Cartoon “Moana” (2016): Another poisoned fairy-tale from “Disney”

Cartoon “Moana” – the 56th cartoon in the list of full-length animated films of the Disney studio, released November 14, 2016 (world premiere).

The story tells about the adventures of a girl named Moana, the daughter of the leader of a small tribe on an island in the Pacific Ocean. To save life on her native island, the heroine goes on a dangerous sea voyage. In the company of the demigod Maui, she has to cross the ocean, fight with terrible monsters and destroy the ancient spell.

First, we will analyze the positive ideas of this cartoon. There are fewer here than negative ones, but surprisingly more than in the last “Disney” cartoons.

Positive ideas:

Belief in yourself and understanding of your interests (+)

The main heroine of story, Moana, has a lot of positive features and in many ways is a good example to be followed. All the advantages of the cartoon have to do with the image of the main character.

It is shown that Moana has a healthy self-esteem, understands her true interests (craving for the ocean and navigation), is confident in them and as a result is not afraid to follow them. This gives viewers an appropriate attitude with respect for themselves and their hobbies.

The desire to make a contribution to society and to benefit it (+)

Another positive aspect is Moana’s sincere desire to help her society, to make a significant contribution to her well-being. Realizing that she was given a “summons” to an important feat that will improve life on the island (Ocean chooses Moana for an important mission to restore peace and order), Moana is selflessly set off.

Responsibility (+)

On her way, Moana acts with complete responsibility for her actions. Everything that needs to be done is done and done qualitatively. When at one point the heroine doubts her powers, she does not try to simply escape from responsibility, but turns to the Ocean and asks to delegate the task to someone more experienced.

Providing emotional support (+)

Another important positive quality of the heroine is the ability to emotionally support the other. This can be traced in two episodes with Maui and the key moment of the heart’s return to the goddess of life:

• Moana twice inspires Maui, positively influencing his emotions. First, she reminds how everyone will be respected if he performs the feat. Later, after the failure, ready just about to “break” Maui, the heroine again gives him emotional support. Reminds of his successes and good qualities, that despite all the hardships and tragedies, Maui is still a fine fellow.

• At the end of the story, the heroine, in fact, conducts work on the emotional restoration of the goddess of life.

It is interesting that emotional support – is a very feminine line of conduct. And as far as the heroine’s example, it looked healthier than equipping a paddle as a weapon, repairing a hut, etc.

Non-gloss beauty (+)

And the last uniquely positive moment that to mention is the non-glossy visual type of the heroine. Moana looks like a normal, healthy girl of medium build, which obviously adds to the heroine’s strengths as an example to be followed.

Now let’s look at two topics with mixed tendencies – the theme of the family and society, and then turn to the negative ones.

Ambiguous subjects:

Images of family and parents (-/+)

The positive thing is that a complete family is depicted, where everyone respects the other and seeks mutual understanding with everyone.

There are several negative moments:

1) There is an image of an erring, weak father whose will the heroine needs to break. The motive for confronting the parent and child and overcoming the will of the parent for success is one of the most fundamental in Disney products. It is presented in many company’s cartoons (“Pocahontas”, “Aladdin”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Peter Pan”, “Atlantis: The Lost World”, “Ratatouille”, “Finding Nemo”, “Frozen”, “Tangled”,”Brave”).

The constant image on the screen of a deeply mistaken parent and right child makes one perceive such a situation as a natural state of things and discredits the parents’ authority in the eyes of the children-viewers.

2) There is the death of the grandmother of the main heroine, although in a relaxed version (the grandmother becomes a spirit and then supports her granddaughter in her mission).

3) The tragic story of Maui. The hero was born from mortal parents, thrown out by the mother into the ocean and adopted by the gods. His tattoo on his back, depicting how his mother throws him into the water – looks out of place tragically for the children’s cartoon.

The image of the society (-/+)

The cartoon also broadcasts a rather negative image of the society.

As we see, the people of Moana live on a small island. The ancestors of the people were once great navigators, but after the events with the heart, Those Phytas “fell darkness,” and the ships of the islanders began to disappear in the ocean. Then, for the sake of safety, the leaders began to be vowed to be the “children of the land.” As a result, the water in the society of Moana is treated with caution, and the father of the heroine many times literally drags her from the ocean.

In other words, the viewer is made to understand that a global problem has come to the fore in the society, because the islanders, who are averse to water, who are the heirs of seafarers – are completely absurd. However, the restoration of the correct course of things (the practice of seafaring) is concerned for some reason only with a demented grandmother and a 16-year-old girl! On the island there are enough people, including adults, experienced men, and all the problem with water equally concerns, but, if you translate into modern language, the “heroes of the day” become a schoolgirl and a pensioner.

Thus, in the eyes of the viewer, a negative image of the “absurd society” is formed, where common problems are solved by single “renegades” who are not supported by anyone and who look crazy for others.

It is fair to say that from the point of view of the state of modern society, this can be perceived positively – if we consider the actions of Moana and her grandmother as a metaphor for initiatives to address pressing problems ignored by society. Nevertheless, this state of affairs is not normal.

Now let us consider the unambiguously negative themes of the cartoon.

Negative ideas:

Superiority of a woman over a man (feminine fascism) (-)

Even though the heroine Moana is good in many ways, which we have seen above, unfortunatelly, an absolutely unhealthy philosophy of superiority of women over men is being promoted through her.

It is not enough to have a simply strong female character to promote feminime fascism, it is also important for all men characters to be “neither here nor there”. And in “Moana” everything is exactly so:

– The father of the main heroine – is a cowardly sissy, preventing the happiness and self-realization of his daughter and driving the people of his island to a disastrous state. While he, a grown-up, capable man is sitting on the island afraid of water, his 16-year-old daughter crosses the ocean and saves the society from the ruin. At the end of the story Moana acts as a tutor to her father and teaches him to work a ship.

