0:05

Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to

0:07

stuff I'll never tell you, protection of iHeartRadio, and

0:18

welcome to another edition of the

0:21

Feminist Movie Friday. I have to say we have quite

0:23

a backlock of movies that

0:25

we want to talk about every movie

0:27

we watch. I'm like, but then we could watch this

0:29

one too. Yeah,

0:31

And this definitely was the case with this

0:33

movie, which is mo Wana. So many

0:36

of you wrote in about Mowanna over

0:39

my course of being a host, because I came

0:42

in as a host right after

0:44

the movie came out, and then

0:46

after we did Frozen, so many of you wrote in about

0:48

that, and so I was like,

0:50

let's just come back and talk about Moana.

0:53

That being said, this movie is from twenty sixteen,

0:56

but I guess it still falls under the spoiler's

0:58

umbrella if

1:01

you haven't seen it and want to see it, or I

1:03

don't know, maybe you don't care about spoilers. That's

1:07

just my caveat. There has

1:09

been a lot of news about Mawana lately,

1:11

which is one of the other reasons I wanted to talk about

1:13

it. There is a sequel

1:16

and a live action remake, which I'm

1:19

very bamboozled by, but like

1:23

they're doing both right. Okay,

1:26

there's a new ride or experience at

1:28

Disney called the Wave Water.

1:31

The last time I was there, which was in October of

1:33

twenty twenty three,

1:35

the wait time was four hours.

1:38

But it's new, so everybody's trying to go

1:40

in. And yeah, I have

1:42

talked about my experience seeing

1:44

this movie. I'm going to talk about it more at the end,

1:46

but I guess that comes with content warning for descriptions

1:49

of panic attacks and trauma.

1:52

I whish we'll all make sense, Like if you've listened to me

1:54

talk about it before, if you've listened to this show, you

1:57

know what I'm saying. And a bunch of you wrote

1:59

in about the same thing. But I'm

2:02

not going to be in depth or anything, but I am going

2:04

to talk about it. This is

2:06

also like Frozen. I've

2:08

seen it three times. Maybe this was your first.

2:11

I never watched it, and I will say none

2:13

of the songs were familiar to me. So this

2:15

was a little under the radar even though I knew

2:17

much about it because of some of the controversy

2:20

behind it didn't

2:22

have a whole recasting because some of the

2:24

controversy was this the one

2:26

No, I don't think so okay, I know, because

2:29

like they were back and forth about the fact that

2:32

like they better have a Native

2:34

Hawaiian indigenous person as

2:38

the lead, which was

2:40

kind of like row Rising, and

2:42

that that wasn't an automatic like I remember, there

2:44

was a conversation about that, back and forth about whether or not Disney

2:46

would do the right thing. I don't

2:48

know if that's something to do with the live action, but also

2:51

obviously the Rock you

2:53

know, debuting his voice. I

2:56

remember that, but outside of that, I really had

2:58

no idea what this was outside of obviously

3:00

Native Hawaiian storytelling.

