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Disney’s animated feature Pocahontas was pretty controversial when it hit theaters in 1995, and like some of its more controversial films, Disney’s romanticizing of Jamestown and the highly fictionalized relationship between the teenaged Indian princess and English settler John Smith has sparked ire for its historical inaccuracies and its treatment of American Indian identity. So twenty years later, when Netflix added the animated film to its streaming service, the film sparked controversy once again with the service’s awkward plot summary.
Adrienne Keane, who maintains the blog Native Appropriations which she describes as “a forum for discussing representations of Native peoples, including stereotypes, cultural appropriation, news, activism, and more,” noticed the misleading plot summary back in August:
https://twitter.com/NativeApprops/status/638539372770557952/
Keane identifies two problems with the Netflix copy. First, comparing it to other Disney films with male protagonists, she points out the particularly sexist language at play. “The use of ‘woman’ and ‘yearns’ is so…gross. Shudder. The problem? It overly sexualizes the film, and only positions Pocahontas in relation to her romantic options, not as a human being, you know, doing things.” (It’s worth pointing out that the real Pocahontas was about ten or eleven years old when she purportedly met John Smith.)
But Keane also points out the underlying colonialist sentiment, which goes hand-in-hand with the actual film’s more controversial aspects. “[O]f course Pocahontas wouldn’t be content with her backwards Native ways with her Native man…she yearns for something more,” Keane writes. “SPOILER ALERT: It’s a white dude. Of course. It’s perpetuating the idea that white colonizers are better, more than, and the solution to Native savagery.
Just a few weeks later, however, Keane’s objections were heard. She received a personal note from a Netflix representative, and now the film has a new plot summary:
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