– The heroine’s partner, a demi-god Maui, is positiones himself as a powerful hero, however, in fact appears to be an insecure guy from a troubled childhood, who performed magic only because of a magic device. At first the concept of the hero is very interesting and promising, and visually he looks rather masculine, however, this hero has not been supplied with the real masculinity. Maui throughout the cartoon fails in a row, and, at bottom, does not play almost any role in Moana’s adventure. Main key moments and challenges the heroine goes through by herself. In the end it is happens that rather Maui needs Moana’s help, then she – his.

– All men surrounding of Moana on the island brings the same sence of women’s superiority.

To do this, a series of scenes are created: the boys are frightened with a terrible story, and Moana – no / Moana is fixing the hut, and the confused adult man is standing nearby / the man whines when he is given a small tattoo, and Moana peers at him / etc.

In general, the very appropriate and true slogan for the cartoon would be the phrase “The male is your enemy”. Absolutely feminofascist cartoon, praising a woman and humiliating a man.

Sending to LGBT (-)

Unfortunately, after the “Frozen” and “Maleficent”, “Moana” contains a metaphor of true homosexual love, though not as obvious as in these two stories. The metaphor is formed as follows:

The demigod Maui takes the heart of the goddess Te Phiti, and she is destroyed and begins to carry harm. This conveys the image of the woman who destroyed the relationship with a man, a similar one we already saw in Maleficente. There Stefan took the wings from Maleficent, and she was equally enraged and began to carry harm.

Further, it is said that Maui should return the stolen heart to the goddess, so that the world reigns. Moana finds Maui, carries him to the goddess, but eventually returns the heart not to Maui, but to Moana. First Moana calms the goddess, then returns the heart, and she comes back to normal.

We recall the metaphors in the LGBT promotional “Frozen” and “Maleficent” and correlate with “Moana”. In all three products, it is equally expected that the male character will save the female character (“CH” – an act of true love / “Maleficent” – a kiss / “Moana” – a return of the heart, which also partly carries a love connotation). At the key moment, it reveals that he loves / kisses / returns the heart of a female character – a female character. -> The transmitted idea is understandable: some women need a woman for happiness, and men do not suit them.

Also, as for the “Frozen”: in “Moana” in the end appears “copy-paste” scene from the “Frozen”.

“Frozen”: Anna saves Elsa (“an act of true love”). Elsa gives the male character, Kristoff, a gift for helping to participate. After Anna and Elsa skate together, and Kristoff is at a distance.

Moana: Moana saves the goddess (a return of the heart). The goddess also gives a male character, Maui, a gift. Maui disappears, and the goddess and Moana embrace.

Repeating episodes make it clear that the theme is the same.

In Moana, the LGBT message is also supported by several other semantic “codes”:

• Moana perplexedly perceives the flirtation of the male character (the dancing boy) and, in general, is cold towards the men on the island;
• There is no romantic line for the heroine;
• The Moana twiсely embraces the goddess “head to head”, which is similar in tone with the “act of true love”;

• At the end of the Ocean encouragingly throws the heroine of the shell, which looks noticeably ambiguous, and Moana sentimentally peers into the distance, where the goddess is.

We remind you that the company “Disney” since 1991 openly supports LGBT and in the latest cartoons has actively promoted sexual perversions. Hidden metaphors and ambiguous stories create a backdrop to the future to provide a frank, unofficial LGBT story, which is now happening with the cartoon “Frozen -2″. In the West, with the support of the central mass media, an entire informational campaign has been launched to ensure that Elsa in the second part of the cartoon becomes an open lesbian.

Scary moments (-)

In the cartoon there are also many terrible and unpleasant moments that are absolutely not in the rating of “6+”:

– during the story of Moana’s grandmother about the demons and the imminent death of the island, there are eerie illustrations:

– a frightening image of the lava goddess Te Ka:

a frightening image of the crab of Tamatoa and the inhabitants of the “demon world”:

Even an adult person is unpleasant to see such things, not speaking about children.

Offended evil (-)

One of the other common themes of Disney is the theme of good / justified evil. Here it is not so much manifested, but nonetheless.

At the end of the story it turns out that the goddess-destroyer Te Ka is simply “out of order”, offended by the goddess-creator Te Fiti. On the one hand, it seems that such a presentation of the evil theme is realistic – because the evil always has a reason. However, on the other hand, through such a statement of the theme that evil is good, which offended – the viewer inherently instill views that the offender can be responsible for the person’s evil. The truth is that everyone is personally responsible for all his decisions and actions, and there can be no real justification for the perfect evil outside this personal responsibility. Therefore, it is important that the evil in children’s cartoons is not justified and served objectively.

Funny disability (-)

Looking like a crazy rooster, Hay-Hay visually resembles a mixture of a bird Becky and an imbecile seal from the recent cartoon “Finding Dori” Following this cartoon, Moana also offers a laugh at the character with disabilities.

Obviously, the humorous supply of “disabled” characters, does not teach anything good.

Vulgarity (-)

Another negative point is the vulgar moments, without which Disney products are not produced on screens. There are not many of them here, but nevertheless.

In the “Moanа” there are jokes about urine, “soft spot”, “pick-up” – drawing.

Sending to negative adult cinema (-)

Another negative trend that has taken an active turn this year is references to adult content in children’s products.

In this year’s “Zootopia” were references to the film “The Godfather” and the series “Breaking Bad”. In the “Moana” the scene with pirates Kakamora was inspired and made in the style of the film “Mad Max: Fury Road”.

Accommodation in children’s products of references to negative, adult films serves, in a way, a hidden dedication of children-viewers into adult media.

 Summarize