3:03

End of story. Yeah,

3:05

I saw it in theaters, and

3:08

again I will talk about that at the end, but in

3:11

in that meantime, let's go

3:13

for the plot. And I

3:16

did try to look up all the pronunciations, but if

3:18

I get them wrong, you can write in let

3:20

me know. Mowanna

3:23

is a critically acclaimed and financially successful

3:26

twenty sixteen film. It came

3:28

out literally right after

3:30

the twenty sixteen election. It's

3:32

a Disney animated movie directed by John Musker

3:35

and Ron Clements, starring Ali

3:37

Lee Kravaglio as the voice of

3:39

Mowana, who was a teenager at the time. And

3:42

yes his native Hawaiian Dwayne

3:44

Johnson as the voice of Maui, alongside

3:46

other talents like Rachel House, Tamara

3:49

Morrison who plays Bo Buffett by

3:51

the Way, Jimmaine Clement,

3:54

Nicole Scherzinger, and Alan Tudec

3:57

with songs and music composed by Lin Manuel,

3:59

Miranda Opatea Foe and

4:02

Mark Mancina. And I was

4:04

telling Samantha before this, but I found a whole

4:06

very helpful video about how to pronounce

4:08

the of the

4:10

main star, which we love. That's

4:12

great. Apparently

4:15

Taika Waititi wrote like the

4:17

first draft, but he always

4:20

jokes that they only use like the very

4:22

first line, which is like exterior night, so

4:25

nothing like got Loft in it. So

4:28

the story takes place in ancient Polynesia

4:30

and follows the coming of age and self discovery

4:32

journey of Mowana, who is a teenage girl

4:35

and daughter of the chief who longs

4:37

to go her own way and to sail the

4:39

seas. Her father, however,

4:41

is adamant that she should not. Meanwhile,

4:44

their lands and waters are suffering the inhabitants

4:46

of the island. The island called Montanui

4:49

celebrate the goddess of nature, Tafiti, who

4:52

is a living island that brought life

4:54

and health to the region with her heart, which

4:56

is a Ponamu stone. It's

4:59

a type stone that is hard

5:01

and durable and has long been important

5:03

in Maori culture. The

5:06

shape shifting demi god Maui, who

5:08

is also a master of wayfinding the

5:10

wind in the sea, he stalled this

5:12

heart to give it to humanity to gift

5:15

them the power of creation. However,

5:18

in doing so, Trafiti started

5:20

to turn to stone, and Mali was confronted

5:23

by a volcanic demon named

5:25

te Ka. During this attack,

5:27

Maui loses both the heart and

5:30

his magic fish hook to the sea.

5:33

So from there we cut to Moana

5:35

as a baby one thousand years later and

5:38

she it's a

5:40

really funny scene when it opens where her grandmother

5:43

is telling like a creepy story and all the babies,

5:45

all the other children are like scared, and Mowana

5:47

is like, yes, tell me more.

5:51

But then it kind of goes to her playing

5:54

with the water, like literally the water is moving

5:56

around her and the animation of the water is really beautiful,

5:59

and she saves this

6:02

young baby turtle who's

6:04

trying to get to the sea. She

6:07

has like a little leaf and just keeping away the birds.

6:11

So because of all of this, the

6:14

ocean chooses Moana Moana

6:16

means ocean by the way to return the

6:19

heart to Tafiti. Despite

6:22

the call of the water that she feels, though her

6:24

parents do their best to keep

6:27

her from from the water and get her

6:29

ready for taking over her father's role as chief.

6:32

When she is sixteen, this island

6:34

is in dire straits. They aren't

6:37

catching much, crops are dying. Moana,

6:40

still feeling the call of the water and looking for a

6:42

solution, suggests that they go past the reef

6:44

of their island to see if they can get

6:46

an answer or at least more fish, but

6:48

her father immediately rejects it. She

6:50

ignores him and attempts to get

6:53

past the reef but fails. So

6:56

Moana goes to visit her grandmother, Tala,

6:58

who takes her to a sea critic cavern

7:01

that has some canoes and explains to her that

7:03

the people of the island used to be travelers

7:06

up until Maui lost the heart,

7:08

rendering the waters in the ocean unsafe.

7:12

Tala tells Malana that it is Tika

7:15

that is poisoning their home, but

7:17

Moana can save it by locating Maui

7:20

and getting him to restore the heart to

7:22

Tafiti. Tala gives Malana

7:24

the heart that she had recovered from the ocean, but

7:27

then Tala grows ill and requests

7:29

that Malana finds Maui before she dies.

7:32

Yeah.

7:34

Milana takes a chemacau, a

7:36

type of canoe historically used in

7:38

the region, with the sail and undertakes

7:41

this journey with her stoway pet rooster. Hey

7:44

Hey. They get caught up in

7:46

a typhoon and are shipwrecked on

7:48

an island. Wears the prize priz. Malana

7:50

encounters Maui, who is

7:52

incredibly bostful of everything that he says

7:55

that he has done. Malana

7:57

asks him to return the heart to Tafii.

7:59

She has a very like princess bride. My name

8:01

is this, You're gonna do this, but

8:05

he attempts to entrap her in a cave and strand

8:07

her there. So Maana

8:10

is able to escape the cave and convinces

8:12

Maui to let her come with him on

8:14

the boat with the help of the ocean. On their

8:16

journey, she tries to get Maui to teach

8:18

her to sail to wayfind but he's really

8:20

resistant. Over the course of time, they

8:23

do earn some trust between them.

