Moana is a Polynesian princess whose tribe encounters a food supply crisis. Fish stocks have collapsed and the coconuts fallen to disease. Moana suggests fishing the outer waters but her father, the chief, insists it is too dangerous. Eventually Moana is compelled by her grandmother and the ocean to embark on a journey to save her people. Aided by her male counterpart Maui, a human-turned-demigod voiced by The Rock, she faces off against pirate coconuts, monsters of the deep, and finally Tikal, a powerful volcanic demon. Ultimately she discovers new fertile land, returns to her home island, and convinces her tribe to make the ocean voyage.
Societies become K-selected when they live at the carrying capacity of their environments. It has always been my assumption that island nations, like the Hawaiians, were probably very K in nature. That means they were competitive, hierarchal, and valued chastity and delayed sexualization of children. Leaving for richer lands is sometimes the best option, but r-type people are more likely to want to escape competition for limited resources than Ks are. The Moana scenario was very common in history. Sometimes there was a successful exodus, but most of the time the results were less poetic: a lot of people starved to death. K-selected society isn't all roses and honey. Those who can't compete for the limited resources die. In time of food shortages the weak and low-ranking die of starvation and illness. There's a reason Polynesians are so well-adapted to store fat, much to their detriment in the modern era.
The conflict between Moana and her father is a conflict between r and K. Moana wants to flee for greener pastures. Her father, the strong chief, wishes to stay and face the difficulties. Ultimately Moana has her way. The movie is a tale of r winning over K. How very Hollywood.
There is more to the story than just that, of course. The main character embarks on a journey of personal growth that also benefits her society. This is a heroic epic. Other writers have bemoaned the death of the heroic epic, yet here we have one in the greatest blockbuster out right now. Or we almost do. In a heroic epic, the protagonist overcomes some tragic flaw in their journey. Moana has no tragic flaw. She was always right; she was just restrained by those around her. Stupid, backwards K societies are always standing in the way of utopia. The movie is all about girl power, so instead the flaw is given to her male companion. Maui is a demigod in a reduced state. Without his magic hook he has no power, and we find him marooned on a desert island. His flaw is that he is self-interested, vain, and overly individualistic. Ultimately he overcomes his flaws, helps deliver his estranged tribe from harm, and becomes more empowered himself. He is actually the hero of the tale. Moana was supposed to be, but the writers just couldn't bear to depict her as flawed.
It's worth noting that the tribe-oriented heroic epic is still permitted at all. The reason seems pretty obvious. National identities are permitted, but only for non-whites. I don't watch many movies, but I can't think of many exceptions to the rule. The Lord of the Rings would be, but it's been over 15 years since that franchise started. Much has changed since 2001. Back then white did not equal racist. The rule has pretty well held for the last five years or so, and I predict we'll see no sort of "Moana for white people" for a long, long time, if ever. Not at the mega-blockbuster level, anyway.
One counter-example that might be offered is Frozen, the girl-power mega hit that preceded Moana, which, quite surprisingly, featured an all-white cast. But Frozen isn't a heroic epic. Elsa is certainly flawed, but she isn't a hero. She does nothing for the better good, and in fact she doesn't really ever overcome her flaws. Her lack of self control just vanishes after Anna's sacrifice, but it was nothing Elsa achieved. Anna is also not a tragic hero, as she was never particularly flawed. She always had a good heart. Frozen is all about Elsa's narcissism, so powerful it nearly destroys her own nation! Surely that's a vastly different story than Moana, a girl without flaw who delivers her people from tragedy.
Even the children's heroic epics of the last couple decades had much stronger K themes than were permitted in Moana, where there is never direct resource competition. Mulan, a heroic epic where the protagonist saved her people from doom, was a resource struggle between the Chinese nation and the evil Huns. The Lion King, a fantastic heroic epic, pitted lions again hyenas in a battle for resources. Simba is drawn into a listless life of abundant resources, but his fate compels him to return to jump into the resources struggle and take top spot in the hierarchy. It was a story of K winning over r. Oh, how things have changed in a couple decades!
One other thing you can't help but notice watching the movie is the extreme sexual dimorphism. The princess is portrayed as usual by Disney, described by Stefan Molyneux in his analysis of Frozen as neoteny. Massive eyes, subdued chin, and tiny little noses. Here's a look at Frozen.
Anna and Elsa were both extremely overdone, Elsa looked like an alien to me, but the male lead has nearly normal eyes, a large nose, and protruding chin. They certainly didn't make Christoph a wimp, but his demeanor is fairly passive, and bumbling around women. His masculinity was kept in check. There's a hilarious scene at the end where the bad guy is exposed. Christoph takes after him, fists clenched, ready to unload some pain. Anna stops him, and instead punches the baddie herself, sending him flying off the ship into the water. They can't have male aggression! But just look at her tiny little wrists.
Counter to that, here are the Moana characters.
They couldn't display more sexual dimorphism if they tried. (I don't believe Moana is quite so muscular in the film.) She retains the normal princess features. The male is gargantuan, with biceps the size of her waist, beady eyes, a wide nose, and an enormous chin that is nearly as large as her whole head. Now, it might be that he's a demigod, so he has to be portrayed bigger than puny mortals, but Moana's father is also massive. What's interesting is that dimorphism is a K trait. K environments prefer strong fathers and nurturing mothers who can protect the child until they are able to face the harsh, competitive world. r strategy is to reproduce early and often, so their is no driving force for highly masculine men. Those women tend toward "bad boys" who exhibit r traits. Look at all the women who swooned over the recently deceased Charles Manson, who oozed r-selection but was very diminutive, barely five feet in height.
The question that arises is, is sexual dimorphism more acceptable when the characters are ethnic? It sure seems like it. Disney also showed a great divergence between Mulan and her army captain. It would sure fit the trend. Liberals complain endlessly about toxic masculinity and rape culture on college campuses, which is nonsense, yet defend it in the Muslim world. The left is before anything, even before being feminist, opposed to western culture and the white race. It's hard to imagine a caricature of masculinity like Maui being depicted for a white character. The character may have drawn extra masculinity because he is voiced by The Rock, a hyper masculine fellow who has recently said some pretty lefty things. Mortal sins like toxic masculinity can always be ignored for those who pledge allegiance to The Cult. I'd also note that the primary songwriter for the movie was lefty hero Lin-Manuel Miranda, the same guy who berated Vice President Pence at a showing of Hamilton for...being there, I guess. But this just goes to show you who's involved in the movie. The only two I'm familiar with are noted lefties. In a move praising r-selection. Go figure.
There is nothing that makes the movie unfit for consumption. Just keep in mind that it is largely centered around r values. Your kid isn't going to be forever converted to leftism because she watched Moana. Still, it's a sign of the mindsets of the people who make children's movies these days, and it's good to know about the subtle signals kids are receiving. My daughter loves Moana, but not nearly as much as the Lion King. I'll take that. There's nothing wrong with a movie praising Polynesian culture. This blog has already shown remorse at the destruction of the Hawaiian nation by global capitalism and democracy. They certainly deserve their own Disney movie, at the least. Still we must be mindful of the cultural signals being sent out to our littles, so that we may counter them. In this case, the Polynesian culture has been co-opted to deliver a lesson in favor of r-selection, even though their nation was destroyed because other people envied their resources. Moana was a story for r-selection, but reality a lesson against it.
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