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329:question:329--week_2_questions_comments-2020 [2024/09/02 21:42] – 76.78.172.75329:question:329--week_2_questions_comments-2020 [2026/09/01 14:23] (current) – 199.111.65.35
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 ====== I. How does this movie work as a secondary source? What does the movie get right about history?  ====== ====== I. How does this movie work as a secondary source? What does the movie get right about history?  ======
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 +I don't think it makes a good secondary source for information about events of 1607 but it does help put into persepctive a little how people have choosen to remeber now those events back then. we know that pocohontas was a real human and faced trails of many kind. This movie however appeares to be relased 400 years after she was born and died. Some other hardships included her encounter with a man named John smith and his men with modernized artilary. As addressed in the primary reading the native americans were also seemed to be dressed a like in the movie as they were recalled in the source. Along with the conflict of the crew of JOhn smith, they conflict wiht nature and other tribes appeared to. be very real and fit in with the source and what it revealed about the differences between the tribes and the white men. -Jess Conenr
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 ====== II. Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ====== ====== II. Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ======
  
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 Being a Disney movie, I felt that the judgment of accuracy was never that important of a factor in its creation.  John Smith hardly talked about Pocahontas in his ‘True Relation of Such Occurrences’, and certainly not in a romantic light.  **The film exploited a child and made her into a woman of a man’s desire.  Of course, this was probably done to make viewers see a colonizer and indigenous woman fall in love and have the trope of “look racism and differences don’t exist, they are in love”.**  Pocahontas, as we discussed in class never did save John Smith and the entire four-day ritual of John Smith becoming a werowance was absent from the film.  There are also problems with how the settler’s village was portrayed as the issue of food and illness which was one of the initial reasons contact was formed with the Native Americans (though there is a single ear of corn given to John).  Most of the characters, at least the main ones, were real people as Kocoum was the husband of Pocahontas, though the film only portrays him as an admirer. -Janis Shurtleff     Being a Disney movie, I felt that the judgment of accuracy was never that important of a factor in its creation.  John Smith hardly talked about Pocahontas in his ‘True Relation of Such Occurrences’, and certainly not in a romantic light.  **The film exploited a child and made her into a woman of a man’s desire.  Of course, this was probably done to make viewers see a colonizer and indigenous woman fall in love and have the trope of “look racism and differences don’t exist, they are in love”.**  Pocahontas, as we discussed in class never did save John Smith and the entire four-day ritual of John Smith becoming a werowance was absent from the film.  There are also problems with how the settler’s village was portrayed as the issue of food and illness which was one of the initial reasons contact was formed with the Native Americans (though there is a single ear of corn given to John).  Most of the characters, at least the main ones, were real people as Kocoum was the husband of Pocahontas, though the film only portrays him as an admirer. -Janis Shurtleff    
  
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 I think the most glaring inaccuracies in the film is the age of Pocahontas being much older than she really was at the time, and her relationship with John Smith being more romanticized in the film. --Richard Ferris I think the most glaring inaccuracies in the film is the age of Pocahontas being much older than she really was at the time, and her relationship with John Smith being more romanticized in the film. --Richard Ferris
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 +The historical inaccuracies of this film is very prevalent in many cases. For one, Pocahontas was a very young girl and John Smith was at least a 30-year-old man in real life. While children did get married young during this time period, it does not justify the films portray of attraction and overall display of affection between the two. Pochantas helps John Smith out of kindness, curiosity, and negligence. The film did portray her saving John Smiths life well, but it was not for the same reasons. The film also made John smith seem nicer than he actually was. John Smith was a captain on a ship headed for all they knew a dangerous new land. John Smith had to keep the people aboard in line and make sure things ran smoothly unless he wanted chaos to erupt. In his famous line "He who will not work, will not eat," John Smith was probably not liked. He had to enforce this line, or his people were not going to survive. This line is not spoken about at all in the film. When Pocahnas and the Indians do help him in real life, it is not as abundantly as it is in the film. -- Autumn. M
  
