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Feminist Movie Friday: Moana · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I'll never tell you, protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
0:19
Speaker 1: another edition of the Feminist Movie Friday. I have to
0:22
Speaker 1: say we have quite a backlock of movies that we
0:25
Speaker 1: want to talk about every movie we watch. I'm like,
0:28
Speaker 1: but then we could watch this one too. Yeah, And
0:31
Speaker 1: this definitely was the case with this movie, which is
0:34
Speaker 1: mo Wana. So many of you wrote in about Mowanna
0:39
Speaker 1: over my course of being a host, because I came
0:42
Speaker 1: in as a host right after the movie came out,
0:46
Speaker 1: and then after we did Frozen, so many of you
0:48
Speaker 1: wrote in about that, and so I was like, let's
0:51
Speaker 1: just come back and talk about Moana. That being said,
0:54
Speaker 1: this movie is from twenty sixteen, but I guess it
0:56
Speaker 1: still falls under the spoiler's umbrella if you haven't seen
1:02
Speaker 1: it and want to see it, or I don't know,
1:04
Speaker 1: maybe you don't care about spoilers. That's just my caveat.
1:08
Speaker 1: There has been a lot of news about Mawana lately,
1:11
Speaker 1: which is one of the other reasons I wanted to
1:13
Speaker 1: talk about it. There is a sequel and a live
1:17
Speaker 1: action remake, which I'm very bamboozled by, but like they're
1:23
Speaker 1: doing both right. Okay, there's a new ride or experience
1:28
Speaker 1: at Disney called the Wave Water. The last time I
1:31
Speaker 1: was there, which was in October of twenty twenty three,
1:35
Speaker 1: the wait time was four hours. But it's new, so
1:39
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to go in. And yeah, I have talked
1:42
Speaker 1: about my experience seeing this movie. I'm going to talk
1:45
Speaker 1: about it more at the end, but I guess that
1:47
Speaker 1: comes with content warning for descriptions of panic attacks and trauma.
1:52
Speaker 1: I whish we'll all make sense, Like if you've listened
1:54
Speaker 1: to me talk about it before, if you've listened to
1:56
Speaker 1: this show, you know what I'm saying. And a bunch
1:58
Speaker 1: of you wrote in about the same thing. But I'm
2:02
Speaker 1: not going to be in depth or anything, but I
2:03
Speaker 1: am going to talk about it. This is also like Frozen.
2:08
Speaker 1: I've seen it three times. Maybe this was your first.
2:11
Speaker 2: I never watched it, and I will say none of
2:13
Speaker 2: the songs were familiar to me. So this was a
2:15
Speaker 2: little under the radar even though I knew much about
2:18
Speaker 2: it because of some of the controversy behind it didn't
2:22
Speaker 2: have a whole recasting because some of the controversy was
2:25
Speaker 2: this the one No, I don't think so okay, I know,
2:28
Speaker 2: because like they were back and forth about the fact
2:31
Speaker 2: that like they better have a Native Hawaiian indigenous person
2:36
Speaker 2: as the lead, which was kind of like row Rising,
2:42
Speaker 2: and that that wasn't an automatic like I remember, there
2:44
Speaker 2: was a conversation about that, back and forth about whether
2:46
Speaker 2: or not Disney would do the right thing. I don't know
2:48
Speaker 2: if that's something to do with the live action, but
2:50
Speaker 2: also obviously the Rock you know, debuting his voice. I
2:56
Speaker 2: remember that, but outside of that, I really had no
2:58
Speaker 2: idea what this was outside of obviously Native Hawaiian storytelling.
3:03
Speaker 1: End of story. Yeah, I saw it in theaters, and
3:08
Speaker 1: again I will talk about that at the end, but
3:11
Speaker 1: in in that meantime, let's go for the plot. And
3:15
Speaker 1: I did try to look up all the pronunciations, but
3:18
Speaker 1: if I get them wrong, you can write in let
3:20
Speaker 1: me know. Mowanna is a critically acclaimed and financially successful
3:26
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen film. It came out literally right after the
3:30
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election. It's a Disney animated movie directed by
3:34
Speaker 1: John Musker and Ron Clements, starring Ali Lee Kravaglio as
3:39
Speaker 1: the voice of Mowana, who was a teenager at the time.
