Lemus !

Jose Lemus

Professor Granillo

English 103

17 May 2019

The Long Living Evil

Savage is a word, not a people. Movies have been a source of entertainment since they

were created. Movies will always change so the audience can have something new to look

forward to. The story of movies are not the only things that change, the mindset of people

making movies also change especially when it comes to divers concepts. Colonialism has been a

very important part of American history. The colonist had many prejudices against the native

people and some of the beliefs they held towards the natives continues to be part of society

today. Disney uses Pocahontas to per sway its audience that the differences between people do

not have to lead to violence, instead it shows how easily people are able to be persuaded. The

movie targets a young audience that can not possibly understand the great diversity of this topic,

children have not been exposed or taught enough of what happened between the colonist and the

native people. Although the movie does show a story with a happy ending it is not that easy to

undue years of hatred, because of the tragedies between the colonist and the people who were

native to the new land. By viewing the movie through a Postcolonial criticism and Marxist lens ,

it gave an explanation of why, the colonist were so ready to fight the native people. The colonist

viewed as an inferior people, and willing to attack them if it meant them becoming wealthy,

which has lead to the descendants of the native people being misrepresented in today's world.
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Movies should instead tell the true history of the start of America in stead of covering it up with

child tales, but also children should learn about what really happened.

Pocahontas is a movie that takes place in a time where England was traveling to the new

world to find gold and riches. It uses pathos to connect with audience to show that love can

conquer all problems. The colonist were ready to attack the native people of the new land in

order to get the resources they want. One of the people that came from England is John Smith, he

is ready to battle the native people, he has experience fighting people who he deems savage, this

changes when he meets Pocahontas. She is a native of the land they seek to conquer, she

convinces John not to fight her people, but Ratcliffe the main antagonist wants a battle. By

working with each other they are able to bring peace. This film is targeting a young audience.

Native Americans have misrepresented through the beginning of America. They were

seen as uneducated and savage. There are not many effective ways that people try help teach

other to respect people who are different. There needs to be new way to help understand people

who are different.

Postcolonial criticism has been an important part of many nations history. In the book

The Location of Cultural Bhabha Homi who is a theorist on Postcolonial criticism he speaks on

how the difference of skin can lead to racism, "Skin, as the key signifier of cultural and racial

difference in the stereotype, is the most visible of fetishes, recognized as 'common knowledge' in

a range of cultural, political and historical discourses, and plays a public part in the racial drama

that is enacted every day in colonial societies." (Bhabha 112). The difference of color is a mainly

used when defying a certain cultural. What they define a culture is not accurate when they solely
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define them on only differences. This has been a practice done by many people. In the movie

Pocahontas the color of skin is also used to cause racial tension.

Close to the end of the movie Pocahontas, there is a scene where stereotyping and

othering can be seen taking full effect. Governor Ratcliffe, who is the main instigator for starting

the war, tries to make the people who are native to the land as enemies and inhuman, "What can

you except from filthy little heathens here's what you get when races are diverse, their skins are

hellish red, they're only good when dead, they're vermin as I said, and worse, barely even human.

(Pocahontas 01:03:51-04:08). In the movie Ratcliffe compares the native peoples skin as hellish.

Hell on its is depicted as something terrible, when matched with the skin color of the native

people, Ratcliffe is saying they are also bad. In the movie skin color opens door for racism to

become more powerful than it already is, after he talks about their skin he also mention they are

vermin and barely human. In this scene the audience is also able to see how easy it was for

Ratcliffe to turn the other colonist against the native people and film them with hatred. Due to

their audience being young they will probably not understand why Ratcliffe hates the native

people or how he got the other colonist to join him in a war, they will mostly just remember that

is was a song in a children's movie. Differences of cultural is one of the most easiest way's to

drive people apart and turn them into enemies.

The film helps to expose how differences can be seen as a great excuse to start conflict.

