Time to Face the Music: Musical Colonization and Appropriation in Disney’s Moana
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Background on Moana’s Polynesian Content
3. Purpose of Paper
4. The Use of Cultural Natives in Disney Productions
5. Key Plot Elements of Moana and Their Corresponding Musical Coding
6. Musical Framing
7. The Dominance of Western Musical Elements
In reality, this simply is Disney’s version of the “tiresome … cliché [of] the ‘happy natives with coconuts’ trope. Coconuts … are part of the shtick of caricatures about Pacific peoples.” (Herman 2016).Consider the coconut (the what?)Consider its treeWe use each part of the coconutThat’s all we needWe make our nets from the fibers (we make our nets from the fibers)The water is sweet inside (the water is sweet inside)We use the leaves to build fires (we use the leaves to build fires)We cook up the meat inside (we cook up the meat inside)Consider the coconuts (consider the coconuts)The trunks and the leaves (ha!)The island gives us what we need
8. Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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1 | Disney’s portrayals of non-European cultures began early in their animated features such as Song of the South (1946) and The Jungle Book (1967), but until the 1990s the stories chosen were European/American stories about other cultures. Beginning in the 1990s the narrative point of view changes and the Disney corporation began adapting non-western stories, and thus began marketing their works as multi-cultural. |
2 | Issues of representation and authenticity with respect to music are unique for each film, and this essay will consider the music of Moana to examine the case that it presents. For discussions about music in other Disney films and products, see (Carson 2004; Clague 2004; Nooshin 2004; Tulk 2010; Fleeger 2014; Hess 2017; Rodoshtenous 2017). |
3 | The term ‘polynesian’ refers to a subset of Pacific Island cultures of the region of Oceania. While Moana’s creators claim full Pacific Island and Oceania representation in this work (Julius and Malone 2016), the story relies most heavily on Polynesian cultures, since the character Maui is a Polynesian demi-god and the name Moana means ocean in several Polynesian languages (Tamaira et al. 2018). Outside of the “Oceanic Trust”, media discussions of the Pacific Islanders and Americans of Pacific Island heritage that are involved in the movie, use the term Polynesian to identify their cultural heritage. |
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Armstrong, R. Time to Face the Music: Musical Colonization and Appropriation in Disney’s Moana. Soc. Sci. 2018, 7, 113. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7070113
Armstrong R. Time to Face the Music: Musical Colonization and Appropriation in Disney’s Moana. Social Sciences. 2018; 7(7):113. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7070113
Chicago/Turabian StyleArmstrong, Robin. 2018. "Time to Face the Music: Musical Colonization and Appropriation in Disney’s Moana" Social Sciences 7, no. 7: 113. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7070113