March 15, 2024 • 36 mins
The 2016 movie Moana was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. We go over some of the reasons why as we find our way to the heart of this movie.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll never tell you, protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
another edition of the Feminist Movie Friday. I have to
say we have quite a backlock of movies that we
(00:25):
want to talk about every movie we watch. I'm like,
but then we could watch this one too. Yeah, And
this definitely was the case with this movie, which is
mo Wana. So many of you wrote in about Mowanna
over my course of being a host, because I came
in as a host right after the movie came out,
(00:46):
and then after we did Frozen, so many of you
wrote in about that, and so I was like, let's
just come back and talk about Moana. That being said,
this movie is from twenty sixteen, but I guess it
still falls under the spoiler's umbrella if you haven't seen
it and want to see it, or I don't know,
maybe you don't care about spoilers. That's just my caveat.
(01:08):
There has been a lot of news about Mawana lately,
which is one of the other reasons I wanted to
talk about it. There is a sequel and a live
action remake, which I'm very bamboozled by, but like they're
doing both right. Okay, there's a new ride or experience
at Disney called the Wave Water. The last time I
(01:31):
was there, which was in October of twenty twenty three,
the wait time was four hours. But it's new, so
everybody's trying to go in. And yeah, I have talked
about my experience seeing this movie. I'm going to talk
about it more at the end, but I guess that
comes with content warning for descriptions of panic attacks and trauma.
(01:52):
I whish we'll all make sense, Like if you've listened
to me talk about it before, if you've listened to
this show, you know what I'm saying. And a bunch
of you wrote in about the same thing. But I'm
not going to be in depth or anything, but I
am going to talk about it. This is also like Frozen.
I've seen it three times. Maybe this was your first.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I never watched it, and I will say none of
the songs were familiar to me. So this was a
little under the radar even though I knew much about
it because of some of the controversy behind it didn't
have a whole recasting because some of the controversy was
this the one No, I don't think so okay, I know,
because like they were back and forth about the fact
(02:31):
that like they better have a Native Hawaiian indigenous person
as the lead, which was kind of like row Rising,
and that that wasn't an automatic like I remember, there
was a conversation about that, back and forth about whether
or not Disney would do the right thing. I don't know
if that's something to do with the live action, but
also obviously the Rock you know, debuting his voice. I
(02:56):
remember that, but outside of that, I really had no
idea what this was outside of obviously Native Hawaiian storytelling.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
End of story. Yeah, I saw it in theaters, and
again I will talk about that at the end, but
in in that meantime, let's go for the plot. And
I did try to look up all the pronunciations, but
if I get them wrong, you can write in let
me know. Mowanna is a critically acclaimed and financially successful
(03:26):
twenty sixteen film. It came out literally right after the
twenty sixteen election. It's a Disney animated movie directed by
John Musker and Ron Clements, starring Ali Lee Kravaglio as
the voice of Mowana, who was a teenager at the time.
And yes his native Hawaiian Dwayne Johnson as the voice
of Maui, alongside other talents like Rachel House, Tamara Morrison
(03:50):
who plays Bo Buffett by the Way, Jimmaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger,
and Alan Tudec with songs and music composed by Lin Manuel,
Miranda Opatea Foe and Mark Mancina. And I was telling
Samantha before this, but I found a whole very helpful
video about how to pronounce the of the main star,
(04:11):
which we love. That's great. Apparently Taika Waititi wrote like
the first draft, but he always jokes that they only
use like the very first line, which is like exterior night,
so nothing like got Loft in it. So the story
takes place in ancient Polynesia and follows the coming of
(04:31):
age and self discovery journey of Mowana, who is a
teenage girl and daughter of the chief who longs to
go her own way and to sail the seas. Her father, however,
is adamant that she should not. Meanwhile, their lands and
waters are suffering the inhabitants of the island. The island
called Montanui celebrate the goddess of nature, Tafiti, who is
(04:52):
a living island that brought life and health to the
region with her heart, which is a Ponamu stone. It's
a type stone that is hard and durable and has
long been important in Maori culture. The shape shifting demi
god Maui, who is also a master of wayfinding the
wind in the sea, he stalled this heart to give
(05:13):
it to humanity to gift them the power of creation. However,
in doing so, Trafiti started to turn to stone, and
Mali was confronted by a volcanic demon named te Ka.
During this attack, Maui loses both the heart and his
magic fish hook to the sea. So from there we
(05:34):
cut to Moana as a baby one thousand years later
and she it's a really funny scene when it opens
where her grandmother is telling like a creepy story and
all the babies, all the other children are like scared,
and Mowana is like, yes, tell me more. But then
it kind of goes to her playing with the water,
like literally the water is moving around her and the
(05:57):
animation of the water is really beautiful, and she saves
this young baby turtle who's trying to get to the sea.
She has like a little leaf and just keeping away
the birds. So because of all of this, the ocean
chooses Moana Moana means ocean by the way to return
(06:18):
the heart to Tafiti. Despite the call of the water
that she feels, though her parents do their best to
keep her from from the water and get her ready
for taking over her father's role as chief. When she
is sixteen, this island is in dire straits. They aren't
catching much, crops are dying. Moana, still feeling the call
(06:41):
of the water and looking for a solution, suggests that
they go past the reef of their island to see
if they can get an answer or at least more fish,
but her father immediately rejects it. She ignores him and
attempts to get past the reef but fails. So Moana
goes to visit her grandmother, Tala, who takes her to
a sea critic cavern that has some canoes and explains
(07:03):
to her that the people of the island used to
be travelers up until Maui lost the heart, rendering the
waters in the ocean unsafe. Tala tells Malana that it
is Tika that is poisoning their home, but Moana can
save it by locating Maui and getting him to restore
the heart to Tafiti. Tala gives Malana the heart that
(07:25):
she had recovered from the ocean, but then Tala grows
ill and requests that Malana finds Maui before she dies. Yeah.
Milana takes a chemacau, a type of canoe historically used
in the region, with the sail and undertakes this journey
with her stoway pet rooster. Hey Hey. They get caught
(07:45):
up in a typhoon and are shipwrecked on an island.
Wears the prize priz. Malana encounters Maui, who is incredibly
bostful of everything that he says that he has done.
