Which disney movie do you think is technically more racist to native American people: peter pan, or pocahontas?
.
The obvious answer seems to be peter pan, mostly because it portrays native people as nothing more than feather wearing uncivilized bozos, but I do think a legit argument can be made against pocahontas here. This movie not only inaccurately portrays real world events that were harmful to native people in so many, and not only glorifying the settlers who committed so many atrocious acts at the time, but actively tries to act serious the entire time about it, like its trying to convince you that what they're saying is genuine and 'comes from the heart'. Like, when I was little, I never knew what actually happened in real life, I just assumed the settlers and native people lived in harmony because of this movie. (Continues)

In a sense, one could almost interpret this as brainwashing to children, as if they're trying to push all the nasty icky stuff the founders of America did to natives under the rug and instead make it seem like it was all a happy event. And yes, while they didnt start the movie getting along, the overall message of the movie is radically different than what actually happened irl.
.
Now, I'm a weirdo who enjoys pocahontas anyways, despite all its flaws, but I was just thinking this and wanted to discuss it somewhere. what do you guys think?

I think kids movies are not intended to be literal history lessons that are required to have all of the bad in with the good or even follow the exact historical path of the story. Kids have a limited time to be children and enjoy happy things and feel good. There is plenty of time once they are old enough to provide them with the more nuanced stories.

I've read some books on this and I agree with Dr.Eww, even tho you change it later on as scatmandingo said the information provided to a child at infancy pay a huge role in creating their behaviour and psych so it's better to just make some new fiction rather than changing the past in children's movies or books

You need to understand:
1. Peter Pan’s Indians are based on the books version of the people. And you also need to remember the book Peter Pan was written by a person who problems never once met a true Native American. He probably was going by what he seen and heard from other plays and books.
2. Pocahontas is very loosely based on an actual Native American of the same name.
Disney wanted to turn the story into something kid friendly and show a love interest.
When in real life the true Pocahontas was just a kid around 12-14 and John Smith was a middle aged man who was balding.
So they made them the same age and they were riding the coat tails of Beauty and the beast and figured if they made Pocahontas want to break from her “simple life” as the chief’s daughter it seem more appealing to young girls who at that time was becoming girl power and into showing that girls are more than weak and cute.

Both were not trying to offended True Native Americans they were just trying to bring to the culture to the modern world.
You read a child a story about the North Pole and it is about polar bears and penguins. But penguins live in the South Pole. See what you did was show that kid something they might want to pursue learning. You use truth and sprinkle a few lies to grab their interest.
That is what works sadly.

I mean the movies about pirates of the Caribbean are loosely accurate. Same goes for Tarzan and honestly I can go on for hours about how loosely accurate a lot of movies are specially Disney I mean every movie company loosely basis. Unless it’s like a documentary. Everybody always gets caught up on if a company is portraying a certain race correctly. They don’t understand back in time people didn’t care about portraying correctly we’re just learning to portray correctly but to call people out on past problems is a little insane. It’s like song of the south Disney’s number one most hated movie.
The people who hate the movie never seen it. They don’t understand the story they don’t want to they just hate it because everyone else hates it I believe in hating something because it needs to be hated not just to go with the crowd. Same goes with loving some thing I don’t love certain things just because that’s what everybody else loves.
I admit it I hate the movie titanic but I love Leo.

Poca-haunt-us and it's not close, given the actual true story.

the 3 crows in dumbo are even worse though

Song of the South has never actually bothered me.

I also think disney is forgiven just because how damned good the songs are

@mrscollector Titanic is a complicated relationship for me; I both hate it, because it's so cheesy, but I also love it because of how epic it is and how even after all the cheese Celine comes in and breaks my heart.

I think you're taking it too seriously, Richard. Disney is an entertainment company. That is it and that is all. They create services and products for entertainment. People have taken this habit of idolizing and creating power behind these brands and turning them into something they are not. You ask if Disney is racist. I ask if Monty Python is racist, sexist, and various other labels. They are not because it's entertainment. So is Disney.
With all due respect my friend, a better question is why is it racist.

@adam44 I wasn't accusing disney of being racist NOW, this is just a perspective sort of thing, especially when I try to discuss pocahontas with people and they just go off about how terrible it is and how racist it all is. And I won't lie, as much as I enjoy it, I understand that in the end its probably the weakest of the disney renaissance movies (it's got more problems than just that), but I just wondered this one day and wanted to know what others thought.

Another thing I wanted to bring up was that I recently saw a comment about the movie comparing it to Anastasia, and how its in the similar boat where, though enjoyable, it takes a story of a real life tragedy and kinda shits on it in order to make it a kids film. However I think the reason people don't dislike Anastasia as much as Pocahontas is because the events in Anastasia happened a long time ago, and not much can be done about it now. Is it still kind of wrong to make a movie glorifying an event where a family was murdered in cold blood? Perhaps, but there's no use crying over it now. It happened, it sucked, but more people are more forgiving about that nowadays. Racism against native people on the other hand is still a very prevalent issue, and some people see films like that offensive.

I know I am late to the party, but I want to go all the way back to the beginning. In Pocahontas, I completely disagree that it makes the Native Americans look bad and glorifies the settlers. I definitely think it shows how terrible some of the settlers were and how little they understood of the Native American ways.

In a lot of ways Disney used to be very racist, as they'd go out of their way just for the sake of it, not for the sake of entertainment.. This was partially about playing to the audience, but still... they did it.

shouldn't blame Disney now for those past sins though, as all the people that committed them are either dead or on the doorstep.

I know they're not accurate to real life and whatnot, but I just enjoy Disney movies because they're cute and I love Disney. Although everyone's points are valid, when I watch them I don't think about what really happened, I just enjoy them like the inner kid I am

@jingle and that's the point, just entertainment... Disney ain't The Smithsonian Channel lol