3:42
Speaker 1: And yes his native Hawaiian Dwayne Johnson as the voice
3:45
Speaker 1: of Maui, alongside other talents like Rachel House, Tamara Morrison
3:50
Speaker 1: who plays Bo Buffett by the Way, Jimmaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger,
3:56
Speaker 1: and Alan Tudec with songs and music composed by Lin Manuel,
3:59
Speaker 1: Miranda Opatea Foe and Mark Mancina. And I was telling
4:04
Speaker 1: Samantha before this, but I found a whole very helpful
4:06
Speaker 1: video about how to pronounce the of the main star,
4:11
Speaker 1: which we love. That's great. Apparently Taika Waititi wrote like
4:17
Speaker 1: the first draft, but he always jokes that they only
4:21
Speaker 1: use like the very first line, which is like exterior night,
4:25
Speaker 1: so nothing like got Loft in it. So the story
4:28
Speaker 1: takes place in ancient Polynesia and follows the coming of
4:31
Speaker 1: age and self discovery journey of Mowana, who is a
4:34
Speaker 1: teenage girl and daughter of the chief who longs to
4:37
Speaker 1: go her own way and to sail the seas. Her father, however,
4:41
Speaker 1: is adamant that she should not. Meanwhile, their lands and
4:44
Speaker 1: waters are suffering the inhabitants of the island. The island
4:48
Speaker 1: called Montanui celebrate the goddess of nature, Tafiti, who is
4:52
Speaker 1: a living island that brought life and health to the
4:55
Speaker 1: region with her heart, which is a Ponamu stone. It's
4:59
Speaker 1: a type stone that is hard and durable and has
5:02
Speaker 1: long been important in Maori culture. The shape shifting demi
5:06
Speaker 1: god Maui, who is also a master of wayfinding the
5:10
Speaker 1: wind in the sea, he stalled this heart to give
5:13
Speaker 1: it to humanity to gift them the power of creation. However,
5:18
Speaker 1: in doing so, Trafiti started to turn to stone, and
5:21
Speaker 1: Mali was confronted by a volcanic demon named te Ka.
5:26
Speaker 1: During this attack, Maui loses both the heart and his
5:30
Speaker 1: magic fish hook to the sea. So from there we
5:34
Speaker 1: cut to Moana as a baby one thousand years later
5:38
Speaker 1: and she it's a really funny scene when it opens
5:42
Speaker 1: where her grandmother is telling like a creepy story and
5:44
Speaker 1: all the babies, all the other children are like scared,
5:46
Speaker 1: and Mowana is like, yes, tell me more. But then
5:51
Speaker 1: it kind of goes to her playing with the water,
5:54
Speaker 1: like literally the water is moving around her and the
5:57
Speaker 1: animation of the water is really beautiful, and she saves
6:01
Speaker 1: this young baby turtle who's trying to get to the sea.
6:07
Speaker 1: She has like a little leaf and just keeping away
6:09
Speaker 1: the birds. So because of all of this, the ocean
6:15
Speaker 1: chooses Moana Moana means ocean by the way to return
6:18
Speaker 1: the heart to Tafiti. Despite the call of the water
6:23
Speaker 1: that she feels, though her parents do their best to
6:27
Speaker 1: keep her from from the water and get her ready
6:29
Speaker 1: for taking over her father's role as chief. When she
6:33
Speaker 1: is sixteen, this island is in dire straits. They aren't
6:37
Speaker 1: catching much, crops are dying. Moana, still feeling the call
6:41
Speaker 1: of the water and looking for a solution, suggests that
6:43
Speaker 1: they go past the reef of their island to see
6:45
Speaker 1: if they can get an answer or at least more fish,
6:48
Speaker 1: but her father immediately rejects it. She ignores him and
6:52
Speaker 1: attempts to get past the reef but fails. So Moana
6:56
Speaker 1: goes to visit her grandmother, Tala, who takes her to
6:59
Speaker 1: a sea critic cavern that has some canoes and explains
7:03
Speaker 1: to her that the people of the island used to
7:04
Speaker 1: be travelers up until Maui lost the heart, rendering the
7:09
Speaker 1: waters in the ocean unsafe. Tala tells Malana that it
7:14
Speaker 1: is Tika that is poisoning their home, but Moana can
7:18
Speaker 1: save it by locating Maui and getting him to restore
7:21
Speaker 1: the heart to Tafiti. Tala gives Malana the heart that
7:25
Speaker 1: she had recovered from the ocean, but then Tala grows
7:28
Speaker 1: ill and requests that Malana finds Maui before she dies. Yeah.
7:34
Speaker 1: Milana takes a chemacau, a type of canoe historically used
7:38
Speaker 1: in the region, with the sail and undertakes this journey
7:42
Speaker 1: with her stoway pet rooster. Hey Hey. They get caught
7:45
Speaker 1: up in a typhoon and are shipwrecked on an island.
7:48
Speaker 1: Wears the prize priz. Malana encounters Maui, who is incredibly
7:53
Speaker 1: bostful of everything that he says that he has done.
7:56
Speaker 1: Malana asks him to return the heart to Tafii. She
7:59
Speaker 1: has a very like princess bride. My name is this,
8:02
Speaker 1: You're gonna do this, but he attempts to entrap her
8:07
Speaker 1: in a cave and strand her there. So Maana is
8:10
Speaker 1: able to escape the cave and convinces Maui to let
8:13
Speaker 1: her come with him on the boat with the help
8:15
Speaker 1: of the ocean. On their journey, she tries to get
8:18
Speaker 1: Maui to teach her to sail to wayfind but he's
8:20
Speaker 1: really resistant. Over the course of time, they do earn
8:23
Speaker 1: some trust between them. Moana learns that he stole the
8:27
Speaker 1: heart and it's most likely the cause of the blight
8:31
Speaker 1: that the island's experiencing. She attempts to sway him to
8:35
Speaker 1: return the heart and redeem himself, but to do so,
8:38
Speaker 1: Maui says he must retrieve his hook from the realm
8:41
Speaker 1: of monsters, where it is held by a coconut crab
8:44
Speaker 1: named Tomatoa and this whole thing, But thanks to Moana
8:49
Speaker 1: distracting Tomatoa, Maui retrieves the hook. Really, Mawana retrieves the hook,
8:54
Speaker 1: but quickly discovers that he's unable to use it. Mowana
8:57
Speaker 1: once again saves him and allow them to escape. Maui
9:02
Speaker 1: shares with her that his first tattoo, because he has
9:05
Speaker 1: a lot of tattoos, was given to him after his
9:07
Speaker 1: parents abandoned him as a baby, and the gods, taking
9:10
Speaker 1: pity on him, gave him powers. When Moana is sympathetic
9:14
Speaker 1: to his story, he finally decides the teacher sailing and wayfighting.
