Popular Culture Review 30.2 • Summer 2019
“ We Know the Way ”: Culture – Nature Relationship and Kuleana in Disney ’ s Moana
By Colby Y . Miyose
ABSTRACT
On the Thanksgiving weekend of November 23 , 2016 , while families were celebrating one cultural tradition , another cultural cornerstone was making waves across the big screen . Moana ( meaning wide expanse of water in Hawaiian ) has splashed into the hearts of young children , as Disney ’ s latest princess adaptation . Though a sparse amount of recent literature has evaluated the portrayal of Moana ’ s tough-girl femininity , fewer have analyzed representations of Pacific culture . When evaluating cultural values within the movie , Moana encapsulates a nature – culture dualism that many Pacific Islanders ( i . e ., Hawai ’ i , Samoa , Tahiti ) have adopted as their way of life . For many years , these islands have been favored destinations for vacationers and adventurers as well as colonizers and usurpers , who venture there because of their beautiful landscapes and strategic placement . However , there is another side of these islands that many do not see and even fewer understand . The following paper analyzes Moana ’ s portrayal of the connection between nature and culture , and the possible consequences of severing this relationship .
Keywords : culture – nature relationship , Pacific Island culture , sustainability , textual analysis
157 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.2.7