Moana, and my recipe to a great Disney Princess

Character illustrations by Jin Kim

 

Let me begin to say, I'm so glad I watched MOANA on the big screen, despite the fact that it's far from being my favorite "Disney Princess" film. 

 

As someone who grew up with the Disney Renaissance of the 90s and embraced characters like Belle, Jane, and Esmeralda... I come to films with high expectations.  Now that the 21st Century has introduced more feminism to the female leads, sometimes their personality and motives are difficult to develop... much less please every little girl who's watching them!

 

Moana is the perfect example to how Disney worked hard to get the "sweet damsel in distress" princess out of their films, adding more cultural and emotional depth to the character and making the female the hero of her own story.  It's a far cry from films like Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin, where the princess shows up like a reward for the young male hero.  Don't get me wrong, I love Aurora and Jasmine, but their characters could've been much more intriguing if the guy hadn't shown up so quickly to steal their hearts.  Jasmine was ready to see the world as a commoner, and Aurora was enjoying her life in the woods, unaware of her birthright.  It's like all of a sudden, their motive is to find the man they just met and marry him, and we're left without knowing what true potential they had as independent girls. 

 

In other films, like The Princess and the Frog and Beauty and the Beast, I was delighted to see the ordinary girl take control of her own fate, not care about how society saw her or what dangers were put in her path... and then happily marry into royalty to delight the fans.  Cinderella is of course the classic "rags to riches" Princess story, but I will argue that unlike Belle or Tiana, she kept herself in a terrible situation and waited to be rescued by others (first by the Fairy Godmother, then the Prince), not giving herself the chance to see what she could accomplish on her own.  She was fine being a maid to her horrible step-family as they mooched off of her inheritance.  How is that okay?  And how is that a positive message to young girls, that as long as your wait your time with terrible people, someday you'll be rescued and rewarded for it?  Rapunzel from Tangled shares a similar storyline, where she's fine being a prisoner in a tower while her horrible mother mooches off of her hair power.  It's not until a guy shows up that Rapunzel sees a way out. 

 

On the other hand, giving a girl enough spunkiness to defy her parents isn't always the recipe for a great character either.  Take a look at Merida from Disney/Pixar's BRAVE.  Here we have a girl who is, yes, outgoing and unladylike, and happily not looking to please her mother with a marriage proposal... but... what exactly does she want to do, then?  Ride horses and shoot arrows until she's eighty?  What's the story for Merida?  The conflict of the film is difficult to interpret, but I went with "she isn't the lady-like princess her mother wants her to be."  So how do we resolve that conflict?  Turn the mother into a Bear.  Problem solved?  Not really... but it makes for a fun, entertaining movie.  The big question for me was, okay... Merida doesn't want to marry, and is yet bound to inherit this kingdom.  Can she still rule as a lone female?  Having her deal with her Princess duties (perhaps with some type of war plot) and prove to her parents that she could do it independently would've been a greater (Braver?) storyline.  But I guess Disney execs wanted something on the lighter end.

Frozen introduced us to the Double-Spunky-not-playing-by-the-rules-Disney-Princess film that successfully worked, with neither Princess outshining the other and yet having different personalities.  Elsa is the mature yet conflicted princess with powers she can't control, thus giving her a lack of confidence.  She's not ready to marry anyone either, and she's inheriting a kingdom!  Anna is full of confidence and loves exactly what she's all about, yet she falls for the classic Disney trap of swooning over a guy she just meets, eventually learning from that mistake.  What's great about this film is that Elsa and Anna complement each other well as best friends, and so the story is about choosing unconditional love over romantic love, and accepting yourself for who you are.  It's a breath of fresh icy air from the usual lone-Princess story that has that character accepting her identity through a love interest.
 

So... knowing that sometimes it's hard to write independent, heroic princesses even at this day and age... I'll get to what I liked about the character of Moana, and incidentally, what I consider great ingredients to a Disney Princess:

• She's kind and respectful. These are really the core qualities to any memorable female Disney Princess, and I don't like taking them for granted.  The fact that Moana is kind to animals, to her grandmother, even to her father who constantly butts heads with her... she respects every living thing that she surrounds herself with.  She's not spoiled, either, which is GLORIOUS!
• She gets herself out of her own undesirable situation.  Any Disney Princess who sits around with hobbies and waits for life to take a different course on her is not at the top of my list.  Moana made pretty damn sure that she would find time to launch that boat and go on her quest, in spite of how much her father told her not to.
• She shows great work ethic and leadership skills.  Moana would inherit the tribe after her father without a marriage proposal even mentioned (awesome!), and at the start of the film, you see her working hard to know her people's ways.  Of course, she doesn't know all the answers, but she is passionate about her culture, her heritage, her family... and in the film, you can tell she is persistent in learning what's best for the tribe.  You go girl!
• She sees herself as enough before she finds romance.  Basically, it's the fact that many Disney princesses meet a man and instantly make individual choices based on that sole romantic encounter.  I like my Disney Princess accepting everything about herself, first, and realizing she's cool enough as a single woman before choosing to love someone else.  Moana knew she wanted to be out in the ocean as a free-spirited girl, accepted that about herself, and made it work as a princess with responsibilities.  And she hasn't fallen in love yet!
• She is NOT resolving conflict by herself.  What's sad about a lot of Disney Princesses is they get emotionally thrown to the side without any real friends to help counsel their issues.  Jasmine, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel... if it had not been for a their animal friends to comfort them, where would they be?  But animal friends who can't speak back to you isn't as effective as having a human/semi-human friend to help talk you through the tough stuff.  In this case Moana has Maui... who at times gets really annoying with his glorified and self-centered persona, but there are moments in the film where he's encouraging her to show her tough side.  And by the end of the film, they are a great team.

Overall... MOANA reminded me of what I look for with great Disney Princesses, but I'll say that the film itself could've had better elements to its story.  It was missing a real memorable villain - like Maleficent, or Frollo - that could've easily challenged young Moana's confidence and torn it to pieces.  The music was lovely and upbeat - I don't expect anything less from Lin Manuel Miranda! - but I definitely wished for more songs, and a more memorable Villain song!   Story-wise, the first third of the film was perfect.  It introduced you to the island, the tribe, the world Moana is living in. And then the rest of the film is "Moana and Maui's big adventure on a boat"... and I had to press the snooze button on my mind to stay interested.  I wanted more monsters, more dangerous moments for out characters, but overall I was pretty sure they would both make it out alive and back to the island in one piece.  The animation was lovely - especially seeing the tropical colors and the way water moved! - but really... there was so much more story potential if we had brought some more characters along Moana and Maui's adventure. 

But... that's just me.