Malana asks him to return the heart to Tafii. She
has a very like princess bride. My name is this,
You're gonna do this, but he attempts to entrap her
(08:07):
in a cave and strand her there. So Maana is
able to escape the cave and convinces Maui to let
her come with him on the boat with the help
of the ocean. On their journey, she tries to get
Maui to teach her to sail to wayfind but he's
really resistant. Over the course of time, they do earn
some trust between them. Moana learns that he stole the
(08:27):
heart and it's most likely the cause of the blight
that the island's experiencing. She attempts to sway him to
return the heart and redeem himself, but to do so,
Maui says he must retrieve his hook from the realm
of monsters, where it is held by a coconut crab
named Tomatoa and this whole thing, But thanks to Moana
(08:49):
distracting Tomatoa, Maui retrieves the hook. Really, Mawana retrieves the hook,
but quickly discovers that he's unable to use it. Mowana
once again saves him and allow them to escape. Maui
shares with her that his first tattoo, because he has
a lot of tattoos, was given to him after his
parents abandoned him as a baby, and the gods, taking
(09:10):
pity on him, gave him powers. When Moana is sympathetic
to his story, he finally decides the teacher sailing and wayfighting.
They finally arrive at Tafiiti, but are attacked by Takab.
Despite this, Moana is determined to push forward and Maui's
hook is damaged in the process. Maui abandons Moana in
(09:32):
fear of losing his hook again. Disheartened and defeated, Moana
asked the ocean to find someone else to restore the heart,
but the spirit of her grandmother, yes again has died,
appears in the water and encourages her to embrace her destiny.
Malana takes the heart with new determination and Maui returns.
He gives her the opening she needs by distracting Takab.
(09:55):
His hook gets destroyed in the process, but this is
when Jana realizes that Teka is the corrupted version of Tafiti.
She asks the ocean to make a path for Moana
to talk to Taka, and Moana returns the heart to
Taka Tafiti, who heals the ocean and fixes the plights.
(10:19):
Maui apologizes to Tefiti and Tafiti fixes his hook. In return,
Tafiti falls asleep kind of becomes the island that she was.
Molana goes back home and takes her role as chief
and leads her people back into the water on boats
on canoes with the help of Maui. She's kind of
(10:41):
the one leading the charge and that's how it ends. Again.
Like with Frozen, I found so written about this. It
(11:02):
was so many deep law like forty page articles, So
I'm trying to condense down essentially what I found. But
I did find as we move into the themes, so
many angry articles about how this movie masculated men because
(11:23):
Mawi lost his hook, which gave me a good chuckle.
It gave me a good chuckle. But one of the
big themes of it is coming of age, wanting to
do your own thing. That is certainly from the beginning, Wowana,
that is what she wants, this idea of her finding herself,
(11:46):
her main song being like you don't know how far
I'll go. And I thought it was interesting because behind
the scenes this got rewritten nine times. Well it just
kind of went through like nine different passes, which is
not that rare for a movie from this big of
a studio. But the original draft had her having many brothers,
(12:09):
but they erased it because they wanted it to be
more about her finding herself. Like I think the original
draft was like her trying to stand out from her brothers.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Oh and brave. I was thinking about that, like the
different things. I was like this is this is similar
to this, and this is like kind of Brave was
what made me think of that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
This is definitely very similar to Brave in terms of
you get to the end and they're like, I want
to do my own thing. But the interesting thing about Mowana,
which we're going to talk about more later, is that
Brave still had the marriage romance storyline. It's just she
was not into it. Moanna doesn't have it at all,
(12:50):
Like this is not there. And I do love Brave
again if we had more tired. There's so many movies
I want to talk about. But yeah, so they got
rid of the brother's part. They also changed Originally it
was her father that wanted her to take up the
sailing traditions again, but it was later rewritten so the
(13:11):
grandmother would be the person that wanted that, so it
wasn't a man kind of overshadowing her leading her way,
which I thought was interesting. I think another big theme
is just responsibility to family, because she does. She's like
constantly in the beginning trying to convince herself, no, this
is good, I want this, even though the sea keeps
(13:33):
calling her, like she keeps want to go to the
water and I did read a lot of interesting things
about how purposely or not, it does feel very like
the patriarchy is trying to control her. Like her father
is the one that's like, you're staying here and you're
doing this. It's Maui the god, the Demi god, who's like,
you are not near good enough to do this, I'm
(13:56):
not gonna even deign to teach you. But it's her
grandmother and her mom who are encouraging her. And I
did think that was interesting of like Maui being kind
of a cakekeeper, like he just won't teach her, and she's,
you know, she's out there and she's really trying and
(14:16):
trying to learn, but her father was the one that
wouldn't let her learn anything, right, And so in the
end Maui does teach her, and then she teaches her father,
which I thought was a great like it's one of
the final moments, right.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
She becomes experts in the final moment. Are they discovering
new lands? Is that what they're trying to do, or
are they just waging.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
To come back? They're just going out. There's actually a
big historical note about this which I'm going to talk
about that I didn't know anything about. But yeah, I
think they're just checking it out. And I a most
of the action in this movie happens because of women.
It's the women that are getting the stuff done for sure.
(15:01):
So here's a quote from feminist Gaze, Childlike impetulant. This
Dimi God becomes the greatest challenge that she, Mohanna, has
to overcome in order to solve the problems of her people.
Standing up to him, she is fighting against patriarchy and
masculinity alike, wrangling against the constant badgering and belittling that
(15:21):
is every woman's surest battle in life, and Malana's struggle
is no different, as he continually renders her to tears
and self doubt. Her greatest power comes not in solving problems,
or being creative about solving problems, or battling monsters our ambition,
our gumption, but in fighting against the men that stand
in her way with physical and emotional force, just to
(15:42):
shut her up, stunt her growth and potential, and put
her in her place. They don't see what we girls
and women see. One girl set up against the will
of two powerful and patriarchal figures. In many ways, this
is what females experience as they come of age. Our
most persistent battle is not finding ourselves or solving our problems,
but fighting against every patriarchal norm that come at us
(16:05):
from every male, every male dominated industry, reminding us that
we have to fight harder, yell louder, work longer just
to be heard, just to achieve what we know is
rightfully ours free will and volition. Yeah. I mean it's
interesting too, because I do think a lot of people
(16:25):
don't pick up on that, but when you watch it
and you have that sort of brain in mind, you're like, yeah,
she definitely. I think for the first time I saw it,
I was more like it was kind of refreshing because
her gender wasn't really brought up right as like a oh,
she can't do it. It was more just like her responsibilities,
(16:48):
So that was kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It was interesting that there was no opposition for her
to be the ruler or the chief, like every simple
single thing, like she showed her problem solving skills and
everybody was just an standing and nodding in yes, and
even when she couldn't solve the problem the fifth problem,
they still had like a respect to hear her and
not denigrating her based on her gender. That was never
(17:11):
that question, So I was like, huh, that's unusual that
that's not even a brought up no.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And I think that's why when I was reading this article,
I was like, oh, you know that is true, that
it is mostly men trying to keep her down that
because gender is so sort of out of the question,
and a lot of this movie, I don't think I
had ever really thought about it like that. There is
certainly male ego happening, especially with obviously Maui, although he's
(17:36):
very insecure, but his whole song like You're welcome, You're welcome,
thank you, like trying to take credit for everything. But
when we're going to come back to this later. I
also find his story a little interesting in terms of
trauma because he's basically like too scared to use his
(17:59):
powers anymore where after what happened to him, and he
places so much value in this magical hook that he
doesn't without the hook's. He even has a whole scene
where he's like that I'm nothing without it. That being said, uh,
Mowana was specifically designed to be the hero as I.
