***SPOILERS
When you go to the Magic Kingdom, as I have been fortunate to do several times (yet only as an adult, and til recently without children), the Disney philosophy creeps in at every turn: If you can dream it, you can do it. You hear it in the songs and shows, the fireworks announcements and see it on posters and souvenirs. A dream is a wish your heart makes. WDW-where dreams come true. You get marinated in a magical land of secular humanist philosophy - where you are the master of your own destiny. Where the happiest place on earth exits through the gift shop, and extols human achievement. The Disney park experience is permanently archived in its films. The main character always wins because s/he believes in themselves, has a little bit of luck, and goodness wins out. I know it sounds like I'm criticizing Disney and the dream. To some degree, I am. But I also love the place (and the films)... I like to know I can really escape into a land of fantasy. I am inspired by the art and creativity. And, more often than not, Disney films make me think and that's a good thing.
Moana interested me.
Not in the OMG I AM GOING TO SEE THE LIVE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST THREE TIMES IN THE THEATER kind of way. But in the - hey, this seems beautiful, thoughtful, different. I was happy today to be proven right.
Here's the disclaimer. Now I know that when I work a response or two to the film through a Christian lens, I am adding to its purely secular-and-pagan landscape. I know full well that my presumptions about the characters/plot are very unlikely to have been the artists' intent. But I want to share them anyway, because I think it's really important to recognize Truth where it lives. Sometimes that Truth is in all its splendor, in the places where Heaven and Earth meet. But most often, I think, we encounter Truth in beauty, in goodness, in mystery, and in the heart. So with Moana. This is not a full-on review the film at all- no worries. But there are three things I took away from the film that I am still pondering. (Don't keep reading til you've seen it if you want to see it.)
1. Her hair. There are two Disney princess films (these have very specific parameters to be called such, and Moana fits) that do not have a prince/ princely love interest. The first of these is Brave - one of my favorite films, precisely because Disney got out of its own way and made the central female character a girl growing to womanly independence (thus risking her relationship with the other woman in her life, her mother). Lots of folks didn't understand Brave, I fear. Maybe the boys-as-bears got to them. Maybe it was just the lack of swooning. I'm not sure. Having immersed myself quite thoroughly in Celtic mythology by the time I hit high school, the bears and arrows and old hag in the woods shacks didn't faze me. Artistically, one of the most stunning and noticeable things about Merida is her HAIR. She's the first Disney princess who doesn't have perfectly coiffed (Snow White) or shiningly straight (Jasmine) or enviably configured (Cinderella) locks. Even Mulan and Belle, arguably the least twitter pated of the Disney princesses have hair that behaves. Merida does not. It is thick and curly and gets in the way. Apparently the art department is quite proud of it. Hair is hard to do. Merida's hair was the Hardest. But it was necessary for the ages of work, because it had meaning.
Moana's is also curly and full. While it (mostly) stays out of her face, it is prone to getting drenched (unlike Ariel) and just being fluffy and free. In several scenes she wears a flower, a nod to Polynesian custom, but otherwise her mane is waved and unencumbered by pins and sprays and ribbons and combs. (How DO those other princesses keep their hair so perfect?) I suggest that Disney is telling us something - using the hair of these more recent princesses to help tell a tale of daring, of independence, and of that desire for freedom... and more than that: those wayward curls signal to us that these women's bodies are part of their personas. Their very hair is a sign of their personal and unique being.
2. Her Vocation. Moana is above all, a story of vocation. It is no mistake that her song about calling comes at about the center of the film. She hears her call. She sings her call. She claims her call. There are foreshadowings in her grandmother's wisdom. But she has to grow past the expectations of her village in order to truly listen and respond.
I think it is no mistake that this wisdom about what it means to be her - to be woman - to be Moana - comes from her grandmother. In fact, if I were to look purely through a Christianized lens, I would draw a strong parallel between her grandmother's return as a glowing Ray with the movement of the Holy Spirit. Both always there, both giving courage and hope, both life-givers. (which we will have to look at later)
3. Moana as Prophet. Near the film's end, Moana meets the raging and stony Te Fiti who has become Te Ka without her heart. THIS was an epic moment for me. Moana turns to the ravaged goddess, and speaks to her wounds. Here is where the pagan/secular tale and Christian perspective resonate with the same truth. Moana returns the core of her being, the heart, to her. Moana says to her: I have come across the entire sea to find you. I call you by your name. You know who you are. Isaiah popping through my brain. Song of Songs, anybody? Here we have a strong woman who is listening to the voice in her heart (God), who is answering the call to restore life (Holy Spirit), who is risking life and limb... She walks down the mountain, strong and confident and with a quiet power and speaks Life to Te Fiti. Her words help heal. Her words are life-giving. It is the voice of the Lover to the Beloved in this proper sense - that restoration of her name (from Te Ka to Te Fiti) and the return of her heart to its life giving force reveals Moana as prophetic - her words reveal and represent the One in whom the Island goddess "lives and moves and has her being."
The feminist in me loves the wisdom of the grandmother, who tells the monster tales, never afraid. Her character is odd and beautiful: she is drawn to the water - she protects the tradition - she does not concede to her son's stagnating fear.
I love that I have just witnessed a female adventure story! While still (like Brave) set in a pagan mythology, it has passion and hope, adventure and escape, clever solutions, risky moments, hard work and determination and friendship. It's not a film in which all the action belongs to prince Charming - in fact, none of it does. And I think it's high time for such a story. High time for a young woman who can run and climb and swim and sail and be her self - with her necklace and flower and hula dress.
And let's not ignore the beautiful mythology of the island TeFiti, the goddess who, by taking her place in the ocean, allows the islands to grow and teem with life and the oceans with goodness. She is a life-giver... an icon of woman in a larger than life way.
Thank you for giving me this space to share my thoughts... for not taking me to task for mixing - if not metaphors- then symbols and theologies. I was very touched by this film's heart, by its clear-headed treatment of the protagonist, by its respect for tribal lore, and by those many, many places where its beauty pulled back the curtain to let Truth shine through.
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