2000 Giga bytes of true love and understanding
"Still I cannot see, if the savage one is me..How can there be so much that you don't know..You don't know...."
Pocahontas, Walt Disney: 1995
I woke up this morning and with nothing to do (as usual), I downloaded the 1995 Walt Disney cartoon Pocahontas and watched it all over again (I was annoyed at how much disc space it took up). Of course I saw things that I had not noticed earlier...things that have just come into perspective as I have grown. Perhaps it is understandable as I was just about twelve when the movie was released and as expected I was more enraptured by the movie's graphics, it's love story and even the very idea that it was another Disney cartoon...a child's fix at the time. Now as I watch the movie, I see what the movie's producers set out to achieve and its blatant message for adult understanding. It highlights the issues of difference and understanding laced with the complexities of modern society. The movie shows us that things haven't changed very much since the English set about conquering the world. It's protagonist, a beautiful young (What is now known as an American Indian) girl who is caught between the steady path that has been pre-ordained by the society she 
knows or unknown presented to her in the form of a beautiful stranger with white skin as she had never seen before. Of course, Disney seek to present to us the audience the problems of the world today as merely an issue of misunderstanding and mistrusting what we do not know and therefore regard as threatening however; the irony here remains the art of telling the story which sees the heroine conforming to western standards of beauty and even the musicology tampered with...I know for sure that American Indian music does not sound like Vanessa Williams doing a number.
Last night I watched Tribe on the BBC and was impressed by the presenter's Audacious visit to far flung ends of the earth. I must confess that I could not do half of what the man did on television, I just wonder if this has anything to do with where he comes from, who he is, where he is going...
Last week, L my manager announced in that grand patronising manner of hers that the department was to have a party this Wednesday as a result of our brilliant performance in the last month. I alongside some others snorted in the bathroom about it. We laughed at her ludicrous 
hairdo and silly declaration..."like that was what we were looking for, kpppsshhheewww (that was the hissing bit), its not like they would kuku bring proper food, it would just be that nonsense chips and sandwiches" Did it make a difference that all that were party to that conversation were Nigerians, or was that obvious?
Perhaps the movie producers were right. All the world needs is true love and understanding. Perhaps if we like the characters the producers sought to represent, just listened with our hearts we would understand. Perhaps if we thought in the bathroom that crisps and sandwiches were more suitable for an office party than rice and oily stew would be, we would not have been so harsh in our judgements (and all is conveniently away on holiday at the time). I don't know, can the world's problems truly be solved with true love and understanding? Meanwhile can someone tell me why
posted by internationalhome @ 1:12 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
You're right, all we need is love. However, to hope to achieve love as the basis of all communications is futile and probably naive; because all what we as humans do is simply identify our differences and probe them till they become issues to go to war over. Till now, the Catholics of Dublin are still killing the protestants of Belfast…the last time any of these protagonists entered a church is questionable. The reason for the war is irrelevant, the labels on the flags the warriors fly is all that matters, the reason for the label was lost a long time ago.
Let’s play tag: Before the eastern Europeans arrived in this country, the blacks and Asians were it. Before the blacks and Asians were it, the Irish were it. Before the Irish were it, the Scotts and the Welsh were it. Before the Scots and the Welsh were it, the French were it. Before the French were it, the Scoucers, Mancs and Gerodies were it. Before that? Who knows, but someone was definitely it. As stupid as it sounds, I’m firmly of the opinion that what we need in this world to put things into perspective is a way to show each and every single one of us that our "differences" and things we dispute on a daily basis are stupid stupid stupid. The day will come when a human being can look at me and not see a black man, but another human being - that day is when the mighty hostile Martians invade. They’re the only ones who we will unite as a human race to oppose.
Bring on the Martians - let’s revel in the brotherhood of man!!!
Unfortunately the people who could resolve the world's problems have either forgotten or else abandoned the two virtues you mention that have the ability to bring about a solution. The rest of us who have managed to hold on to those two positive qualities can barely resolve our own problems that face us on a day to day basis. However, we can try making that wee bit of a difference whenever we can. Maybe somewhere in the future those wee bits will add up to something substantial and resolve some future problem this world may confront. Ofcourse you and I will not be there to see it.
As for your other question... I too am just as confounded. You may want to take a look at what I posted.
An amusing set of ideas. Disney is the movie equivalent of the cross-over novel, as you rightly say: it grafts adult ideas onto infantile perceptions. The result? Can you imagine this cartoon with an authentic sound-track? What if Disney had devoted its film to her conversion to Christianity? Yep, that would have had the crowds lining up in single figures.The different representations of Pocahontas are
fascinating--even the desire to fake a Tudor portrait and create a more Romantic, sexual, Western image. Disney offers romantic solutions to ethical problems. Rather like, hey let's get the "tribe" on board and give them a party and pretend we are all happy together. "Patronising"--let's cover up the male fatherly put-downs by pretending we are happy children. Wow! And as for the latest conflict in the ME...well, not too far from your other parts...it's let's have a war party and follow our ideological cartoons. The human mind, rather like Disney, has an amazing lack of depth when it comes to human rights and murder.
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