As I mentioned already, like that's why they kind of
(18:21):
got rid of the brother storyline. That's why they put
the grandmother and the story of the mentor and the
role of the mentor, excuse me, And there's no romance
because of that. Maoi's meant to be really annoying and
kind of not competent, and when he does start to change,
it's with Mowana still at the lead. Her sidekicks are
truly sidekicks, like I read a whole paper about this.
(18:42):
I swear her like pet sidekicks that are so traditional
and Disney movies are. They were meant to be like
truly sidekicks and not still the role from her. I
was very confused by the chicken.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
There was so little like other than being chaotic constantly.
Then I was like, except for the one time that
he saved the heart, I was like, there's nothing to
this chicken. What's happening? Comical foil like that's the entirety
of the thing. And then they she didn't even bring
(19:17):
the smart one, the pig along, So I'm very confused
by this chicken. And they're always having to put like
every single one of them have had to put it
in a basket and into the little space, including the
ocean like stop it.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
This honestly reminds me of like a D and D character.
It's such a good like it again, Peaches in my
D and D can't.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Care you compare my Peaches to that chicken.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But the kind of the role of chaos of just
this character that comes in and is like, we don't
know what's gonna happen, but hey, look, I also thought
I found a lot of stuff written about the flipping
of roles in this where Maui is like constantly consistently
(20:06):
trying to put Mowana in either the role of his
bait or the damsel in distress and or just get
rid of her. And I feel like it's the audience.
A lot of times you think, oh, okay, that's gonna work,
but she keeps having to save him in one way
or another. Here's a quote from Criterion. The movie also
discards the idea of Mail as the only savior of
(20:27):
a woman in distress, as it was Maui who left
Mowana in between the sea when she was trying to
fix Tafiti's heart, only to come back later when he
realizes his mistake. Another thing added by Disney is how
man the Man has destroyed Mother Earth for his own
selfish motives. Something else, and this is too long of
(20:47):
a topic for today, but there's a really big conversation
that happens a lot around movies like this Star Wars
being one the democracy of power. She is not a god,
but she's very powerful. But a lot of people it's
(21:08):
like they almost dismiss the the person who's not the god,
which I actually think is a really good story that
she's able to do that without those powers. But when
I tell you, it is a big conversation. Also a
big theme family obviously, I would say particularly the grandmother,
(21:32):
her relationship with the grandmother, who is also sort of
I would say she would describe herself as sort of
the crazy old lady. She does. She keeps saying that
she's like crazy one. But Malana relates connect to that,
which I that is a big thing that I've like
(21:53):
seeing in newer movies where we get to see the
generations of women connecting. Uh. And then representation, as I said,
Mowana means ocean. There is no romance, there's no quote
Happily ever after or marriage. She just set sails. So
it feels very much like a movie where she's at
(22:15):
the end, she's launching into the next part of her life.
Hence the sequel perhaps.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Well, now I'm scared that they're going to bring in
the romance portion in the sequel.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It's possible, It's very possible, but it would mean that
was one of the biggest praises that got right. And
I read another article. I'm telling you, there's so much
stuff I had to cut out that was about the
thing that's going on with Disney right now in terms
of Disney Princess movies. I guess where they're being very
(22:47):
meta about it and they're like, oh, you didn't have
to get a man, or you didn't have to whatever, whatever,
But they're not really sticking to it, like they're commenting
on it, but they're doing the thing, but they're not
right right, like, because I do think, you know, there's
nothing wrong with romance. We did talk about this in
(23:07):
the Frozen episode there. The way Disney has done it
can be complicated, for sure, but that was one of
the reasons this character resonated so much was it just
wasn't a part of her story. So I don't know,
I think you're legitimate to have a fear about it.
Though here is one conservative take that I just had
to put in here. I think it's setting up girls
(23:29):
for unhealthy lives in the future, and also for disappointing
romantic lives. Oh, dear, dear, dear romance.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, that's why I disappointing that she's fled. I'm confused.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Oh yes, Oh, it's setting us up for disappointing romance lives.
What are we? Who the man? Yeah? I think so? Yeah, okay, okay,
Well another adventure. Uh Mowana. Even as a child she
(24:07):
was entanced with traveling to see She wasn't afraid, and
I really liked that too. I liked that her whole
thing was like, I want to go out and see
some stuff. So the song we Know the Way is
to k Lawan. It's in the Tokalawan language, which is
only only about three thousand people in the world speak it.
(24:29):
I watch the whole thing about that too. There were
critiques about Maui's weights, perpetuating negative stereotypes about Polynesians being
overweight Traditionally, because he is based on a real god,
Maui is a fit teenager. However, like a lot of
stuff I read about this kind of it was hard.
(24:50):
It's hard to put into words, but essentially like there
were a lot of observations that Mowana has quote thighs,
and the discourse about it was something that we've seen
before with Lee though and Stitch. But I guess one
of the points that I came across a lot was
(25:10):
that we were judging non white characters based on the
white gays. And I think this is a bigger, more
nuanced conversation, but just to put that out there, because
I did see that a lot researching it, and I
I read a lot of things that I was kind
of like, I see where you're coming from, But it
also feels a little like, yeah, that's a bigger that's
(25:32):
a bigger time.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's a hard conversation because you one or the other,
like who based on whose standards? Because I've definitely seen
on like whether it's like through TV shows or whatever,
a Maori and Native Indigenous people from Hawaii as well
as New Zealand being fairly thin and very small. So
it's not like that's necessarily the white standard, unless you
(25:55):
think that's white standard, because what's what white people like
typing conversations? So it's kind of like yeah, and then
you look at things like Brave and Frozen and they're
like why are they like that? And then you have
this which is almost caricaturist as well. So it's kind
of like, yeah, I can see both sides, Like you
could see how leaning either way could be dangerous and
(26:16):
why is it constantly this way?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Though for this one thing? Right, yeah, it was just
like such a and we should come back and talk
about it. But it was like it deserves much more
space than just this also something that deserves more space.
Coconuts are complicated in the Pacific Islands. The word has
been used as a slur. I didn't know that, yep.
