Racism and Other Themes in Disney´s Pocahontas

The Disney movies of Pocahontas tell a plot of a Native ¬American tribe and English colonists that fight for the land the Native Americans live on though war ultimately creating moderate peace. While keeping to their own sect, the imbalance of power between the two social groups is prevalent throughout much of the story. Walt Disney’s Pocahontas is more than a classic children’s movie. It is a thoughtful, well contrived narration that portrays a message that in order to fit in, you must be a certain race and born into a specific culture. Disney’s Pocahontas suggesting that the color of our skin shouldn’t matter when being accepted into social groups as well as the idea that arranged marriage should be rejected. Thus, treating people right could ultimately have a positive outcome and lastly, the film also suggests that family roles change without a mother figure.
Pocahontas indirectly proclaims that race shouldn’t determine a person’s position in class ranking but the kind of person they are should. The film is based of economic class ranking depending on the color of ones skin. Someone with dark skin is known as a “savage” who lives off the land such as Pocahontas and her tribe. Someone with a white skin is known as a “pale face” that lives with many luxuries such as the British colonists from England in the film. If the Native Americans went into British territory, they would not be welcomed and vise versa. The British colonists would not be welcomed into the Native tribes land. But ultimately by the end, the film focuses on the idea that race shouldn’t matter and that the type of person should. Discrimination amongst races becomes resolved through time and getting to know people. The character John Smith, for example, being a w...

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...the tribe, to give her input and change that idea of women not having a say. The film formed the idea that women can move up in power based on whom they were raised by and what traits they learn upon as children.
Disney’s intentions were more than to captivate young children. They were ultimately to retell the original story of Pocahontas and the settlers and to address social issues of lifestyle and acceptance depending on race and the way they are being treated, proving that marriage isn’t all that important and addressing familial gender roles in society based on having a mother figure. Since 1995, the story of Pocahontas serves to entertain the young minds of children, but none the less the messages for seen in the movie, are mentioned to stress the issues of a series of systems in which maintain the imbalance of power among society’s social organization.