8:25

Moana learns that he stole the heart

8:27

and it's most likely the cause of

8:30

the blight that the island's

8:32

experiencing. She attempts to

8:34

sway him to return the heart

8:36

and redeem himself, but to do so, Maui

8:39

says he must retrieve his hook from the realm

8:41

of monsters, where it is held by a coconut

8:43

crab named Tomatoa and

8:47

this whole thing, But thanks to Moana

8:49

distracting Tomatoa, Maui retrieves

8:52

the hook. Really, Mawana retrieves

8:54

the hook, but quickly discovers that he's

8:56

unable to use it. Mowana once again

8:58

saves him and allow them to escape.

9:01

Maui shares with her that his first

9:03

tattoo, because he has a lot of tattoos,

9:06

was given to him after his parents abandoned

9:08

him as a baby, and the gods, taking

9:10

pity on him, gave him powers. When

9:13

Moana is sympathetic to his story,

9:15

he finally decides the teacher

9:17

sailing and wayfighting. They

9:21

finally arrive at Tafiiti, but

9:23

are attacked by Takab. Despite

9:25

this, Moana is determined to push forward and Maui's

9:27

hook is damaged in the process. Maui

9:30

abandons Moana in fear of losing

9:33

his hook again. Disheartened

9:35

and defeated, Moana asked the ocean

9:37

to find someone else to restore the heart, but

9:40

the spirit of her grandmother, yes

9:42

again has died, appears in the water

9:44

and encourages her to embrace her destiny.

9:47

Malana takes the heart with new determination

9:50

and Maui returns. He gives her the opening

9:53

she needs by distracting Takab. His

9:55

hook gets destroyed in the process,

9:58

but this is when Jana

10:00

realizes that Teka is

10:02

the corrupted version of Tafiti. She

10:05

asks the ocean to make a path

10:08

for Moana to talk to Taka,

10:11

and Moana returns

10:13

the heart to Taka Tafiti, who

10:16

heals the ocean and fixes the plights.

10:19

Maui apologizes to Tefiti

10:22

and Tafiti fixes his hook.

10:24

In return, Tafiti

10:27

falls asleep kind of becomes the island

10:29

that she was. Molana

10:31

goes back home and takes her role as

10:33

chief and leads her people back

10:36

into the water on boats

10:38

on canoes with the help of Maui. She's

10:41

kind of the one leading the charge

10:44

and that's how it ends.

10:55

Again. Like with Frozen, I

10:58

found so written about

11:00

this. It was so many

11:03

deep law like forty page

11:06

articles, So

11:08

I'm trying to condense down essentially

11:10

what I found. But I

11:13

did find as

11:15

we move into the themes, so many

11:17

angry articles about how this movie

11:20

masculated men because

11:23

Mawi lost his hook, which

11:27

gave me a good chuckle. It gave me a

11:30

good chuckle. But one

11:32

of the big themes of it is coming

11:34

of age, wanting to do your own thing. That

11:37

is certainly from the beginning, Wowana,

11:40

that is what she wants, this

11:43

idea of her finding herself,

11:46

her main song being like you don't know how far

11:48

I'll go. And I thought it was interesting

11:51

because behind the scenes this got rewritten

11:54

nine times. Well

11:57

it just kind of went through like nine different passes,

12:01

which is not that rare for a

12:03

movie from this big of a studio. But

12:06

the original draft had her having many brothers,

12:09

but they erased it because they wanted

12:11

it to be more about her finding herself.

12:13

Like I think the original draft was like her trying to stand

12:16

out from her brothers.

12:18

Oh and brave. I

12:20

was thinking about that, like the different things. I was

12:22

like this is this is similar to this, and this is like kind

12:25

of Brave was what made

12:27

me think of that.

12:28

This is definitely very

12:32

similar to Brave in terms of you

12:34

get to the end and

12:37

they're like, I want to do my own thing. But the interesting

12:39

thing about Mowana, which we're going to talk about more

12:41

later, is that Brave still

12:43

had the marriage romance storyline.