(26:40):
So the Kakamura, the pirate coconut people in the movie,
they have historical roots. They're based historically, but it's messy
because of the term and also the history, to be honest,
And there are like very legitimate critiques to make about
Disney in general with things like they're Polynesian Resort or
Epcot at large that I love visiting, but it is
(27:04):
weird at best, Like ultimately they're making money off of
a culture. The representation part is still really important. That's huge,
but it's still like Disney's getting the money right. So, yeah,
(27:29):
one of the biggest themes in this is environmentalism. So
you know, you steal or hurt the planet. See what
happens again. Mowana's earliest scene that we see her, one
of the earliest scenes, is she's helping a baby turtle
get to the ocean. She's doing this work of caring.
(27:52):
Their island had subsisted healthy for generations on what they had.
They took care of the land, the water. Interestingly, and
I mentioned this earlier, the directors were inspired in part
to do this story because historical records that we know
of indicate that people from this region, who are excellent seafarers,
(28:13):
just stopped going out on the water at some point,
and they were historically voyagers. And one of the theories
for the stoppage's climate change and or shifting ocean currents
is sometimes called the long povs, which, again, if we
were different podcasts, I would love to dig into that.
But as I said, they were nine versions of this story.
(28:34):
The directors consulted experts across the South Pacific to weigh
in on accuracy and sensitivity, which did result in some
pretty major changes from climate lit quote. While the ecological
catastrophe is presented not a systemic issue, but as an
outcome of individual choices. Maui alone causes the problem, in
(28:55):
Mowana alone resolves it. The film succeeds in communicating the
importance of eCos trism. Caring for the planet is caring
for our own well being, specifically Mowana's choice to resolve
the problem through an emotional connection with the traumatized mother
nature representation of nature embodies eco feminist themes, And that
article also had a lot of cool stuff. I found
(29:17):
an interesting take that to Fiti being a woman that
was basically soothed with flowers and then fell asleep. But
then I found another interesting take about how it's more
of the difference between male coded violence is the answer
and women trying to do more healing. That is what
Mawana did. And lastly, and this is gonna be really
brief trauma, so you know, I swear we come back
(29:44):
to it all the time. So there's trauma for the
characters absolutely, And like in the final song where Mowana's
coming up to take a she sings, I know your name.
They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this
does not to find you this is not who you are.
You know who you are, who you truly are, and
(30:05):
then the whole thing with Maui being traumatized and kind
of held back by that. But I just briefly wanted
to discuss I saw this in theaters. It was twenty sixteen.
It was right after election. I was not in a
good place and I had I was. I had the
(30:26):
biggest panic attack in this movie. I had to leave
as in bathroom like sobbing. It's throwing up. And when
I look back at it and Bridget when we talked
about it in a different episode, she asked me about it,
it's it was because of the power dynamic and the
size difference between Mahana and Maui. I just couldn't believe
(30:50):
he wouldn't hurt her. And I know it's a Disney
movie and I know, like that's not what's gonna happen,
but it set me off to the point like I
did and see like a huge section of the movie
until years later. But when I told that story, a
lot of listeners wrote in and said they had the
same reaction. And I found kind of post about people
(31:15):
having this reaction, and it was from people who loved
the movie. But it was very interesting to me that
something about that, and I do think it came out
at twenty sixteen we were not doing well. I mean,
who's to say we're doing better right now, but it
was a rough time. We're on edge where I'm on it.
(31:37):
But I had so many listeners wrote in about it,
and it kind of surprised me that they had a
similar experience, which is heartbreaking, right, but sometimes you just
don't you don't know an what it's going to be.
That just sets you off.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Right well, I mean, honestly, when you talk about reality,
and it's hard to take out reality of what may
be or what sometimes what often happens when there's power
dynamics like that, especially again where there's a god versus
an ecocentric god. On top of that, a small what
you would imagine as a small woman with like a
(32:19):
big heart, and like you know, as we were talking
about earlier pride and prejudice, and I kept saying, they
left out like the dark side. She didn't talk about
the abuse that often happened, and like the power of
women being locked in their own home and having new choices,
all these things like that's not added to the story
because it wouldn't. But that's the first thing I think, like, right, Unfortunately,
(32:40):
those are the things that it comes to my head.
And if you dwell on long enough or are in
a bad place, of course that's going to set you
off because we have been traumatized with real experiences and
stuff like that. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's
it's hard, even though you hope good on those that
have never even thought of that or had that even
come to them, because I did think that was odd.
(33:01):
I was like, this feels like it's too easily resolved,
Like this is not the reality that he's just gonna
accept her and then accept her help and be so
because when he apologized to Mother Earth, I think that's
not how that would go or take FEEDI And I
was like no, because that's one of the I was
so cynical in that level of like, that's kind of
(33:23):
what's happening now as we see the world on fire
and our government, who has all the power, is doing
so little. Saying they care so little is sounding like yeah,
and even for us, like we're not doing we don't
know how to fix it, so we give up, like
and instead of being apologetic We're just like, Eh, it
(33:44):
is what it is. But it makes sense to the
fact that we are so caught up in reality that
it's hard to differentiate that and something that should be
just a thoughtless, mindless good story or a story, you.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Know, right, or like just a again, it's a Disney movie.
What especially an animated Disney movie for kids. I should
specify who this movie. Sometimes the are traumatizing. I situans
where she's under the sea with the crab monster. That
thing would get the monster. She saw all the creatures
(34:24):
down there. I was like, yep, nightmares, nightmares forever. I
would if I was a kid watching this nightmare forever.
I would never go in the ocean. Oh no, another
crab trauma. It's based on a crab we specify.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Which is GERMANE voice said Ermine, and I was like
that voice sounds so familiar. So I was like, wait,
I know this voice, which is a good friend of
Teka with t as well, but I'll just like Jermaine Clement,
he's a huge New Zealand actor.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
I was like, I know this voice. Where is this
voice going? Still? Nightmares?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Deep sea nightmares, that's creepy.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
We don't know what's down there night and we don't
know what's down there? I messing with that. It's funny
because back when I pan all the time, I would
run for a long time my playlist, you know, go
all over the place, and I had the soundtrack from
a Wana on it. So when I heard that song
he Sings Shiny, I was like immediately like brought back
(35:27):
when I was running on the belt line. But yeah,
I hope that for all the listeners that wrote in
suggesting this, that we did a justice. We'll see what
the sequel brings, what the live action brings, and if
we missed anything or you have any thoughts, please let
us know. We'd love hearing from you. You can email
us at stepaniamom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can
(35:50):
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on
TikTok and Instagram at stuff When ever told you we
have a tea public store, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Things as
always too, super producer Christina Are, executive producer Maya, and
your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Step I never told yous. Prorection by Heart Radio for
more podcasts from my heart Radio. You can check out
the heart radio app, Apple podcast or where you listen
(36:11):
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll never tell you, protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
another edition of the Feminist Movie Friday. I have to
say we have quite a backlock of movies that we
(00:25):
want to talk about every movie we watch. I'm like,
but then we could watch this one too. Yeah, And
this definitely was the case with this movie, which is
mo Wana. So many of you wrote in about Mowanna
over my course of being a host, because I came
in as a host right after the movie came out,
(00:46):
and then after we did Frozen, so many of you
wrote in about that, and so I was like, let's
just come back and talk about Moana. That being said,
this movie is from twenty sixteen, but I guess it
still falls under the spoiler's umbrella if you haven't seen
it and want to see it, or I don't know,
maybe you don't care about spoilers. That's just my caveat.
