lilo and moana (pt 2): disney and limited worldviews

it was ironic that i posted something about lilo and moana last week and that we discussed both of those movies in the pasifika lecture (that i will be posting notes on after this post!).

i feel like i didn’t touch enough on this in my last post, but as much as i love lilo and moana, and how much i can relate to their characters, i’ll never really be like them. i know that inherently because i don’t have the experience of a pacific islander person. it’s probably problematic to say that we even look alike, but i think that lies more in the hands of disney and the fact that that they’ve only made a handful of visibly brown main characters, especially brown girls.

disney sucks. i loved disney movies as a kid, and i still love them as an adult, but i wish disney would see that these stories they keep trying to make are really important, and trying to create an accurate portrayal of communities of color would benefit lots of people people. if they weren’t so focused on making money off of it all… (but then again, i don’t really have a lot of faith in disney or any big name company for ever making movies about folks of color that are accurate and involve POC as the main creators of the story). i don’t think representation can ever be completely perfect because everyone has different experiences in their cultures that can’t always be accounted for, but with the rise of diverse media coming up, there’s gonna need to be a lot conversations about representation and appropriation.

reflecting on my consumption of media like disney, coupled with me being american born-and-raised, i’m always so surprised by my own lack of knowledge about the world outside of the untied states, and outside of my own cultural knowledge. it feels like i know a lot one minute, and then i don’t really know anything the next. it’s sometimes a struggle, but i’m glad that my worldview keeps expanding and that i keep learning new things, because otherwise i’d be missing out on a lot of the stuff that exists outside of my american bubble. i’m thankful for having the opportunity to learn more, and i’m deeply appreciative of the presenters from this week for sharing their knowledge and lived experiences with us. i know i’ll be taking that place a lot with students and coworkers that i’ll be working with in the future.

the pasifika lecture reminded me that i have a lot of research to do for the future. i want to include as much history as i can into my classroom. i’m going to have to search all over the places for information and it’s going to exhaust the hell out of me, but it’ll be worth it for me and my students that they get the opportunity too see their histories being taught/can see themselves represented.

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