12:45

It's just she was not into it. Moanna

12:47

doesn't have it at all, Like

12:50

this is not there. And

12:52

I do love Brave again

12:55

if we had more tired. There's so many movies I want to

12:57

talk about. But yeah, so they

12:59

got rid of the brother's part. They also

13:03

changed Originally it was her father

13:05

that wanted her to take up the sailing

13:07

traditions again, but it was later

13:09

rewritten so the grandmother

13:11

would be the person that wanted that, so it wasn't

13:14

a man kind of overshadowing

13:16

her leading her way, which

13:18

I thought was interesting. I

13:20

think another big theme is just responsibility

13:23

to family, because she does. She's

13:25

like constantly in the beginning trying to convince

13:27

herself, no,

13:29

this is good, I want this,

13:31

even though the sea keeps calling her, like she keeps

13:34

want to go to the water and

13:36

I did read a lot of interesting things about

13:38

how purposely

13:41

or not, it does feel very like the patriarchy

13:43

is trying to control her. Like her father is the one that's

13:46

like, you're staying here and you're doing this. It's

13:48

Maui the god, the Demi god, who's

13:51

like, you are not near

13:54

good enough to do this, I'm

13:56

not gonna even deign to teach you. But

13:59

it's her grandmother and her mom

14:01

who are encouraging her. And

14:04

I did think that was interesting of like

14:06

Maui being kind of a cakekeeper, like

14:08

he just won't teach her, and

14:11

she's, you

14:14

know, she's out there and she's really trying

14:16

and trying to learn, but her father was

14:19

the one that wouldn't let her learn

14:21

anything, right, And so

14:25

in the end Maui

14:27

does teach her, and then

14:29

she teaches her father, which I thought was a

14:31

great like it's one of the final moments, right.

14:34

She becomes experts in the final moment.

14:37

Are they discovering new lands? Is that what they're trying to

14:39

do, or are they just waging.

14:40

To come back? They're just going out. There's

14:43

actually a big historical note about this which

14:45

I'm going to talk about that I didn't know anything

14:48

about. But yeah, I think they're just checking

14:50

it out. And I

14:53

a most of the action in this movie

14:56

happens because of women. It's the women that are getting

14:58

the stuff done for sure.

15:01

So here's a quote

15:03

from feminist Gaze, Childlike

15:06

impetulant. This Dimi God becomes

15:08

the greatest challenge that she, Mohanna,

15:10

has to overcome in order to solve the problems

15:12

of her people. Standing up to him,

15:15

she is fighting against patriarchy and masculinity

15:17

alike, wrangling against the constant

15:20

badgering and belittling that is every

15:22

woman's surest battle in life,

15:24

and Malana's struggle is no different, as he continually

15:27

renders her to tears and self doubt. Her

15:30

greatest power comes not in solving

15:32

problems, or being creative about solving problems,

15:34

or battling monsters our ambition, our

15:36

gumption, but in fighting against the

15:38

men that stand in her way with physical

15:41

and emotional force, just to shut her up,

15:43

stunt her growth and potential, and

15:45

put her in her place. They

15:47

don't see what we girls and women see.

15:50

One girl set up against the will of two powerful

15:52

and patriarchal figures. In many

15:54

ways, this is what females experience

15:57

as they come of age. Our most persistent

15:59

battle is not finding ourselves or solving

16:01

our problems, but fighting against every patriarchal

16:04

norm that come at us from every male,

16:06

every male dominated industry, reminding

16:08

us that we have to fight harder, yell

16:11

louder, work longer just to be heard,

16:13

just to achieve what we know is rightfully ours

16:16

free will and volition.

16:20

Yeah. I mean it's interesting too, because

16:24

I do think a lot of people don't pick up on that,

16:26

but when you watch it and you

16:29

have that sort of brain in mind, you're like,

16:31

yeah, she definitely. I

16:34

think for the first time I saw it, I was more like

16:37

it was kind of refreshing because her

16:40

gender wasn't really brought up right

16:42

as like a oh, she can't do it.

16:45

It was more just like her responsibilities,

16:48

So that was kind of nice.

16:49

It was interesting that there was no opposition

16:52

for her to be the ruler or the chief, like every

16:55

simple single thing, like she showed her problem

16:57

solving skills and everybody was

16:59

just an standing and nodding in yes, and even when

17:01

she couldn't solve the problem the fifth problem, they

17:04

still had like a respect

17:06

to hear her and not denigrating

17:09

her based on her gender. That was never

17:11

that question, So I was like, huh, that's unusual

17:13

that that's not even a brought up no.

17:16

And I think that's why when I was reading this article,

17:18

I was like, oh, you know that is true,

17:20

that it is mostly men trying to keep her down that

17:23

because gender is so sort

17:25

of out of the question, and

17:27

a lot of this movie, I don't think I had

17:29

ever really thought about it like that. There

17:32

is certainly male ego happening, especially

17:34

with obviously Maui, although he's

17:36

very insecure, but his

17:40

whole song like You're welcome, You're welcome, thank

17:43

you, like trying to take credit for everything.