(01:08):
There has been a lot of news about Mawana lately,
which is one of the other reasons I wanted to
talk about it. There is a sequel and a live
action remake, which I'm very bamboozled by, but like they're
doing both right. Okay, there's a new ride or experience
at Disney called the Wave Water. The last time I
(01:31):
was there, which was in October of twenty twenty three,
the wait time was four hours. But it's new, so
everybody's trying to go in. And yeah, I have talked
about my experience seeing this movie. I'm going to talk
about it more at the end, but I guess that
comes with content warning for descriptions of panic attacks and trauma.
(01:52):
I whish we'll all make sense, Like if you've listened
to me talk about it before, if you've listened to
this show, you know what I'm saying. And a bunch
of you wrote in about the same thing. But I'm
not going to be in depth or anything, but I
am going to talk about it. This is also like Frozen.
I've seen it three times. Maybe this was your first.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I never watched it, and I will say none of
the songs were familiar to me. So this was a
little under the radar even though I knew much about
it because of some of the controversy behind it didn't
have a whole recasting because some of the controversy was
this the one No, I don't think so okay, I know,
because like they were back and forth about the fact
(02:31):
that like they better have a Native Hawaiian indigenous person
as the lead, which was kind of like row Rising,
and that that wasn't an automatic like I remember, there
was a conversation about that, back and forth about whether
or not Disney would do the right thing. I don't know
if that's something to do with the live action, but
also obviously the Rock you know, debuting his voice. I
(02:56):
remember that, but outside of that, I really had no
idea what this was outside of obviously Native Hawaiian storytelling.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
End of story. Yeah, I saw it in theaters, and
again I will talk about that at the end, but
in in that meantime, let's go for the plot. And
I did try to look up all the pronunciations, but
if I get them wrong, you can write in let
me know. Mowanna is a critically acclaimed and financially successful
(03:26):
twenty sixteen film. It came out literally right after the
twenty sixteen election. It's a Disney animated movie directed by
John Musker and Ron Clements, starring Ali Lee Kravaglio as
the voice of Mowana, who was a teenager at the time.
And yes his native Hawaiian Dwayne Johnson as the voice
of Maui, alongside other talents like Rachel House, Tamara Morrison
(03:50):
who plays Bo Buffett by the Way, Jimmaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger,
and Alan Tudec with songs and music composed by Lin Manuel,
Miranda Opatea Foe and Mark Mancina. And I was telling
Samantha before this, but I found a whole very helpful
video about how to pronounce the of the main star,
(04:11):
which we love. That's great. Apparently Taika Waititi wrote like
the first draft, but he always jokes that they only
use like the very first line, which is like exterior night,
so nothing like got Loft in it. So the story
takes place in ancient Polynesia and follows the coming of
(04:31):
age and self discovery journey of Mowana, who is a
teenage girl and daughter of the chief who longs to
go her own way and to sail the seas. Her father, however,
is adamant that she should not. Meanwhile, their lands and
waters are suffering the inhabitants of the island. The island
called Montanui celebrate the goddess of nature, Tafiti, who is
(04:52):
a living island that brought life and health to the
region with her heart, which is a Ponamu stone. It's
a type stone that is hard and durable and has
long been important in Maori culture. The shape shifting demi
god Maui, who is also a master of wayfinding the
wind in the sea, he stalled this heart to give
(05:13):
it to humanity to gift them the power of creation. However,
in doing so, Trafiti started to turn to stone, and
Mali was confronted by a volcanic demon named te Ka.
During this attack, Maui loses both the heart and his
magic fish hook to the sea. So from there we
(05:34):
cut to Moana as a baby one thousand years later
and she it's a really funny scene when it opens
where her grandmother is telling like a creepy story and
all the babies, all the other children are like scared,
and Mowana is like, yes, tell me more. But then
it kind of goes to her playing with the water,
like literally the water is moving around her and the
(05:57):
animation of the water is really beautiful, and she saves
this young baby turtle who's trying to get to the sea.
She has like a little leaf and just keeping away
the birds. So because of all of this, the ocean
chooses Moana Moana means ocean by the way to return
(06:18):
the heart to Tafiti. Despite the call of the water
that she feels, though her parents do their best to
keep her from from the water and get her ready
for taking over her father's role as chief. When she
is sixteen, this island is in dire straits. They aren't
catching much, crops are dying. Moana, still feeling the call
(06:41):
of the water and looking for a solution, suggests that
they go past the reef of their island to see
if they can get an answer or at least more fish,
but her father immediately rejects it. She ignores him and
attempts to get past the reef but fails. So Moana
goes to visit her grandmother, Tala, who takes her to
a sea critic cavern that has some canoes and explains
(07:03):
to her that the people of the island used to
be travelers up until Maui lost the heart, rendering the
waters in the ocean unsafe. Tala tells Malana that it
is Tika that is poisoning their home, but Moana can
save it by locating Maui and getting him to restore
the heart to Tafiti. Tala gives Malana the heart that
(07:25):
she had recovered from the ocean, but then Tala grows
ill and requests that Malana finds Maui before she dies. Yeah.
Milana takes a chemacau, a type of canoe historically used
in the region, with the sail and undertakes this journey
with her stoway pet rooster. Hey Hey. They get caught
(07:45):
up in a typhoon and are shipwrecked on an island.
Wears the prize priz. Malana encounters Maui, who is incredibly
bostful of everything that he says that he has done.
