OPINION:
Among people who enjoy railing against what they call "wokeness", the Disney Corporation is a popular target. In April last year, it was recent changes to Disney World rides in Florida that were in conservative crosshairs. By removing racially offensive characters and depictions of slave-trading, critics claimed Disney was bowing to political pressure at the expense of its core mission to entertain. "Wokeness," wrote Orlando-based columnist Jonathan VanBoskerck after visiting the park, "is ruining the experience." Similar criticisms are often levelled at Disney's recent slate of animated films, which increasingly feature progressive themes and a radically more diverse cast of characters than the lily-white fairy-tale fodder of yore. Once again, this is characterised as political posturing designed to please woke elites.
All of this came to mind the other day when I rewatched the 2016 Disney hit, Moana. Set somewhere in Polynesia, the eponymous hero of the story is the strong-willed daughter of a chief who sets out on journey, alongside the demigod Maui, to save her island home from the ravages of blight. Apart from the obvious – featuring a girl of colour as the central character, including a glaring climate change allegory, and drawing on Polynesian myths instead of archetypal European ones – Moana is typical of the recent Disney canon in its unapologetic promotion of what people who detest wokeness would call "woke".
The treatment of the Maui character is a case in point: in another era, he would have fit the hero bill nicely, but is instead demoted in Moana to buffoonish sidekick, a chronic mansplainer full of juvenile pranks and unwarranted self-regard. The assault on the patriarchy doesn't end there, either. The only other male character of note, Moana's chiefly dad, Tui (voiced by the unmistakable Temuera Morrison) is portrayed as bumbling, fearful and mostly powerless. (By the way, the idea that resilience, competence and courage are traits more reliably found in women than men may feel like edgy modern feminism to some, but it's not something Māori ever needed telling.)