17:47

But when we're going to come back to this later. I

17:49

also find his story a little

17:52

interesting in terms of trauma because

17:54

he's basically like too

17:57

scared to use

17:59

his powers anymore where after what happened

18:01

to him, and he places so much value

18:05

in this magical hook that

18:07

he doesn't without the hook's. He

18:09

even has a whole scene where he's like that I'm nothing

18:11

without it. That being said, uh,

18:14

Mowana was specifically designed to be

18:16

the hero as I. As

18:18

I mentioned already, like that's why they kind

18:20

of got rid of the brother storyline.

18:23

That's why they put the grandmother and

18:25

the story of the mentor and the role of the mentor,

18:27

excuse me, And there's no romance

18:29

because of that. Maoi's meant

18:31

to be really annoying and kind of not competent,

18:35

and when he does start to change, it's with Mowana

18:38

still at the lead. Her sidekicks

18:40

are truly sidekicks, like I read a whole paper

18:42

about this. I swear her

18:44

like pet sidekicks that are so traditional

18:48

and Disney movies are. They were meant to

18:50

be like truly sidekicks

18:52

and not still the role from her. I

18:54

was very confused by the chicken.

18:56

There was so little like

18:58

other than being chaotic constantly.

19:01

Then I was like, except for the one time

19:04

that he saved the heart,

19:06

I was like, there's

19:08

nothing to this chicken. What's happening?

19:13

Comical foil like that's the entirety

19:15

of the thing. And then they she didn't even bring the smart

19:18

one, the pig along, So I'm

19:21

very confused by this chicken. And

19:23

they're always having to put like every single one

19:26

of them have had to put it in a basket and

19:28

into the little space, including the

19:30

ocean like stop it.

19:33

This honestly reminds me of like a D and D

19:35

character. It's such a good like it

19:38

again, Peaches in my D and D can't.

19:40

Care you compare my Peaches

19:43

to that chicken.

19:45

But the kind of the role of chaos of just

19:47

this character that comes in and is like,

19:50

we don't know what's gonna happen, but

19:53

hey, look, I

19:56

also thought I found a lot of stuff written

19:59

about the flipping of roles

20:01

in this where Maui is like

20:04

constantly consistently trying

20:06

to put Mowana in either

20:08

the role of his bait or the damsel in distress

20:10

and or just get rid of her. And I feel

20:12

like it's the audience. A lot of times you think, oh,

20:14

okay, that's gonna work, but she keeps

20:17

having to save him in one way

20:20

or another. Here's a quote

20:22

from Criterion. The movie

20:24

also discards the idea of Mail as the

20:26

only savior of a woman in distress, as

20:28

it was Maui who left Mowana in between

20:30

the sea when she was trying to fix Tafiti's

20:32

heart, only to come back later when he

20:35

realizes his mistake. Another thing

20:37

added by Disney is how man the

20:39

Man has destroyed Mother

20:41

Earth for his own selfish

20:43

motives. Something else,

20:46

and this is too long of a topic for

20:48

today, but there's

20:52

a really big conversation

20:54

that happens a lot around movies like this Star

20:57

Wars being one the democracy

20:59

of power. She is not a god,

21:02

but she's very powerful.

21:06

But a lot of people it's

21:08

like they almost dismiss the the

21:11

person who's not the god, which I actually

21:13

think is a really good story that

21:16

she's able to do that without those powers.

21:19

But when I tell you, it is

21:21

a big conversation. Also

21:25

a big theme family obviously, I

21:28

would say particularly the grandmother, her

21:32

relationship with the grandmother, who is also sort

21:34

of I would say she would describe

21:36

herself as sort of the crazy old lady. She

21:38

does. She keeps saying that she's

21:41

like crazy

21:44

one. But Malana

21:47

relates connect

21:49

to that, which I that is

21:51

a big thing that I've like seeing in newer

21:53

movies where we get to see the generations

21:56

of women connecting.

21:59

Uh. And then representation,

22:02

as I said, Mowana means ocean.

22:05

There is no romance, there's

22:07

no quote Happily ever after or

22:09

marriage. She just set sails.

22:12

So it feels very much like a movie where she's

22:15

at the end, she's launching into the

22:17

next part of her life. Hence

22:19

the sequel perhaps.

22:20

Well, now I'm scared that they're going to bring in the

22:22

romance portion in the sequel.