 ====== III. How does the film’s overall interpretation(s) deviate from scholarly historical sources? ====== ====== III. How does the film’s overall interpretation(s) deviate from scholarly historical sources? ======
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 +Well to start off there was a huge age gap between pocohontas and john smith. She her self was aged up so maybe the writers wouldn't get in trouble. She was only about 10-12 years old when she first met John Smith. The romance part of their relationship was made up. There was nothing romantically going on between to two in history. I also think the the powahtan people were dumbed down in ways that made it seem that they were merely a nuiance to existence. We don't actualy get to see the details surrounding their culture, government or family aspects at all. -Jess Conner
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 ====== IV. How does this movie work as a primary source about the 1990s, cartoons or Disney? ====== ====== IV. How does this movie work as a primary source about the 1990s, cartoons or Disney? ======
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 +It says a lot about diversity and how the public responded to it. I mean disney did not have a reputation for colored people films or native americans until Peter Pan and Princess in the Frog and few others came to light after the 1990s. When they were portrayed they were inaccurately represented as menices to society or as if they lived in a drunken state the entire times. I do think disney wanted to change but it comes down to the heart and motives behind it. It was interesting to see how disney also transformed cultural issues and heavy topics like racsim and volience and adapted them on screen to musicals and shows to help families teach their children about it in a way that did not hurt more feelings than some.-jess conner
  
 The film can say a lot about Disney and their portrayal of certain groups in their films up until this point. The last time Native Americans were featured in a Disney animated musical, it was in Peter Pan, where the Natives were portrayed as backward savages and given horribly offensive character design and voices to make them look and act as ridiculous as possible. This film takes a much more realistic and respectful approach to its portrayal of Natives, and I think it said a lot about how Disney wanted to change their image in the 90s.-- AJ DeGeorge The film can say a lot about Disney and their portrayal of certain groups in their films up until this point. The last time Native Americans were featured in a Disney animated musical, it was in Peter Pan, where the Natives were portrayed as backward savages and given horribly offensive character design and voices to make them look and act as ridiculous as possible. This film takes a much more realistic and respectful approach to its portrayal of Natives, and I think it said a lot about how Disney wanted to change their image in the 90s.-- AJ DeGeorge
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 The question as to why Disney made the movie in the first place is interesting since they had to change so much of the story to make a more child-friendly version of colonization. If the goal was to introduce more diversity to the Disney franchise then they probably should've chosen a different story rather than creating an idealistic image of John Smith and others. The choice to tell the story of Pocahontas is cool, but it wasn't done in a great way and has impacted how Americans have viewed European colonization. If this is the only exposure people get to this story than it really does more harm than good in my opinion, and makes the job of historians who want to tell the real story of Pocahontas much harder. - Wilson LeCount  The question as to why Disney made the movie in the first place is interesting since they had to change so much of the story to make a more child-friendly version of colonization. If the goal was to introduce more diversity to the Disney franchise then they probably should've chosen a different story rather than creating an idealistic image of John Smith and others. The choice to tell the story of Pocahontas is cool, but it wasn't done in a great way and has impacted how Americans have viewed European colonization. If this is the only exposure people get to this story than it really does more harm than good in my opinion, and makes the job of historians who want to tell the real story of Pocahontas much harder. - Wilson LeCount 
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 +So what if the makers of the Pocahontas movie are historically incorrect? At least they made their movie and their money at the end of the day. This question is controversial because Disney makes children film and many would say that the realities of Pocahantas as well as John Smiths story would be too much for young eyes. So what should we do about the problem of inaccuracy? I think they should make a live action movie of Pocahontas and make it historically accurate. So, what if audiences don't like it? It would finally be something that historians would be proud of and happy to watch. I think it would put a lot of disagreements to rest if historians could put their input into historical movies even if the film has a small budget due to declining watchers. -- Autumn. M
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