This study analyzed girls' reactions to Disney's animatedfeature film "Pocahontas" in light of conclusions drawn from a previouscritical textual analysis of the movie. The research addressed threequestions:(1) how do Disney's claims to creation of positive prosocialrepresentations of women and Native Americans in the movie "Pocahontas" holdup or collapse when viewed from a critical perspective which takes gender andclass into account? (2) how do girls of different ethnic, socioeconomic, andgeographic backgrounds relate to the romanticized story Disney has chosen totell? and (3) how do the girls' responses to the movie compare between groupsand with those of the researcher? Participants, ages 9 to 13, weremiddle-class Euro-American girls from a midwestern university town, urbanworking-class Native American girls from a large midwestern city, and girlsof working-class families from a rural reservation in the southwest with oneNative American parent and one Euro-American parent. Results from the focusgroups with participants indicated that although there were points ofagreement, in general, the girls' responses and attitudes toward the movievaried widely both between the groups and with respect to the researcher'sconclusions about the movie. While the Euro-American girls produced a readingthat could be labeled as "negotiated" in some respects, they appeared toaccept the colonialist lessons learned about U.S. history and to view themovie as somewhat comical. For the urban Native American girls, "Pocahontas"was an important movie to which they related strongly. The Native Americangirls from the rural reservation were not as enthusiastic about the movie,perhaps because the culture of their daily lives strengthens their personaland cultural identities in such a way as to make media representations ofNative Americans less significant for them.(This report includes backgroundinformation concerning the story of the historical figure Pocahontas and theDisney movie based on her, followed by a textual analysis of the movie.
Contains 19 references.)(EV)