s natural state is more beautiful
than the first sister’s natural state.
At the same time,
the other sister isn’t even in her natural state,
because she’s trying to imitate yet another sister,
so in actuality, the natural state that the first sister’s trying to imitate
wasn’t even natural in the first place.”
Now I’m thinking, “Damn, this girl’s kicking knowledge!”
But, meanwhile, she keeps spitting on it like
“Fine. I’ll tell you bout my ‘ethnic makeup.’
I wear foundation,
not that powdery shit,
I wear the foundation laid by my indigenous people.
It’s that foundation that makes it so that past being globalized,
I can still vocalize with confidence that i know where my roots are.
I wear this foundation not upon my face, but within my soul,
and I take this from my ancestors
because I’ll be damned if I’d ever let an American or European corporation
tell me what my foundation
should look like.”
I wear lipstick,
for my lips stick to the ears of men,
so they can experience in surround sound my screams of agony
with each lash of rulers, measuring tape, and scales,
as if my waistline and weight are inversely propotional to my value as a human being.
See my lips, they stick, but not together.
Rather, they flail open with flames to burn down this culture that once kept them shut.
Now, I mess with eye shadow,
but my eyes shadow over this time where you’ve gone at ends to keep me blind.
But you can’t cover my eyes, look into them.
My eyes foreshadow change.
My eyes foreshadow light.
and I’m not into hair dyeing.
but I’m here, dying, because this oppression won’t get out of my hair.
I have these highlights.
They are highlights of my past atrocities,
they form this oppression I can’t wash off.
It tangles around my mind and twists and braids me in layers,
this oppression manifests,
it’s stressing me so that even though I don’t color my hair,
in a couple of years it’ll look like I dyed it gray.
So what’s my ethnic makeup ?
I don’t have any.
Because your ethnicity isn’t something you can just make up.
And as for that crap my sisters paint on their faces, that’s not makeup, it’s make-believe.”
I can’t seem to look up at her.
and I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the expression on her face
shows that she knows that my mind is in a trance.
As her footsteps fade, my ego is left in crutches.
And rejection never sounded so sweet.
Samantha Figueroa created that awesome mash-up of Adriel Luis’ Slip of Tongue, and the images from Pocahontas.
H/T Sociological Images via Racialicious
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