Recently I blogged about the Disney film Peter Pan. After analyzing that film I thought about other examples of movies that feature American Indians and I do not know how Pocahontas slipped my mind. The movie takes place by Jamestown, Massachusetts where the first settlers came to America. The story is essentially an animated love story between one of the settlers and an Indian princess. The settlers came to American for one thing, to search for gold, and anything that comes between them and their gold is a problem that needs to be fixed. They saw the indigenous people as a threat to their quest to find gold and other riches. They used derogatory terms in a song where they use the word "savages," and state that American Indians are "barely even human." This song is ment to be taken as an example of the negative views the settlers had toward the American Indians when they first landed. I however, believe that the terrible image that it portrays of Indians is not meant to be taken seriously. The settlers are supposed to be taken as ignorant and inferior compared to the American Indians in the movie. If there is a positive element to be taken from the movie it is that the settlers are specifically shown as a problem and inferior to the sophisticated lifestyle the Indians had established. American Indians are the focus of the movie and are portrayed as a peaceful strong group of people who are living very well without the invasion of white settlers.
Although the movie still uses stereotypes to some degree, the movie clearly shows the negative affects of the white people trying to take over Indian's land. It shows the white people as destructive and greedy while the Indians are peaceful and caring individuals. The movie is a Disney film and the planned audience is young children. Even though there are stereotypes and false realities in the film, it would put an image in children's minds that Indians are the "good guys." Most other films do the opposite showing wild west imagery where Indians run wild and terrorize villages which is simply a hollywood make up.
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