Malana asks him to return the heart to Tafii. She
has a very like princess bride. My name is this,
You're gonna do this, but he attempts to entrap her
(08:07):
in a cave and strand her there. So Maana is
able to escape the cave and convinces Maui to let
her come with him on the boat with the help
of the ocean. On their journey, she tries to get
Maui to teach her to sail to wayfind but he's
really resistant. Over the course of time, they do earn
some trust between them. Moana learns that he stole the
(08:27):
heart and it's most likely the cause of the blight
that the island's experiencing. She attempts to sway him to
return the heart and redeem himself, but to do so,
Maui says he must retrieve his hook from the realm
of monsters, where it is held by a coconut crab
named Tomatoa and this whole thing, But thanks to Moana
(08:49):
distracting Tomatoa, Maui retrieves the hook. Really, Mawana retrieves the hook,
but quickly discovers that he's unable to use it. Mowana
once again saves him and allow them to escape. Maui
shares with her that his first tattoo, because he has
a lot of tattoos, was given to him after his
parents abandoned him as a baby, and the gods, taking
(09:10):
pity on him, gave him powers. When Moana is sympathetic
to his story, he finally decides the teacher sailing and wayfighting.
They finally arrive at Tafiiti, but are attacked by Takab.
Despite this, Moana is determined to push forward and Maui's
hook is damaged in the process. Maui abandons Moana in
(09:32):
fear of losing his hook again. Disheartened and defeated, Moana
asked the ocean to find someone else to restore the heart,
but the spirit of her grandmother, yes again has died,
appears in the water and encourages her to embrace her destiny.
Malana takes the heart with new determination and Maui returns.
He gives her the opening she needs by distracting Takab.
(09:55):
His hook gets destroyed in the process, but this is
when Jana realizes that Teka is the corrupted version of Tafiti.
She asks the ocean to make a path for Moana
to talk to Taka, and Moana returns the heart to
Taka Tafiti, who heals the ocean and fixes the plights.
(10:19):
Maui apologizes to Tefiti and Tafiti fixes his hook. In return,
Tafiti falls asleep kind of becomes the island that she was.
Molana goes back home and takes her role as chief
and leads her people back into the water on boats
on canoes with the help of Maui. She's kind of
(10:41):
the one leading the charge and that's how it ends. Again.
Like with Frozen, I found so written about this. It
(11:02):
was so many deep law like forty page articles, So
I'm trying to condense down essentially what I found. But
I did find as we move into the themes, so
many angry articles about how this movie masculated men because
(11:23):
Mawi lost his hook, which gave me a good chuckle.
It gave me a good chuckle. But one of the
big themes of it is coming of age, wanting to
do your own thing. That is certainly from the beginning, Wowana,
that is what she wants, this idea of her finding herself,
(11:46):
her main song being like you don't know how far
I'll go. And I thought it was interesting because behind
the scenes this got rewritten nine times. Well it just
kind of went through like nine different passes, which is
not that rare for a movie from this big of
a studio. But the original draft had her having many brothers,
(12:09):
but they erased it because they wanted it to be
more about her finding herself. Like I think the original
draft was like her trying to stand out from her brothers.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Oh and brave. I was thinking about that, like the
different things. I was like this is this is similar
to this, and this is like kind of Brave was
what made me think of that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
This is definitely very similar to Brave in terms of
you get to the end and they're like, I want
to do my own thing. But the interesting thing about Mowana,
which we're going to talk about more later, is that
Brave still had the marriage romance storyline. It's just she
was not into it. Moanna doesn't have it at all,
(12:50):
Like this is not there. And I do love Brave
again if we had more tired. There's so many movies
I want to talk about. But yeah, so they got
rid of the brother's part. They also changed Originally it
was her father that wanted her to take up the
sailing traditions again, but it was later rewritten so the
(13:11):
grandmother would be the person that wanted that, so it
wasn't a man kind of overshadowing her leading her way,
which I thought was interesting. I think another big theme
is just responsibility to family, because she does. She's like
constantly in the beginning trying to convince herself, no, this
is good, I want this, even though the sea keeps
(13:33):
calling her, like she keeps want to go to the
water and I did read a lot of interesting things
about how purposely or not, it does feel very like
the patriarchy is trying to control her. Like her father
is the one that's like, you're staying here and you're
doing this. It's Maui the god, the Demi god, who's like,
you are not near good enough to do this, I'm
(13:56):
not gonna even deign to teach you. But it's her
grandmother and her mom who are encouraging her. And I
did think that was interesting of like Maui being kind
of a cakekeeper, like he just won't teach her, and she's,
you know, she's out there and she's really trying and
(14:16):
trying to learn, but her father was the one that
wouldn't let her learn anything, right, And so in the
end Maui does teach her, and then she teaches her father,
which I thought was a great like it's one of
the final moments, right.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
She becomes experts in the final moment. Are they discovering
new lands? Is that what they're trying to do, or
are they just waging.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
To come back? They're just going out. There's actually a
big historical note about this which I'm going to talk
about that I didn't know anything about. But yeah, I
think they're just checking it out. And I a most
of the action in this movie happens because of women.
It's the women that are getting the stuff done for sure.
(15:01):
So here's a quote from feminist Gaze, Childlike impetulant. This
Dimi God becomes the greatest challenge that she, Mohanna, has
to overcome in order to solve the problems of her people.
Standing up to him, she is fighting against patriarchy and
masculinity alike, wrangling against the constant badgering and belittling that
(15:21):
is every woman's surest battle in life, and Malana's struggle
is no different, as he continually renders her to tears
and self doubt. Her greatest power comes not in solving problems,
or being creative about solving problems, or battling monsters our ambition,
our gumption, but in fighting against the men that stand
in her way with physical and emotional force, just to
(15:42):
shut her up, stunt her growth and potential, and put
her in her place. They don't see what we girls
and women see. One girl set up against the will
of two powerful and patriarchal figures. In many ways, this
is what females experience as they come of age. Our
most persistent battle is not finding ourselves or solving our problems,
but fighting against every patriarchal norm that come at us
(16:05):
from every male, every male dominated industry, reminding us that
we have to fight harder, yell louder, work longer just
to be heard, just to achieve what we know is
rightfully ours free will and volition. Yeah. I mean it's
interesting too, because I do think a lot of people
(16:25):
don't pick up on that, but when you watch it
and you have that sort of brain in mind, you're like, yeah,
she definitely. I think for the first time I saw it,
I was more like it was kind of refreshing because
her gender wasn't really brought up right as like a oh,
she can't do it. It was more just like her responsibilities,
(16:48):
So that was kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It was interesting that there was no opposition for her
to be the ruler or the chief, like every simple
single thing, like she showed her problem solving skills and
everybody was just an standing and nodding in yes, and
even when she couldn't solve the problem the fifth problem,
they still had like a respect to hear her and
not denigrating her based on her gender. That was never
(17:11):
that question, So I was like, huh, that's unusual that
that's not even a brought up no.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And I think that's why when I was reading this article,
I was like, oh, you know that is true, that
it is mostly men trying to keep her down that
because gender is so sort of out of the question,
and a lot of this movie, I don't think I
had ever really thought about it like that. There is
certainly male ego happening, especially with obviously Maui, although he's
(17:36):
very insecure, but his whole song like You're welcome, You're welcome,
thank you, like trying to take credit for everything. But
when we're going to come back to this later. I
also find his story a little interesting in terms of
trauma because he's basically like too scared to use his
(17:59):
powers anymore where after what happened to him, and he
places so much value in this magical hook that he
doesn't without the hook's. He even has a whole scene
where he's like that I'm nothing without it. That being said, uh,
Mowana was specifically designed to be the hero as I.
