Netflix has rewritten its description of Disney film Pocahontas after someone with way too much time on their hands accused them of sexism and reinforcing gender stereotypes.
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In a post on the Native Appropriations website, writer Adrienne Keene wrote:
The description reads like a porn or a bad romance novel … The use of “woman” and “yearns” is so … gross. Shudder. The problem? It overly sexualises the film, and only positions Pocahontas in relation to her romantic options, not as a human being, you know, doing things
I also want to make explicit the colonial white supremacy embedded in this description as well — of course Pocahontas wouldn’t be content with her backwards Native ways with her Native man … she yearns for something more. SPOILER ALERT: It’s a white dude.
Apparently Pocahontas is on @netflix now. Can we talk about this description? pic.twitter.com/tjaqRY9gs8
— Adrienne Keene (@NativeApprops) September 1, 2015
A week later she received an e-mail from Netflix, which she posted on Twitter. It read:
We do our best to accurately portray the plot and tone of the content we’re presenting, and in this case you were right to point out that we could do better. The synopsis has been updated to better reflect Pocahontas’ active role and to remove the suggestion that John Smith was her ultimate goal.
So in the end the synopsis went from:
An American Indian woman is supposed to marry the village’s best warrior, but she yearns for something more — and soon meets Capt. John Smith.
To:
A young American Indian girl tries to follow her heart and protect her tribe when settlers arrive and threaten the land she loves.
Keene added:
I am not railing against the film Pocahontas, which I can save for another time, but a discussion of the importance of the words we use, and the ways that insidious stereotypes and harmful representations sneak in to our everyday lives.
We’ve called out some stunning fake outrages in our time, but this one might just take the biscuit. Being so offended over the one sentence description of a 20 year old Disney movie on Netflix. Who has the time to feel so strongly about shit like this? It should be impossible.
Not to mention that Pocahontas did yearn for something better, and it was John Smith in the context of the movie. That’s just the truth. She was being forced into a relationship she didn’t want and so found a way out of it with a man who happened to be from another country. So what? What’s sexist about that?
Congrats to Adrienne Keene though, sounds like it was a real massive accomplishment for her.
