Washed Out and Stereotyped

Rating: 3/10 (29 January 2006)

I thought that Walt Disney's Pocahontas was bad, inaccurate and watered down. But it did have an excuse, it was a cartoon for children after all. After watching The New World in a near empty theater I discovered an entirely new realm of mental anguish and true physical pain. Instead of setting this movie in its actual time line we get eternal summer. Now we have the white Europeans who can't fend for themselves. This only makes sense in the true time line where they arrive in winter. The European genocide started the day they stepped off of the boat bringing with them syphilis and small pox. But I guess this image does not fit with the directors romantic images.
Then we have the "naturals" frolicking in the woods being one with nature. Why this image has gained such purchase in the modern world is beyond me. Their lives were more harsh. Entire summers were spent fishing, hunting and preparing for winter survival. Pocahontas would have been too busy drying fish and gathering berry's for this much frolicking. Why aboriginal people have grasped this image and continue to perpetuate it is beyond me.
After one hour of the movie, the eight people in the theater had dwindled down to only myself and my partner(who is aboriginal). Maybe we are spoiled. We live in a community where nature surrounds us. The horrible wince inducing voice overs. This movie is a Coffee Table book, all pretty pictures with no substance.