As I mentioned already, like that's why they kind of
(18:21):
got rid of the brother storyline. That's why they put
the grandmother and the story of the mentor and the
role of the mentor, excuse me, And there's no romance
because of that. Maoi's meant to be really annoying and
kind of not competent, and when he does start to change,
it's with Mowana still at the lead. Her sidekicks are
truly sidekicks, like I read a whole paper about this.
(18:42):
I swear her like pet sidekicks that are so traditional
and Disney movies are. They were meant to be like
truly sidekicks and not still the role from her. I
was very confused by the chicken.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
There was so little like other than being chaotic constantly.
Then I was like, except for the one time that
he saved the heart, I was like, there's nothing to
this chicken. What's happening? Comical foil like that's the entirety
of the thing. And then they she didn't even bring
(19:17):
the smart one, the pig along, So I'm very confused
by this chicken. And they're always having to put like
every single one of them have had to put it
in a basket and into the little space, including the
ocean like stop it.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
This honestly reminds me of like a D and D character.
It's such a good like it again, Peaches in my
D and D can't.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Care you compare my Peaches to that chicken.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But the kind of the role of chaos of just
this character that comes in and is like, we don't
know what's gonna happen, but hey, look, I also thought
I found a lot of stuff written about the flipping
of roles in this where Maui is like constantly consistently
(20:06):
trying to put Mowana in either the role of his
bait or the damsel in distress and or just get
rid of her. And I feel like it's the audience.
A lot of times you think, oh, okay, that's gonna work,
but she keeps having to save him in one way
or another. Here's a quote from Criterion. The movie also
discards the idea of Mail as the only savior of
(20:27):
a woman in distress, as it was Maui who left
Mowana in between the sea when she was trying to
fix Tafiti's heart, only to come back later when he
realizes his mistake. Another thing added by Disney is how
man the Man has destroyed Mother Earth for his own
selfish motives. Something else, and this is too long of
(20:47):
a topic for today, but there's a really big conversation
that happens a lot around movies like this Star Wars
being one the democracy of power. She is not a god,
but she's very powerful. But a lot of people it's
(21:08):
like they almost dismiss the the person who's not the god,
which I actually think is a really good story that
she's able to do that without those powers. But when
I tell you, it is a big conversation. Also a
big theme family obviously, I would say particularly the grandmother,
(21:32):
her relationship with the grandmother, who is also sort of
I would say she would describe herself as sort of
the crazy old lady. She does. She keeps saying that
she's like crazy one. But Malana relates connect to that,
which I that is a big thing that I've like
(21:53):
seeing in newer movies where we get to see the
generations of women connecting. Uh. And then representation, as I said,
Mowana means ocean. There is no romance, there's no quote
Happily ever after or marriage. She just set sails. So
it feels very much like a movie where she's at
(22:15):
the end, she's launching into the next part of her life.
Hence the sequel perhaps.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Well, now I'm scared that they're going to bring in
the romance portion in the sequel.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It's possible, It's very possible, but it would mean that
was one of the biggest praises that got right. And
I read another article. I'm telling you, there's so much
stuff I had to cut out that was about the
thing that's going on with Disney right now in terms
of Disney Princess movies. I guess where they're being very
(22:47):
meta about it and they're like, oh, you didn't have
to get a man, or you didn't have to whatever, whatever,
But they're not really sticking to it, like they're commenting
on it, but they're doing the thing, but they're not
right right, like, because I do think, you know, there's
nothing wrong with romance. We did talk about this in
(23:07):
the Frozen episode there. The way Disney has done it
can be complicated, for sure, but that was one of
the reasons this character resonated so much was it just
wasn't a part of her story. So I don't know,
I think you're legitimate to have a fear about it.
Though here is one conservative take that I just had
to put in here. I think it's setting up girls
(23:29):
for unhealthy lives in the future, and also for disappointing
romantic lives. Oh, dear, dear, dear romance.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, that's why I disappointing that she's fled. I'm confused.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Oh yes, Oh, it's setting us up for disappointing romance lives.
What are we? Who the man? Yeah? I think so? Yeah, okay, okay,
Well another adventure. Uh Mowana. Even as a child she
(24:07):
was entanced with traveling to see She wasn't afraid, and
I really liked that too. I liked that her whole
thing was like, I want to go out and see
some stuff. So the song we Know the Way is
to k Lawan. It's in the Tokalawan language, which is
only only about three thousand people in the world speak it.
(24:29):
I watch the whole thing about that too. There were
critiques about Maui's weights, perpetuating negative stereotypes about Polynesians being
overweight Traditionally, because he is based on a real god,
Maui is a fit teenager. However, like a lot of
stuff I read about this kind of it was hard.
(24:50):
It's hard to put into words, but essentially like there
were a lot of observations that Mowana has quote thighs,
and the discourse about it was something that we've seen
before with Lee though and Stitch. But I guess one
of the points that I came across a lot was
(25:10):
that we were judging non white characters based on the
white gays. And I think this is a bigger, more
nuanced conversation, but just to put that out there, because
I did see that a lot researching it, and I
I read a lot of things that I was kind
of like, I see where you're coming from, But it
also feels a little like, yeah, that's a bigger that's
(25:32):
a bigger time.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's a hard conversation because you one or the other,
like who based on whose standards? Because I've definitely seen
on like whether it's like through TV shows or whatever,
a Maori and Native Indigenous people from Hawaii as well
as New Zealand being fairly thin and very small. So
it's not like that's necessarily the white standard, unless you
(25:55):
think that's white standard, because what's what white people like
typing conversations? So it's kind of like yeah, and then
you look at things like Brave and Frozen and they're
like why are they like that? And then you have
this which is almost caricaturist as well. So it's kind
of like, yeah, I can see both sides, Like you
could see how leaning either way could be dangerous and
(26:16):
why is it constantly this way?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Though for this one thing? Right, yeah, it was just
like such a and we should come back and talk
about it. But it was like it deserves much more
space than just this also something that deserves more space.
Coconuts are complicated in the Pacific Islands. The word has
been used as a slur. I didn't know that, yep.
