I've spent this entire semester studying fairy tales, and surprise, surprise: most of Disney's films are based off of famous European oral tales written down by the likes of the Grimms and Perrault. Disney's latest animated film Moana hit theaters this weekend and deliberately created a sort of "Pan-Pacific" fairy tale, borrowing from many island cultures and giving us a "princess" on a hero's journey propelled by myth.
The film fixates on explaining why the voyaging societies of South Pacific peoples stopped charting the seas for a thousand-year period. Coupled with that imaginative answer is the myth of the demigod Maui who pulled islands out of the sea and slowed down the sun to create daytime.
One focus of my class was the function of the fairy tale: to provide an answer to one of life's existential questions. Whether or not this film acts more like an epic or a fairy tale, Moana seeks to answer the question: Who am I?
Wrapped up in the question of why we're here or what we're supposed to do is the importance of a name. Between studying "Rumpelstiltskin" and "Cinderella," names serve to empower characters, defeat them, and give an identity that can often represent duality like Briar Rose of "Sleeping Beauty."
The other route a fairy tale can take is to be as general as possible, giving us nameless characters like "the miller's daughter" and "the step-mother." Moana goes to great lengths to teach us the characters' names, instilling that their identities act as functions to answer this main question.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! (Duh.)
A highlight of the film for me was the not-quite-villainous but definite roadblock Tamatoa, a giant hermit crab who resides in the realm of monsters. He is widely known as someone who loves to talk about themselves, and his reputation precedes him. His Bowie-esque showstopper "Shiny" reveals he only cares about outward appearances. He explicitly tells Moana that "being who you are on the inside" is not the goal of life.
On the other hand is the voiceless antagonist Te Kā, an even more gigantic lava goddess. This character is actually named early on in the film: Te Fiti is the goddess whose "heart" has been stolen and Moana needs to replace. On the journey to return the heart, Moana realizes the monstrous Te Kā is Te Fiti transformed by the loss. Moana sings to her that her stolen heart does define her, and deep down she knows who she is. She sings directly to the goddess, but this doubles as a message Moana needs to learn for herself.
Maui is the demigod in question who stole the heart of Te Fiti. His name is famous not only with fictional Moana, but in reality as well. Sixteen-year-old Hawaiian actress Auli'i Carvalho, who voices the titular character, cites these as her bedtime stories. His introductory song "You're Welcome" serves as ethos, listing off all the wonderful things he's known for. But what if you're not what everyone thinks you are? Tamatoa points out that Maui's tattoos are just another way for him to put on airs. Maybe his identity is wrapped up in those stories and have no merit. Maui himself puts all his weight on a magical item instead of in his character. He insists he is nothing without his hook and thus abandons the mission for a while when it is nearly destroyed. But he comes back in the end, sacrificing his hook, his perceived identity, to help Moana on her quest.
Moana is the one who struggles most with this question. She is expected to build a future for her people and stay where they are, where she believes they've always been. But when she discovers her ancestry, it awakens an answer to another question: why does she love the ocean? Her introductory song asks, "What is wrong with me?" because she longs to go to the open ocean, which is forbidden. Any child asks this when they can't seem to find an answer to who they are, or if the answer seems contrary to the norm. At her weakest moment, her grandmother's spirit visits and asks her, "Do you know who you are?" And Moana says out loud, "Who am I?" She answers this question by listing off who she is in relation to her ancestry, what she has done, and what her call means to her. When she embraces that she knows the way, as her ancestors did, she proclaims: "I am Moana."
Moana's journey to embrace who she is comes to fruition after she helps Maui and Te Fiti identify with you they are. Her reward is a happily ever after of having her village becoming voyagers once again. Moana gives the answer to children that they will discover who they are because their identity is within them all along. And come what may, they know the way.
This isn't to say that Moana is devoid of problems. While the cast seems to be happy with the amount of research done for this film, there are plenty of people who stress that this is more commercial appropriation of a diverse way of life. In a society where powerhouses of children's culture like Disney have substantially lacked in diversity, Moana is a step in the right direction, but cautious optimism is warranted.
But Moana's story is one for all. Existential life questions are not limited to one culture. The hope is more diverse voices will be elevated to answer these questions in future fairy tales. As Cravalho says of her character in her interview with NPR, you don't have to travel 100 miles across the ocean to relate to Moana's journey.