While In the film the people arriving to the new world see the native people as savages, Tyson

explains how othering can weaponize these differences, "The practice of judging all who are

different as less than fully human is called othering, and it divides the world between "us" (the

"civilized") and "them" (the "others," the "savages")." (Tyson 401) Othering has been used many
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times when colonizing a new land, when America was first discovered, the colonist used othering

to justify the force they used against the people who were already there. When colonizing other

lands people have slaughtered innocent people, they have destroyed homes, and destroyed the

land. These acts can weigh heavily on a person, by using othering they too justify what they have

done, if they believe the violence they showed was on people that was uncivilized and lesser than

them, they might think they were doing a great service, that these people needed to be attacked.

The effect of these path occurrences is that people were decedents of the native people continued

to stereotyped and have had unjust things done to them. These stereotypes have rooted

themselves into American culture, specifically the movie industry.

Ratcliffe character is controlled by his hatred for the natives for being different, he

embodies the idea of othering, In this scene he talks about the native, people. "Lies, Lise, all of

it! Murderous thieves; there's no room for their kind in civilized society." ( Pocahontas

00:53:45-53:5) The movie shows how viewing differences in a bad way can escalate to violence.

This film shows a lot of hatred and racism. It shows othering at its core. Ratcliffe's hatred is

exposed to the audience and also to the other colonist in the film, instead of them telling him he's

wrong they begin to agree with him, once again it shows how people can become manipulated.

Not alone were the colonist easily influenced to hate the Native people because of the their

differences and Ratcliffe's influence, but also by their desire to become rich and wealthy.

The middle class has always had to go through tough circumstances which had made

their lives harder and willing to except any task that would help enrich their lives. In the Marx's

book The Communist Manifesto, he explains how working in factories are destroying the

bourgeois(middle class). Marx explains how the bourgeois are working in a slave like
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environment, “Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they

are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by the

individual bourgeois manufacturer himself”. (Marx 21) Karl Marx is speaking about how during

his time how people were controlled by working. If a person is not wealthy enough they may put

themselves into these conditions. During the time of the exploration of the new world, the

colonist were also put in harsh conditions. They put in bad conditions such as being on a ship for

a long amount of time. In the begging of the film the audience is able to see the harsh ships of the

voyage from England to the new world. (Pocahontas 00:1:48-03:42) They were put in a

dangerous just getting to the place where they believed the gold to be. Even though none of the

crew lost their lives in reality, not all the crew were that lucky. Due the middle class being in

repressive environments, they have no problem repressing the people who were native to the

land the explored. In a new land that they new nothing about except there might be people there

who they will most likely have to fight. To get out from there low status in life, the colonist in

the movie were willing to do what they thought it took to become wealthy. Though it may not be

the movies intention it shows the audience how important wealth and make them fear the idea off

being unhealthy.

In the name of wealth great devastation has occurred. Tyson helps explain this Marxism

idea, "Rugged individualism, which, as we have seen, is a cornerstone of the American dream, is

an ideology that romanticizes the individual who strikes out alone in pursuit of a goal not easily

achieved, a goal that often involves risk and one that most people would not readily

undertake." (Tyson 57) When a person is desperate and wants to get ahead in life they might be

willing to do destructive actions. In the film people were willing to travel to a new land being
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fully aware that they will have to fight and kill the people who called the lands the colonist

invaded home. In the movie there was several times that the colonist spoke of killing the native

people who stood in front of their wealthy future. In American culture wealth has been an

important concept, as it has in the beginning of America. In the film rugged individualism, is

shown by the many people eager to go to the new land. Like in the movie, people who went on

these voyages were driven by the idea that great things will come to them if they went on this

journey, that the new land will give them new opportunities, they felt that they may not have any

more options, they were willing to put their life on the line for a small source of hope that they

will be able to find riches and opportunities in this new land. The film helps expose this

repressive ideology.