(26:40):
So the Kakamura, the pirate coconut people in the movie,
they have historical roots. They're based historically, but it's messy
because of the term and also the history, to be honest,
And there are like very legitimate critiques to make about
Disney in general with things like they're Polynesian Resort or
Epcot at large that I love visiting, but it is
(27:04):
weird at best, Like ultimately they're making money off of
a culture. The representation part is still really important. That's huge,
but it's still like Disney's getting the money right. So, yeah,
(27:29):
one of the biggest themes in this is environmentalism. So
you know, you steal or hurt the planet. See what
happens again. Mowana's earliest scene that we see her, one
of the earliest scenes, is she's helping a baby turtle
get to the ocean. She's doing this work of caring.
(27:52):
Their island had subsisted healthy for generations on what they had.
They took care of the land, the water. Interestingly, and
I mentioned this earlier, the directors were inspired in part
to do this story because historical records that we know
of indicate that people from this region, who are excellent seafarers,
(28:13):
just stopped going out on the water at some point,
and they were historically voyagers. And one of the theories
for the stoppage's climate change and or shifting ocean currents
is sometimes called the long povs, which, again, if we
were different podcasts, I would love to dig into that.
But as I said, they were nine versions of this story.
(28:34):
The directors consulted experts across the South Pacific to weigh
in on accuracy and sensitivity, which did result in some
pretty major changes from climate lit quote. While the ecological
catastrophe is presented not a systemic issue, but as an
outcome of individual choices. Maui alone causes the problem, in
(28:55):
Mowana alone resolves it. The film succeeds in communicating the
importance of eCos trism. Caring for the planet is caring
for our own well being, specifically Mowana's choice to resolve
the problem through an emotional connection with the traumatized mother
nature representation of nature embodies eco feminist themes, And that
article also had a lot of cool stuff. I found
(29:17):
an interesting take that to Fiti being a woman that
was basically soothed with flowers and then fell asleep. But
then I found another interesting take about how it's more
of the difference between male coded violence is the answer
and women trying to do more healing. That is what
Mawana did. And lastly, and this is gonna be really
brief trauma, so you know, I swear we come back
(29:44):
to it all the time. So there's trauma for the
characters absolutely, And like in the final song where Mowana's
coming up to take a she sings, I know your name.
They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this
does not to find you this is not who you are.
You know who you are, who you truly are, and
(30:05):
then the whole thing with Maui being traumatized and kind
of held back by that. But I just briefly wanted
to discuss I saw this in theaters. It was twenty sixteen.
It was right after election. I was not in a
good place and I had I was. I had the
(30:26):
biggest panic attack in this movie. I had to leave
as in bathroom like sobbing. It's throwing up. And when
I look back at it and Bridget when we talked
about it in a different episode, she asked me about it,
it's it was because of the power dynamic and the
size difference between Mahana and Maui. I just couldn't believe
(30:50):
he wouldn't hurt her. And I know it's a Disney
movie and I know, like that's not what's gonna happen,
but it set me off to the point like I
did and see like a huge section of the movie
until years later. But when I told that story, a
lot of listeners wrote in and said they had the
same reaction. And I found kind of post about people
(31:15):
having this reaction, and it was from people who loved
the movie. But it was very interesting to me that
something about that, and I do think it came out
at twenty sixteen we were not doing well. I mean,
who's to say we're doing better right now, but it
was a rough time. We're on edge where I'm on it.
(31:37):
But I had so many listeners wrote in about it,
and it kind of surprised me that they had a
similar experience, which is heartbreaking, right, but sometimes you just
don't you don't know an what it's going to be.
That just sets you off.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Right well, I mean, honestly, when you talk about reality,
and it's hard to take out reality of what may
be or what sometimes what often happens when there's power
dynamics like that, especially again where there's a god versus
an ecocentric god. On top of that, a small what
you would imagine as a small woman with like a
(32:19):
big heart, and like you know, as we were talking
about earlier pride and prejudice, and I kept saying, they
left out like the dark side. She didn't talk about
the abuse that often happened, and like the power of
women being locked in their own home and having new choices,
all these things like that's not added to the story
because it wouldn't. But that's the first thing I think, like, right, Unfortunately,
(32:40):
those are the things that it comes to my head.
And if you dwell on long enough or are in
a bad place, of course that's going to set you
off because we have been traumatized with real experiences and
stuff like that. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's
it's hard, even though you hope good on those that
have never even thought of that or had that even
come to them, because I did think that was odd.
(33:01):
I was like, this feels like it's too easily resolved,
Like this is not the reality that he's just gonna
accept her and then accept her help and be so
because when he apologized to Mother Earth, I think that's
not how that would go or take FEEDI And I
was like no, because that's one of the I was
so cynical in that level of like, that's kind of
(33:23):
what's happening now as we see the world on fire
and our government, who has all the power, is doing
so little. Saying they care so little is sounding like yeah,
and even for us, like we're not doing we don't
know how to fix it, so we give up, like
and instead of being apologetic We're just like, Eh, it
(33:44):
is what it is. But it makes sense to the
fact that we are so caught up in reality that
it's hard to differentiate that and something that should be
just a thoughtless, mindless good story or a story, you.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Know, right, or like just a again, it's a Disney movie.
What especially an animated Disney movie for kids. I should
specify who this movie. Sometimes the are traumatizing. I situans
where she's under the sea with the crab monster. That
thing would get the monster. She saw all the creatures
(34:24):
down there. I was like, yep, nightmares, nightmares forever. I
would if I was a kid watching this nightmare forever.
I would never go in the ocean. Oh no, another
crab trauma. It's based on a crab we specify.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Which is GERMANE voice said Ermine, and I was like
that voice sounds so familiar. So I was like, wait,
I know this voice, which is a good friend of
Teka with t as well, but I'll just like Jermaine Clement,
he's a huge New Zealand actor.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
I was like, I know this voice. Where is this
voice going? Still? Nightmares?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Deep sea nightmares, that's creepy.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
We don't know what's down there night and we don't
know what's down there? I messing with that. It's funny
because back when I pan all the time, I would
run for a long time my playlist, you know, go
all over the place, and I had the soundtrack from
a Wana on it. So when I heard that song
he Sings Shiny, I was like immediately like brought back
(35:27):
when I was running on the belt line. But yeah,
I hope that for all the listeners that wrote in
suggesting this, that we did a justice. We'll see what
the sequel brings, what the live action brings, and if
we missed anything or you have any thoughts, please let
us know. We'd love hearing from you. You can email
us at stepaniamom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can
(35:50):
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on
TikTok and Instagram at stuff When ever told you we
have a tea public store, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Things as
always too, super producer Christina Are, executive producer Maya, and
your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Step I never told yous. Prorection by Heart Radio for
more podcasts from my heart Radio. You can check out
the heart radio app, Apple podcast or where you listen
(36:11):
to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Anney Reese
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