9:20
Speaker 1: They finally arrive at Tafiiti, but are attacked by Takab.
9:25
Speaker 1: Despite this, Moana is determined to push forward and Maui's
9:27
Speaker 1: hook is damaged in the process. Maui abandons Moana in
9:32
Speaker 1: fear of losing his hook again. Disheartened and defeated, Moana
9:36
Speaker 1: asked the ocean to find someone else to restore the heart,
9:39
Speaker 1: but the spirit of her grandmother, yes again has died,
9:43
Speaker 1: appears in the water and encourages her to embrace her destiny.
9:47
Speaker 1: Malana takes the heart with new determination and Maui returns.
9:52
Speaker 1: He gives her the opening she needs by distracting Takab.
9:55
Speaker 1: His hook gets destroyed in the process, but this is
9:59
Speaker 1: when Jana realizes that Teka is the corrupted version of Tafiti.
10:05
Speaker 1: She asks the ocean to make a path for Moana
10:09
Speaker 1: to talk to Taka, and Moana returns the heart to
10:14
Speaker 1: Taka Tafiti, who heals the ocean and fixes the plights.
10:19
Speaker 1: Maui apologizes to Tefiti and Tafiti fixes his hook. In return,
10:26
Speaker 1: Tafiti falls asleep kind of becomes the island that she was.
10:31
Speaker 1: Molana goes back home and takes her role as chief
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Speaker 1: and leads her people back into the water on boats
10:38
Speaker 1: on canoes with the help of Maui. She's kind of
10:41
Speaker 1: the one leading the charge and that's how it ends. Again.
10:56
Speaker 1: Like with Frozen, I found so written about this. It
11:02
Speaker 1: was so many deep law like forty page articles, So
11:08
Speaker 1: I'm trying to condense down essentially what I found. But
11:12
Speaker 1: I did find as we move into the themes, so
11:17
Speaker 1: many angry articles about how this movie masculated men because
11:23
Speaker 1: Mawi lost his hook, which gave me a good chuckle.
11:29
Speaker 1: It gave me a good chuckle. But one of the
11:32
Speaker 1: big themes of it is coming of age, wanting to
11:35
Speaker 1: do your own thing. That is certainly from the beginning, Wowana,
11:40
Speaker 1: that is what she wants, this idea of her finding herself,
11:46
Speaker 1: her main song being like you don't know how far
11:48
Speaker 1: I'll go. And I thought it was interesting because behind
11:51
Speaker 1: the scenes this got rewritten nine times. Well it just
11:58
Speaker 1: kind of went through like nine different passes, which is
12:02
Speaker 1: not that rare for a movie from this big of
12:04
Speaker 1: a studio. But the original draft had her having many brothers,
12:09
Speaker 1: but they erased it because they wanted it to be
12:11
Speaker 1: more about her finding herself. Like I think the original
12:14
Speaker 1: draft was like her trying to stand out from her brothers.
12:18
Speaker 2: Oh and brave. I was thinking about that, like the
12:22
Speaker 2: different things. I was like this is this is similar
12:23
Speaker 2: to this, and this is like kind of Brave was
12:26
Speaker 2: what made me think of that.
12:28
Speaker 1: This is definitely very similar to Brave in terms of
12:34
Speaker 1: you get to the end and they're like, I want
12:37
Speaker 1: to do my own thing. But the interesting thing about Mowana,
12:39
Speaker 1: which we're going to talk about more later, is that
12:42
Speaker 1: Brave still had the marriage romance storyline. It's just she
12:46
Speaker 1: was not into it. Moanna doesn't have it at all,
12:50
Speaker 1: Like this is not there. And I do love Brave
12:54
Speaker 1: again if we had more tired. There's so many movies
12:56
Speaker 1: I want to talk about. But yeah, so they got
12:59
Speaker 1: rid of the brother's part. They also changed Originally it
13:04
Speaker 1: was her father that wanted her to take up the
13:07
Speaker 1: sailing traditions again, but it was later rewritten so the
13:11
Speaker 1: grandmother would be the person that wanted that, so it
13:13
Speaker 1: wasn't a man kind of overshadowing her leading her way,
13:18
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting. I think another big theme
13:21
Speaker 1: is just responsibility to family, because she does. She's like
13:25
Speaker 1: constantly in the beginning trying to convince herself, no, this
13:29
Speaker 1: is good, I want this, even though the sea keeps
13:33
Speaker 1: calling her, like she keeps want to go to the
13:34
Speaker 1: water and I did read a lot of interesting things
13:38
Speaker 1: about how purposely or not, it does feel very like
13:42
Speaker 1: the patriarchy is trying to control her. Like her father
13:45
Speaker 1: is the one that's like, you're staying here and you're
13:47
Speaker 1: doing this. It's Maui the god, the Demi god, who's like,
13:52
Speaker 1: you are not near good enough to do this, I'm
13:56
Speaker 1: not gonna even deign to teach you. But it's her
14:00
Speaker 1: grandmother and her mom who are encouraging her. And I
14:04
Speaker 1: did think that was interesting of like Maui being kind
14:07
Speaker 1: of a cakekeeper, like he just won't teach her, and she's,
14:14
Speaker 1: you know, she's out there and she's really trying and
14:16
Speaker 1: trying to learn, but her father was the one that
14:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't let her learn anything, right, And so in the
14:25
Speaker 1: end Maui does teach her, and then she teaches her father,
14:31
Speaker 1: which I thought was a great like it's one of
14:32
Speaker 1: the final moments, right.
