From Texas to Aotearoa: the Indigenous Turn to Communal Identity and Respect for Tradition in Disney's Moana

Abstract

Disney's Polynesian Moana neatly follows Disney's archetypical and Universalist "self-discovery" plot structure. Such an act might be seen as an example of colonial cultural appropriation by westernizing an indigenous story. However, the film inverts the westernized plot structure by challenging western individualism with its heroine's anchoring of her identity in community and cultural tradition, thereby indigenizing Disney's usual plot archetype.