22:25

It's possible, It's

22:27

very possible, but it would mean that

22:30

was one of the biggest praises that got right.

22:32

And I read another article.

22:35

I'm telling you, there's so much stuff I had to cut

22:37

out that was about

22:40

the thing that's going on

22:42

with Disney right now in terms of Disney

22:45

Princess movies. I guess where they're being

22:47

very meta about it and they're like, oh, you didn't have

22:49

to get a man, or you didn't have to whatever, whatever,

22:52

But they're not really sticking

22:56

to it, like they're commenting on it, but they're

22:58

doing the thing, but they're not right

23:02

right, like, because

23:04

I do think, you know, there's nothing wrong with romance.

23:06

We did talk about this in the Frozen episode

23:09

there. The way Disney has done it

23:11

can be complicated, for sure, but

23:13

that was one of the reasons this character resonated

23:16

so much was it just wasn't a part

23:18

of her story. So

23:20

I don't know, I think you're legitimate to have

23:22

a fear about it. Though here

23:24

is one conservative take that I just

23:26

had to put in here. I think it's setting

23:29

up girls for unhealthy lives in the future,

23:31

and also for disappointing romantic

23:34

lives. Oh, dear, dear,

23:36

dear romance.

23:39

Yeah, that's

23:43

why I disappointing that she's fled.

23:45

I'm confused.

23:46

Oh yes, Oh, it's setting

23:48

us up for disappointing romance lives.

23:51

What are we? Who the

23:53

man? Yeah?

23:56

I think so? Yeah, okay,

23:59

okay, Well another

24:03

adventure. Uh Mowana.

24:05

Even as a child she was entanced

24:08

with traveling to see She wasn't afraid,

24:11

and I really liked that too. I

24:13

liked that her whole thing was like, I

24:16

want to go out and see some stuff.

24:19

So the song we Know the Way

24:21

is to k Lawan. It's

24:23

in the Tokalawan language, which is only

24:26

only about three thousand people in the world speak it. I

24:29

watch the whole thing about that too. There

24:31

were critiques about Maui's weights, perpetuating

24:34

negative stereotypes about Polynesians being

24:36

overweight Traditionally,

24:39

because he is based on a real god,

24:41

Maui is a fit teenager. However,

24:44

like a lot of stuff I read about this kind of it

24:49

was hard. It's hard to put into words, but essentially

24:51

like there were a lot of observations

24:53

that Mowana has quote

24:56

thighs, and the

24:58

discourse about it was something

25:01

that we've seen before with Lee though and Stitch.

25:05

But I guess one

25:07

of the points that I came

25:09

across a lot was that we were judging non

25:12

white characters based on the white gays.

25:16

And I think this is a bigger, more nuanced conversation,

25:19

but just to put that out there, because I did see that

25:21

a lot researching it, and I

25:24

I read a lot of things that I was kind of like, I see where

25:26

you're coming from, But it also feels a little

25:28

like, yeah,

25:31

that's a bigger that's a bigger time.

25:33

That's a hard conversation because you one

25:37

or the other, like who based on whose

25:39

standards? Because I've definitely seen on

25:41

like whether it's like through TV shows

25:43

or whatever, a Maori and Native Indigenous

25:45

people from Hawaii as well as New

25:48

Zealand being fairly thin and very small.

25:51

So it's not like that's necessarily

25:53

the white standard, unless you think that's white standard,

25:56

because what's what white people like typing

25:58

conversations? So it's kind of like yeah, and then

26:00

you look at things like Brave and

26:03

Frozen and they're like why

26:05

are they like that? And then you have this

26:07

which is almost caricaturist as well.

26:10

So it's kind of like, yeah, I can see both sides, Like you

26:12

could see how leaning either way

26:15

could be dangerous and why is it constantly

26:17

this way?

26:17

Though for this one thing? Right,

26:20

yeah, it was just like such

26:22

a and we should come back and talk about it. But it was like it

26:26

deserves much more space than just this

26:29

also something that deserves more space.

26:32

Coconuts are complicated

26:34

in the Pacific Islands. The word has been used as

26:36

a slur. I

26:38

didn't know that, yep. So the Kakamura,

26:41

the pirate coconut people in the movie, they

26:43

have historical roots. They're based historically,

26:46

but it's messy because of

26:48

the term and also

26:51

the history, to be honest, And

26:53

there are like very legitimate critiques

26:55

to make about Disney in general with things

26:57

like they're Polynesian Resort or

27:00

Epcot at large that I

27:02

love visiting, but it is weird

27:05

at best, Like ultimately they're making money

27:07

off of a culture. The

27:09

representation part is still really important. That's

27:13

huge, but it's still like Disney's

27:15

getting the money right. So,

27:18

yeah,

27:29

one of the biggest themes in this is environmentalism.