14:34
Speaker 2: She becomes experts in the final moment. Are they discovering
14:37
Speaker 2: new lands? Is that what they're trying to do, or
14:39
Speaker 2: are they just waging.
14:40
Speaker 1: To come back? They're just going out. There's actually a
14:44
Speaker 1: big historical note about this which I'm going to talk
14:46
Speaker 1: about that I didn't know anything about. But yeah, I
14:48
Speaker 1: think they're just checking it out. And I a most
14:53
Speaker 1: of the action in this movie happens because of women.
14:57
Speaker 1: It's the women that are getting the stuff done for sure.
15:01
Speaker 1: So here's a quote from feminist Gaze, Childlike impetulant. This
15:07
Speaker 1: Dimi God becomes the greatest challenge that she, Mohanna, has
15:10
Speaker 1: to overcome in order to solve the problems of her people.
15:13
Speaker 1: Standing up to him, she is fighting against patriarchy and
15:16
Speaker 1: masculinity alike, wrangling against the constant badgering and belittling that
15:21
Speaker 1: is every woman's surest battle in life, and Malana's struggle
15:25
Speaker 1: is no different, as he continually renders her to tears
15:28
Speaker 1: and self doubt. Her greatest power comes not in solving problems,
15:32
Speaker 1: or being creative about solving problems, or battling monsters our ambition,
15:36
Speaker 1: our gumption, but in fighting against the men that stand
15:39
Speaker 1: in her way with physical and emotional force, just to
15:42
Speaker 1: shut her up, stunt her growth and potential, and put
15:45
Speaker 1: her in her place. They don't see what we girls
15:49
Speaker 1: and women see. One girl set up against the will
15:51
Speaker 1: of two powerful and patriarchal figures. In many ways, this
15:55
Speaker 1: is what females experience as they come of age. Our
15:58
Speaker 1: most persistent battle is not finding ourselves or solving our problems,
16:02
Speaker 1: but fighting against every patriarchal norm that come at us
16:05
Speaker 1: from every male, every male dominated industry, reminding us that
16:09
Speaker 1: we have to fight harder, yell louder, work longer just
16:12
Speaker 1: to be heard, just to achieve what we know is
16:15
Speaker 1: rightfully ours free will and volition. Yeah. I mean it's
16:21
Speaker 1: interesting too, because I do think a lot of people
16:25
Speaker 1: don't pick up on that, but when you watch it
16:28
Speaker 1: and you have that sort of brain in mind, you're like, yeah,
16:32
Speaker 1: she definitely. I think for the first time I saw it,
16:35
Speaker 1: I was more like it was kind of refreshing because
16:39
Speaker 1: her gender wasn't really brought up right as like a oh,
16:43
Speaker 1: she can't do it. It was more just like her responsibilities,
16:48
Speaker 1: So that was kind of nice.
16:49
Speaker 2: It was interesting that there was no opposition for her
16:53
Speaker 2: to be the ruler or the chief, like every simple
16:55
Speaker 2: single thing, like she showed her problem solving skills and
16:58
Speaker 2: everybody was just an standing and nodding in yes, and
17:01
Speaker 2: even when she couldn't solve the problem the fifth problem,
17:04
Speaker 2: they still had like a respect to hear her and
17:07
Speaker 2: not denigrating her based on her gender. That was never
17:11
Speaker 2: that question, So I was like, huh, that's unusual that
17:13
Speaker 2: that's not even a brought up no.