The promise of wealth was seen as a way to a better future. The song played in this scene

helps explain why people went to the new world, "In 1607, we sail the open seas, for glory, God

and gold, and the Virginia Company. For the New World is like heaven, and we'll all be rich and

free, or so we have been told by the Virginia Company." (Pocahontas 00:00:11-00:33) In the

movie Pocahontas, gold was the main motivation for the colonist to go to this journey. They

were willing to do anything to get to the gold they were promised. In the song it "says we'll be

rich and free", they may also feel that they are trapped by the low status they live in; That if they

are Abel to get the wealth they were promised, they will no longer feel like lesser people. Like in

the movie, in real life people are always trying to escape from there life if they are not wealthy or

feel repressed. They are willing to put their needs over anyone else. The audience only sees men

willing to put their life's on the line just for the promise of gold. Due to the destruction caused by
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the pursuit of wealth and the irrational descriptions of the native people. America has given the

Native Americans an unwanted and unjust legacy.

In the past history of the film industry, stereotyping of Native Americans was alive well.

This quote from the article Native Americans: The Surprising Silents, helps explain why movies

that empowered Native Americans were appealing, "Unfortunately, these silent Indian-theme

films failed to change dominant cultural values, and they could not withstand the demand for

cowboy-and-Indian attacks by the late 1930s in Westerns..." (Aleiss) Due to reasons such as

people being manipulated to believe the worst possible ideas about a person, the racism that was

started in the beginning of America, has lived and is living in America. If people were taught that

Native Americans were savages they are going to see them as savage. Like Pocahontas some

movies were unaffected to end the racism towards the Native Americans. People are content to

leave everything the way it is.

The colonist and there kin have kept the idea of Native American being savage through

out generation. The stereotypes put on people who were considered native Americans have been

put in films, "Unquestionably, most Hollywood Westerns tell us more about white attitudes and

beliefs than they do about Native American customs and values." (Lahti) This article talks how

native Americans in movies are perceived by white society, and because of this they were not

well represented some concepts about native Americans in films would be offensive. When the

colonist first got to the new world, they did not deemed it important to understand the culture of

the people who already lived there. This has cause the, misrepresentation not only seen in real

life but also in the movie Pocahontas. The colonist have never met the people of the land or
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studied their culture. Instead they deemed them as savage. It is no surprise that in movies The kin

of the native people are also seen as savages and looked as that way.

Disney has tried to make a movie that disrupts and destroy these

old stereotypes, but it is not that persuasive. Disney uses the character Pocahontas to show that

there can always be peace. "Look around you, this is where the path of hatred has brought us.

This is the path I choose, father. What will yours be?" (Pocahontas 01:07:59-08:11) In this scene

Pocahontas protects John Smith. During this scene war is about to break out, because of the

anger the colonist and Pocahontas's tribe have towards each other. The film shows two very

different people from different cultures being to get along, after all the violence. While this may

be a heart warming ending it does not help to explain to their young audience why these

stereotypes are bad but most importantly what they can do to stop this. The factions have hated

each other so deeply, that it does not seem realistic that Pocahontas and John Smith's feeling for

each other, would have stopped the war. The movie does not give realistic solutions to solve

problems such as this.

The movie Pocahontas helps elaborate and explain what led to the violence in the

beginning of colonizing of the new land, but ineffective on showing what actions should be taken

to end the false interpretations of Native Americans. Through the Marxist and Postcolonial lens,

the audience is able to see how stereotyping and how the urge to be wealthy has led to

destruction, which has caused American society to falsely recognize and understand the native

Americans and their descendants. Throughout the movie chaos and violence can be seen because

of hateful thinking. Due to the audience being young and unaware of the the topic, this makes

this movie ineffective. It might not be correct for children to understand the hatred and racism
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present in today's society, but they should be taught want really happened between the colonist

and native people in school.

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Works Cited

Aleiss, Angela. Native Americans: The Surprising Silents. Cineaste, Version 3, Cineaste

Publishers, JSTOR

Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994, pg112.

Goldberg, Eric. Pocahontas. Gabriel, Mike, Disney, June 23, 1995. Netflix

Lahti, Janne. Silver Screen Savages: Images of Apaches in Motion. The Journal of Arizona

History, Volume 54, Spring 2013. JSTOR

Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. Public Domain, Jan 1, 1848, pg21

Tyson, Lois. Postcolonial criticism. Critical Theory Today, 3rd Edition, Routledge, pg401, pg57