27:33

So you know, you steal

27:37

or hurt the planet. See what happens

27:41

again. Mowana's earliest scene that we

27:43

see her, one of the earliest scenes, is she's helping

27:45

a baby turtle get to the ocean. She's

27:48

doing this work of caring. Their

27:52

island had subsisted

27:54

healthy for generations on what they

27:56

had. They took care of the land, the

27:59

water. Interestingly, and

28:02

I mentioned this earlier, the directors were inspired

28:04

in part to do this story because historical

28:07

records that we know of indicate that people

28:09

from this region, who are excellent seafarers,

28:13

just stopped going out on the water

28:15

at some point, and they

28:17

were historically voyagers. And one

28:19

of the theories for the stoppage's

28:21

climate change and

28:24

or shifting ocean currents is

28:26

sometimes called the long povs, which, again,

28:28

if we were different podcasts, I would love to dig into

28:30

that. But as I said, they were nine

28:33

versions of this story. The directors consulted

28:35

experts across the South Pacific

28:38

to weigh in on accuracy and sensitivity, which

28:40

did result in some pretty major changes from

28:44

climate lit quote.

28:46

While the ecological catastrophe

28:48

is presented not a systemic issue,

28:51

but as an outcome of individual choices.

28:53

Maui alone causes the problem, in Mowana

28:55

alone resolves it. The film succeeds

28:57

in communicating the importance of eCos

29:00

trism. Caring for the planet

29:02

is caring for our own well being, specifically

29:05

Mowana's choice to resolve the problem through

29:07

an emotional connection with the traumatized mother

29:09

nature representation of nature embodies

29:11

eco feminist themes, And

29:14

that article also had a lot of cool stuff. I

29:17

found an interesting take that to Fiti being

29:19

a woman that

29:21

was basically soothed with flowers and then fell asleep.

29:25

But then I found another

29:27

interesting take about how it's more of the difference between

29:29

male coded violence is the answer and

29:32

women trying to do more healing. That

29:34

is what Mawana did. And lastly,

29:36

and this is gonna be really brief trauma,

29:40

so you

29:42

know, I swear we come back to

29:44

it all the time. So there's

29:47

trauma for the characters absolutely, And

29:49

like in the final song where

29:51

Mowana's coming up to take

29:54

a she sings,

29:56

I know your name. They have stolen the heart from

29:58

inside you, but this does not to find

30:00

you this is not who you are. You know who

30:02

you are, who you truly are, and

30:05

then the whole thing with Maui being

30:08

traumatized and kind of held back by that. But

30:12

I just briefly wanted to discuss

30:15

I saw this in theaters. It

30:18

was twenty sixteen. It was right after election.

30:20

I was not in a good place and

30:23

I had I was. I

30:25

had the biggest panic attack in this movie.

30:28

I had to leave as in bathroom

30:31

like sobbing. It's throwing up. And

30:35

when I look back at it and Bridget

30:38

when we talked about it in a different episode, she asked me about

30:40

it, it's it was because of

30:42

the power dynamic and the size difference

30:45

between Mahana and Maui. I

30:47

just couldn't believe he

30:50

wouldn't hurt her. And I know it's a

30:52

Disney movie and I know, like that's

30:54

not what's gonna happen, but

30:56

it set me off to

30:59

the point like I did and see like a huge section

31:01

of the movie until years later. But

31:05

when I told that story, a

31:07

lot of listeners wrote in and said they had the

31:09

same reaction. And

31:12

I found kind of

31:14

post about people having this reaction,

31:17

and it was from people who loved the movie. But it was

31:19

very interesting to me that something

31:22

about that, and I

31:24

do think it came out at twenty

31:26

sixteen we were not doing

31:28

well. I mean, who's to

31:30

say we're doing better right now, but it was a rough

31:33

time. We're on edge where

31:35

I'm on it. But I

31:38

had so many listeners wrote in about

31:40

it, and it kind of surprised me that

31:42

they had a similar experience, which

31:45

is heartbreaking, right, but

31:50

sometimes you just don't

31:54

you don't know an what it's going

31:56

to be. That just sets you off.