17:16
Speaker 1: And I think that's why when I was reading this article,
17:18
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you know that is true, that
17:20
Speaker 1: it is mostly men trying to keep her down that
17:23
Speaker 1: because gender is so sort of out of the question,
17:27
Speaker 1: and a lot of this movie, I don't think I
17:29
Speaker 1: had ever really thought about it like that. There is
17:32
Speaker 1: certainly male ego happening, especially with obviously Maui, although he's
17:36
Speaker 1: very insecure, but his whole song like You're welcome, You're welcome,
17:42
Speaker 1: thank you, like trying to take credit for everything. But
17:47
Speaker 1: when we're going to come back to this later. I
17:49
Speaker 1: also find his story a little interesting in terms of
17:53
Speaker 1: trauma because he's basically like too scared to use his
17:59
Speaker 1: powers anymore where after what happened to him, and he
18:02
Speaker 1: places so much value in this magical hook that he
18:07
Speaker 1: doesn't without the hook's. He even has a whole scene
18:10
Speaker 1: where he's like that I'm nothing without it. That being said, uh,
18:14
Speaker 1: Mowana was specifically designed to be the hero as I.
18:18
Speaker 1: As I mentioned already, like that's why they kind of
18:21
Speaker 1: got rid of the brother storyline. That's why they put
18:24
Speaker 1: the grandmother and the story of the mentor and the
18:26
Speaker 1: role of the mentor, excuse me, And there's no romance
18:29
Speaker 1: because of that. Maoi's meant to be really annoying and
18:33
Speaker 1: kind of not competent, and when he does start to change,
18:36
Speaker 1: it's with Mowana still at the lead. Her sidekicks are
18:40
Speaker 1: truly sidekicks, like I read a whole paper about this.
18:42
Speaker 1: I swear her like pet sidekicks that are so traditional
18:48
Speaker 1: and Disney movies are. They were meant to be like
18:50
Speaker 1: truly sidekicks and not still the role from her. I
18:54
Speaker 1: was very confused by the chicken.
18:56
Speaker 2: There was so little like other than being chaotic constantly.
19:01
Speaker 2: Then I was like, except for the one time that
19:04
Speaker 2: he saved the heart, I was like, there's nothing to
19:09
Speaker 2: this chicken. What's happening? Comical foil like that's the entirety
19:15
Speaker 2: of the thing. And then they she didn't even bring
19:17
Speaker 2: the smart one, the pig along, So I'm very confused
19:21
Speaker 2: by this chicken. And they're always having to put like
19:25
Speaker 2: every single one of them have had to put it
19:27
Speaker 2: in a basket and into the little space, including the
19:30
Speaker 2: ocean like stop it.
19:33
Speaker 1: This honestly reminds me of like a D and D character.
19:35
Speaker 1: It's such a good like it again, Peaches in my
19:39
Speaker 1: D and D can't.
19:40
Speaker 2: Care you compare my Peaches to that chicken.
19:45
Speaker 1: But the kind of the role of chaos of just
19:47
Speaker 1: this character that comes in and is like, we don't
19:50
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen, but hey, look, I also thought
19:57
Speaker 1: I found a lot of stuff written about the flipping
20:00
Speaker 1: of roles in this where Maui is like constantly consistently
20:06
Speaker 1: trying to put Mowana in either the role of his
20:09
Speaker 1: bait or the damsel in distress and or just get
20:11
Speaker 1: rid of her. And I feel like it's the audience.
20:13
Speaker 1: A lot of times you think, oh, okay, that's gonna work,
20:16
Speaker 1: but she keeps having to save him in one way
20:20
Speaker 1: or another. Here's a quote from Criterion. The movie also
20:24
Speaker 1: discards the idea of Mail as the only savior of
20:27
Speaker 1: a woman in distress, as it was Maui who left
20:29
Speaker 1: Mowana in between the sea when she was trying to
20:32
Speaker 1: fix Tafiti's heart, only to come back later when he
20:35
Speaker 1: realizes his mistake. Another thing added by Disney is how
20:38
Speaker 1: man the Man has destroyed Mother Earth for his own
20:43
Speaker 1: selfish motives. Something else, and this is too long of
20:47
Speaker 1: a topic for today, but there's a really big conversation
20:54
Speaker 1: that happens a lot around movies like this Star Wars
20:57
Speaker 1: being one the democracy of power. She is not a god,
21:02
Speaker 1: but she's very powerful. But a lot of people it's
21:08
Speaker 1: like they almost dismiss the the person who's not the god,
21:12
Speaker 1: which I actually think is a really good story that
21:16
Speaker 1: she's able to do that without those powers. But when
21:19
Speaker 1: I tell you, it is a big conversation. Also a
21:25
Speaker 1: big theme family obviously, I would say particularly the grandmother,
21:32
Speaker 1: her relationship with the grandmother, who is also sort of
21:35
Speaker 1: I would say she would describe herself as sort of
21:37
Speaker 1: the crazy old lady. She does. She keeps saying that
21:40
Speaker 1: she's like crazy one. But Malana relates connect to that,
21:50
Speaker 1: which I that is a big thing that I've like
21:53
Speaker 1: seeing in newer movies where we get to see the
21:55
Speaker 1: generations of women connecting. Uh. And then representation, as I said,
22:03
Speaker 1: Mowana means ocean. There is no romance, there's no quote
22:08
Speaker 1: Happily ever after or marriage. She just set sails. So
22:12
Speaker 1: it feels very much like a movie where she's at
22:15
Speaker 1: the end, she's launching into the next part of her life.
22:19
Speaker 1: Hence the sequel perhaps.
22:20
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm scared that they're going to bring in
22:22
Speaker 2: the romance portion in the sequel.
