Pocahontas - Romanticizing History at Its Finest

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around them. Therefore, a lot of the inaccurate bits were implemented because the plot called for them to happen. Completely peaceful interactions between Smith and the Indians? Oh contrary! Smith himself always felt that the Indians were below him despite the few civilized exchanges between the two groups. The real Smith is not the dreamy, accepting man that Disney presented him as. In addition to the character flaws, the movie does not give the conditions of Jamestown full exposure. Jamestown was a swampy area, but the land the men found was in the middle of a forest area. There were no mosquitoes or diseases passed between both groups of people. The British colonists also did quite the job of building their fort and establishing a small center, and did not give John Smith the credit for increasing productivity around the colony. However, John Smith seemed very irresponsible and disinterested with his own people—sneaking out of camp to secretly meet with Pocahontas and all those other cliché romantic events in between! Overall, the movie was truly inaccurate in terms of historical validity, but it captures the general emotions between the Native Americans against the British...despite that suffocating ending where the Indians and British lived happily ever after culturally respecting one another...yeah right.

The movie relates to the history I’ve learned because American and Native American conflict and interactions are always important in history as the Americans just took more and more of the Indians’ lands away. While it’s not the most accurate depiction of how bloody and malicious the tensions were, it gets the general attitudes of the two sides across. The white men are greedy and the Native Americans are savages! The movie also covers the colonization of Jamestown, which is where Period 2 begins. Jamestown is the first, successful American colony, so of course this movie is relevant to our history class seeing that Jamestown is the setting of this movie. The characters are also very real, but their actions aren’t… John Smith was important in the beginning years in Jamestown, while Pocahontas is a prominent Native American figure in history, but I think her fame is mostly accredited today from the Disney movie to be honest. The other supporting characters existed such as Governor Ratcliffe and Metacomet, but Percy the Pug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that dog didn’t exist. Maybe a pug, but not Percy the Pug. This movie is a wonderful example of how the real history in the story is merged with fictitious fluff and romanticized events. I still love it though!

I must say, in terms of teaching the audience of the time period in question, the opening song about the Virginia Company really hit those three G’s we learned about in class to a tee! Within the first minute of the movie, I had memories of class learning about the G-Unit; through that introduction alone, this movie teaches about the motives behind American colonization and exploration: gold, glory, and God. In addition, the movie really sells the culture of the Native Americans (maybe too much with the talking tree) and the greedy attitude of the British. The movie also teaches the audience about how the British really did not find the gold in the Americas as the British had and the tense attitudes between both groups of people--ignoring the whole love story going on between Smith and Pocahontas. There were moments of tolerance in history, but there was mostly conflict as the movie depicted when the natives and British got into fight in the movie. Though the movie ends on too sweet of the note at the end where both sides come together...when in reality the relations between the two groups of people were unstable. For what the movie is, I think that Pocahontas is a good movie to show children in order to expose them to the history of Native Americans in a country where their voice was destroyed and is quite minimal in society today. So, in that sense, I don’t think that the flaws detract from the value of the movie because why would Disney make a movie about death and deceit when the movies are supposed to be family friendly. You should rely on other movie companies to tell history as it was without skimping on the gruesome details that make you uncomfortable. Getting real is not what Disney’s focus is, their focus is on making a cute love story, so I will cut them some slack. Rating: 8/10.