31:58

Right well, I mean, honestly, when you

32:00

talk about reality, and

32:02

it's hard to take out reality of what

32:04

may be or what sometimes what often

32:07

happens when there's power dynamics

32:09

like that, especially again

32:11

where there's a god versus an ecocentric

32:14

god. On top of that, a small what

32:16

you would imagine as a small woman

32:18

with like a big heart, and like

32:20

you know, as we were talking about earlier pride and prejudice,

32:23

and I kept saying, they left out like the dark

32:25

side. She didn't talk about the abuse

32:27

that often happened, and like the power of women

32:29

being locked in their own home and having

32:31

new choices, all these things like that's not added

32:34

to the story because it wouldn't. But

32:36

that's the first thing I think, like, right,

32:39

Unfortunately, those are the things that

32:41

it comes to my head. And if you dwell

32:43

on long enough or are in a bad place, of course that's going

32:45

to set you off because we have been traumatized

32:48

with real experiences and stuff

32:50

like that. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's it's hard,

32:53

even though you hope

32:55

good on those that have never even

32:57

thought of that or had that even come to them,

33:00

because I did think that was odd. I was like, this feels

33:03

like it's too easily resolved, Like

33:05

this is not the reality that he's

33:07

just gonna accept her and then accept her help

33:09

and be so because when he apologized

33:12

to Mother Earth, I think that's not how that would go or

33:18

take FEEDI And I was like no, because that's

33:20

one of the I was so cynical in that level

33:22

of like, that's kind of what's happening now as

33:24

we see the world on fire and

33:27

our government, who has all the power, is

33:29

doing so little. Saying they care so little

33:32

is sounding like yeah, and

33:34

even for us, like we're not doing we

33:37

don't know how to fix it, so we give up, like

33:40

and instead of being apologetic We're

33:42

just like, Eh, it is what

33:44

it is. But it makes

33:47

sense to the fact that we are so caught

33:49

up in reality

33:52

that it's hard to differentiate that

33:55

and something that should be just a

33:58

thoughtless, mindless good story

34:01

or a story, you.

34:01

Know, right, or like

34:04

just a again, it's a Disney

34:06

movie. What especially

34:09

an animated Disney movie for kids. I should

34:11

specify who this movie. Sometimes the are traumatizing.

34:13

I situans

34:16

where she's under the sea with the

34:19

crab monster. That

34:21

thing would get the monster. She saw

34:23

all the creatures down there. I was like, yep, nightmares,

34:25

nightmares forever. I would if I was a kid

34:28

watching this nightmare forever. I would never go in the ocean.

34:32

Oh no, another crab trauma.

34:37

It's based on a crab we specify.

34:40

Which is GERMANE voice

34:42

said Ermine, and I was like that voice sounds

34:44

so familiar. So I was like,

34:47

wait, I

34:49

know this voice, which is a good friend of Teka

34:51

with t as well, but I'll just like Jermaine

34:53

Clement, he's a huge New Zealand

34:56

actor.

34:57

I was like, I know this voice. Where

34:59

is this voice going? Still? Nightmares?

35:01

Deep sea nightmares, that's creepy.

35:03

We don't know what's down there night and we don't

35:06

know what's down there? I messing with that. It's

35:09

funny because back when I

35:12

pan all the time, I

35:15

would run for a long time my playlist,

35:17

you know, go all over the place, and I had

35:19

the soundtrack from a Wana on it. So

35:21

when I heard that song he Sings

35:24

Shiny, I was like immediately like brought

35:26

back when I was running on

35:28

the belt line. But yeah,

35:30

I hope that for all

35:32

the listeners that wrote in suggesting this, that

35:35

we did a justice. We'll see

35:38

what the sequel brings, what the live action

35:40

brings, and if we missed anything

35:43

or you have any thoughts, please let us know. We'd

35:45

love hearing from you. You can email

35:47

us at stepaniamom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot

35:49

com. You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast

35:51

or on TikTok and Instagram at stuff When

35:54

ever told you we have a tea public store,

35:56

and we have a book you can get wherever you get your books.

35:58

Things as always too, super producer

36:00

Christina Are, executive producer Maya, and your contributor

36:02

Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for

36:04

listening. Step I never told yous. Prorection by Heart

36:06

Radio for more podcasts from my heart Radio. You can check out

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the heart radio app, Apple podcast or where you

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