22:25
Speaker 1: It's possible, It's very possible, but it would mean that
22:30
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest praises that got right. And
22:33
Speaker 1: I read another article. I'm telling you, there's so much
22:37
Speaker 1: stuff I had to cut out that was about the
22:41
Speaker 1: thing that's going on with Disney right now in terms
22:43
Speaker 1: of Disney Princess movies. I guess where they're being very
22:47
Speaker 1: meta about it and they're like, oh, you didn't have
22:49
Speaker 1: to get a man, or you didn't have to whatever, whatever,
22:52
Speaker 1: But they're not really sticking to it, like they're commenting
22:57
Speaker 1: on it, but they're doing the thing, but they're not
23:01
Speaker 1: right right, like, because I do think, you know, there's
23:05
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with romance. We did talk about this in
23:07
Speaker 1: the Frozen episode there. The way Disney has done it
23:11
Speaker 1: can be complicated, for sure, but that was one of
23:14
Speaker 1: the reasons this character resonated so much was it just
23:17
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of her story. So I don't know,
23:21
Speaker 1: I think you're legitimate to have a fear about it.
23:23
Speaker 1: Though here is one conservative take that I just had
23:26
Speaker 1: to put in here. I think it's setting up girls
23:29
Speaker 1: for unhealthy lives in the future, and also for disappointing
23:33
Speaker 1: romantic lives. Oh, dear, dear, dear romance.
23:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I disappointing that she's fled. I'm confused.
23:46
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Oh, it's setting us up for disappointing romance lives.
23:51
Speaker 1: What are we? Who the man? Yeah? I think so? Yeah, okay, okay,
24:01
Speaker 1: Well another adventure. Uh Mowana. Even as a child she
24:07
Speaker 1: was entanced with traveling to see She wasn't afraid, and
24:11
Speaker 1: I really liked that too. I liked that her whole
24:14
Speaker 1: thing was like, I want to go out and see
24:18
Speaker 1: some stuff. So the song we Know the Way is
24:21
Speaker 1: to k Lawan. It's in the Tokalawan language, which is
24:25
Speaker 1: only only about three thousand people in the world speak it.
24:29
Speaker 1: I watch the whole thing about that too. There were
24:32
Speaker 1: critiques about Maui's weights, perpetuating negative stereotypes about Polynesians being
24:36
Speaker 1: overweight Traditionally, because he is based on a real god,
24:41
Speaker 1: Maui is a fit teenager. However, like a lot of
24:45
Speaker 1: stuff I read about this kind of it was hard.
24:50
Speaker 1: It's hard to put into words, but essentially like there
24:52
Speaker 1: were a lot of observations that Mowana has quote thighs,
24:58
Speaker 1: and the discourse about it was something that we've seen
25:02
Speaker 1: before with Lee though and Stitch. But I guess one
25:07
Speaker 1: of the points that I came across a lot was
25:10
Speaker 1: that we were judging non white characters based on the
25:13
Speaker 1: white gays. And I think this is a bigger, more
25:17
Speaker 1: nuanced conversation, but just to put that out there, because
25:20
Speaker 1: I did see that a lot researching it, and I
25:24
Speaker 1: I read a lot of things that I was kind
25:25
Speaker 1: of like, I see where you're coming from, But it
25:27
Speaker 1: also feels a little like, yeah, that's a bigger that's
25:32
Speaker 1: a bigger time.
25:33
Speaker 2: That's a hard conversation because you one or the other,
25:37
Speaker 2: like who based on whose standards? Because I've definitely seen
25:41
Speaker 2: on like whether it's like through TV shows or whatever,
25:44
Speaker 2: a Maori and Native Indigenous people from Hawaii as well
25:47
Speaker 2: as New Zealand being fairly thin and very small. So
25:51
Speaker 2: it's not like that's necessarily the white standard, unless you
25:55
Speaker 2: think that's white standard, because what's what white people like
25:58
Speaker 2: typing conversations? So it's kind of like yeah, and then
26:00
Speaker 2: you look at things like Brave and Frozen and they're
26:05
Speaker 2: like why are they like that? And then you have
26:07
Speaker 2: this which is almost caricaturist as well. So it's kind
26:10
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, I can see both sides, Like you
26:12
Speaker 2: could see how leaning either way could be dangerous and
26:16
Speaker 2: why is it constantly this way?
26:17
Speaker 1: Though for this one thing? Right, yeah, it was just
26:22
Speaker 1: like such a and we should come back and talk
26:23
Speaker 1: about it. But it was like it deserves much more
26:26
Speaker 1: space than just this also something that deserves more space.
26:32
Speaker 1: Coconuts are complicated in the Pacific Islands. The word has
26:35
Speaker 1: been used as a slur. I didn't know that, yep.
26:40
Speaker 1: So the Kakamura, the pirate coconut people in the movie,
26:43
Speaker 1: they have historical roots. They're based historically, but it's messy
26:47
Speaker 1: because of the term and also the history, to be honest,
26:53
Speaker 1: And there are like very legitimate critiques to make about
26:56
Speaker 1: Disney in general with things like they're Polynesian Resort or
27:00
Speaker 1: Epcot at large that I love visiting, but it is
27:04
Speaker 1: weird at best, Like ultimately they're making money off of
27:07
Speaker 1: a culture. The representation part is still really important. That's huge,
27:14
Speaker 1: but it's still like Disney's getting the money right. So, yeah,
27:29
Speaker 1: one of the biggest themes in this is environmentalism. So
27:35
Speaker 1: you know, you steal or hurt the planet. See what
27:38
Speaker 1: happens again. Mowana's earliest scene that we see her, one
27:44
Speaker 1: of the earliest scenes, is she's helping a baby turtle
27:46
Speaker 1: get to the ocean. She's doing this work of caring.
27:52
Speaker 1: Their island had subsisted healthy for generations on what they had.
27:57
Speaker 1: They took care of the land, the water. Interestingly, and
28:02
Speaker 1: I mentioned this earlier, the directors were inspired in part
28:04
Speaker 1: to do this story because historical records that we know
28:08
Speaker 1: of indicate that people from this region, who are excellent seafarers,
28:13
Speaker 1: just stopped going out on the water at some point,
28:17
Speaker 1: and they were historically voyagers. And one of the theories
28:20
Speaker 1: for the stoppage's climate change and or shifting ocean currents
28:26
Speaker 1: is sometimes called the long povs, which, again, if we
28:28
Speaker 1: were different podcasts, I would love to dig into that.
28:31
Speaker 1: But as I said, they were nine versions of this story.
28:34
Speaker 1: The directors consulted experts across the South Pacific to weigh
28:38
Speaker 1: in on accuracy and sensitivity, which did result in some
28:41
Speaker 1: pretty major changes from climate lit quote. While the ecological
28:48
Speaker 1: catastrophe is presented not a systemic issue, but as an
28:51
Speaker 1: outcome of individual choices. Maui alone causes the problem, in
28:55
Speaker 1: Mowana alone resolves it. The film succeeds in communicating the
28:58
Speaker 1: importance of eCos trism. Caring for the planet is caring
29:02
Speaker 1: for our own well being, specifically Mowana's choice to resolve
29:06
Speaker 1: the problem through an emotional connection with the traumatized mother
29:09
Speaker 1: nature representation of nature embodies eco feminist themes, And that
29:14
Speaker 1: article also had a lot of cool stuff. I found
29:17
Speaker 1: an interesting take that to Fiti being a woman that
29:21
Speaker 1: was basically soothed with flowers and then fell asleep. But
29:25
Speaker 1: then I found another interesting take about how it's more
29:28
Speaker 1: of the difference between male coded violence is the answer
29:31
Speaker 1: and women trying to do more healing. That is what
29:34
Speaker 1: Mawana did. And lastly, and this is gonna be really
29:37
Speaker 1: brief trauma, so you know, I swear we come back
29:44
Speaker 1: to it all the time. So there's trauma for the
29:47
Speaker 1: characters absolutely, And like in the final song where Mowana's
29:52
Speaker 1: coming up to take a she sings, I know your name.
29:57
Speaker 1: They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this
29:59
Speaker 1: does not to find you this is not who you are.
30:02
Speaker 1: You know who you are, who you truly are, and
30:05
Speaker 1: then the whole thing with Maui being traumatized and kind
30:08
Speaker 1: of held back by that. But I just briefly wanted
30:14
Speaker 1: to discuss I saw this in theaters. It was twenty sixteen.
30:19
Speaker 1: It was right after election. I was not in a
30:21
Speaker 1: good place and I had I was. I had the
30:26
Speaker 1: biggest panic attack in this movie. I had to leave
30:30
Speaker 1: as in bathroom like sobbing. It's throwing up. And when
30:36
Speaker 1: I look back at it and Bridget when we talked
30:38
Speaker 1: about it in a different episode, she asked me about it,
30:40
Speaker 1: it's it was because of the power dynamic and the
30:44
Speaker 1: size difference between Mahana and Maui. I just couldn't believe
30:50
Speaker 1: he wouldn't hurt her. And I know it's a Disney
30:52
Speaker 1: movie and I know, like that's not what's gonna happen,
30:56
Speaker 1: but it set me off to the point like I
30:59
Speaker 1: did and see like a huge section of the movie
31:02
Speaker 1: until years later. But when I told that story, a
31:07
Speaker 1: lot of listeners wrote in and said they had the
31:09
Speaker 1: same reaction. And I found kind of post about people
31:15
Speaker 1: having this reaction, and it was from people who loved
31:18
Speaker 1: the movie. But it was very interesting to me that
31:21
Speaker 1: something about that, and I do think it came out
31:25
Speaker 1: at twenty sixteen we were not doing well. I mean,
31:30
Speaker 1: who's to say we're doing better right now, but it
31:32
Speaker 1: was a rough time. We're on edge where I'm on it.
31:37
Speaker 1: But I had so many listeners wrote in about it,
31:40
Speaker 1: and it kind of surprised me that they had a
31:43
Speaker 1: similar experience, which is heartbreaking, right, but sometimes you just
31:51
Speaker 1: don't you don't know an what it's going to be.
31:56
Speaker 1: That just sets you off.
31:58
Speaker 2: Right well, I mean, honestly, when you talk about reality,
32:02
Speaker 2: and it's hard to take out reality of what may
32:04
Speaker 2: be or what sometimes what often happens when there's power
32:08
Speaker 2: dynamics like that, especially again where there's a god versus
32:13
Speaker 2: an ecocentric god. On top of that, a small what
32:16
Speaker 2: you would imagine as a small woman with like a
32:19
Speaker 2: big heart, and like you know, as we were talking
32:21
Speaker 2: about earlier pride and prejudice, and I kept saying, they
32:24
Speaker 2: left out like the dark side. She didn't talk about
32:26
Speaker 2: the abuse that often happened, and like the power of
32:29
Speaker 2: women being locked in their own home and having new choices,
32:32
Speaker 2: all these things like that's not added to the story
32:34
Speaker 2: because it wouldn't. But that's the first thing I think, like, right, Unfortunately,
32:40
Speaker 2: those are the things that it comes to my head.
32:42
Speaker 2: And if you dwell on long enough or are in
32:44
Speaker 2: a bad place, of course that's going to set you
32:45
Speaker 2: off because we have been traumatized with real experiences and
32:50
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's
32:52
Speaker 2: it's hard, even though you hope good on those that
32:56
Speaker 2: have never even thought of that or had that even
32:59
Speaker 2: come to them, because I did think that was odd.
33:01
Speaker 2: I was like, this feels like it's too easily resolved,
33:05
Speaker 2: Like this is not the reality that he's just gonna
33:07
Speaker 2: accept her and then accept her help and be so
33:10
Speaker 2: because when he apologized to Mother Earth, I think that's
33:13
Speaker 2: not how that would go or take FEEDI And I
33:19
Speaker 2: was like no, because that's one of the I was
33:21
Speaker 2: so cynical in that level of like, that's kind of
33:23
Speaker 2: what's happening now as we see the world on fire
33:26
Speaker 2: and our government, who has all the power, is doing
33:29
Speaker 2: so little. Saying they care so little is sounding like yeah,
33:34
Speaker 2: and even for us, like we're not doing we don't
33:37
Speaker 2: know how to fix it, so we give up, like
33:40
Speaker 2: and instead of being apologetic We're just like, Eh, it
33:44
Speaker 2: is what it is. But it makes sense to the
33:47
Speaker 2: fact that we are so caught up in reality that
33:52
Speaker 2: it's hard to differentiate that and something that should be
33:57
Speaker 2: just a thoughtless, mindless good story or a story, you.
34:01
Speaker 1: Know, right, or like just a again, it's a Disney movie.
34:06
Speaker 1: What especially an animated Disney movie for kids. I should
34:11
Speaker 1: specify who this movie. Sometimes the are traumatizing. I situans
34:16
Speaker 1: where she's under the sea with the crab monster. That
34:21
Speaker 1: thing would get the monster. She saw all the creatures
34:24
Speaker 1: down there. I was like, yep, nightmares, nightmares forever. I
34:27
Speaker 1: would if I was a kid watching this nightmare forever.
34:29
Speaker 1: I would never go in the ocean. Oh no, another
34:33
Speaker 1: crab trauma. It's based on a crab we specify.
34:40
Speaker 2: Which is GERMANE voice said Ermine, and I was like
34:43
Speaker 2: that voice sounds so familiar. So I was like, wait,
34:49
Speaker 2: I know this voice, which is a good friend of
34:51
Speaker 2: Teka with t as well, but I'll just like Jermaine Clement,
34:54
Speaker 2: he's a huge New Zealand actor.
34:57
Speaker 1: I was like, I know this voice. Where is this
34:59
Speaker 1: voice going? Still? Nightmares?
35:01
Speaker 2: Deep sea nightmares, that's creepy.
35:03
Speaker 1: We don't know what's down there night and we don't
35:06
Speaker 1: know what's down there? I messing with that. It's funny
35:10
Speaker 1: because back when I pan all the time, I would
35:15
Speaker 1: run for a long time my playlist, you know, go
35:18
Speaker 1: all over the place, and I had the soundtrack from
35:20
Speaker 1: a Wana on it. So when I heard that song
35:23
Speaker 1: he Sings Shiny, I was like immediately like brought back
35:27
Speaker 1: when I was running on the belt line. But yeah,
35:30
Speaker 1: I hope that for all the listeners that wrote in
35:33
Speaker 1: suggesting this, that we did a justice. We'll see what
35:38
Speaker 1: the sequel brings, what the live action brings, and if
35:41
Speaker 1: we missed anything or you have any thoughts, please let
35:44
Speaker 1: us know. We'd love hearing from you. You can email
35:47
Speaker 1: us at stepaniamom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can
35:50
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on
35:52
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at stuff When ever told you we
35:55
Speaker 1: have a tea public store, and we have a book
35:56
Speaker 1: you can get wherever you get your books. Things as
35:58
Speaker 1: always too, super producer Christina Are, executive producer Maya, and
36:02
Speaker 1: your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
36:05
Speaker 1: Step I never told yous. Prorection by Heart Radio for
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