Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 11, 1 November 2016 — Mana Moana, the Power of the Sea: A Native Response to Disney's Moana Mania [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mana Moana, the Power of the Sea: A Native Response to Disney's Moana Mania

By ku'ualoha ho'omanawanui

Over the past few months Disney has been slowly rolling out teasers for its forthcoming feature animated film "Moana" (known as Disneymoana, or DisMo on social media), and related products (Halloween costumes, toys, books). Just a eouple weeks ago, Hawaiian Airlines succumbed to Moana Mania. Who will be next? While some people are excited by such spectacular exposure of Paeihe cultures by Disney, a tsunami of criticism is also rising. There are ongoing international debates regarding DisMo across

social media by a number of Pacific peoples, Hawaiians included. Issues include cultural theft, appropriation, misrepresentation, commodification of sacredness, the process of eonsultation, and Native agency. While DisMo is fiction, the character Maui is not; he is a deity to many across Oeeania and a

revered ancestor for some. The sale of the grotesque DisMo Maui skin suit as a Halloween

costume provoked such outrage it was pulled from store shelves. Yet opinions on DisMo range from apathy, "it's just a cartoon," to gratitude, "we should be happy Disney is putting us on the map," to critiques by Native educators and cultural practitioners. Disney's clownish caricature of the heroic demi-god Maui is one we don't recognize from our traditional stories. Tongan anthropologist Teviti

Kaili notes that "one of the grand messages of Maui's stories is to advocate for justice by transforming society." DisMo, however, transforms the godly ancestor into a costume, a "onee great" obese buffoon who bizarrely, in Disney's warped narrative, causes darkness to descend upon the land and sea (rather than save us from darkness by capturing the sun). We are

already drowning in crass commercialization of our cultures through tourism. Now, with the wave of Tinkerbell's wand, we are cartoons exported on the big screen as fake as any Waiklkl tourist show, as casting calls are underway for the next cartoon ambas-

sadors, Moana and Maui, to greet you at Disney theme parks worldwide. Maybe

it's an intentional distraction from the massive militarization of the Paeilie, but that's another story. Or is it? This summer, an online petition asked Disney to "invest in our communities through our children" by providing a scholarship fund to support education for Paeilie youth. The petition received over 1,500 signatures. Disney never responded. A multibillion dollar

company, Disney has extracted one of our greatest resources, our stories, investing next to nothing in our communities in return. Mana Moana: We Are Moana, We Are Maui is a collective of Native artists, activists, cultural practitioners, filmmakers, and educators established with the goal of asserting our collective mana (spiritual power) as Native people. We challenge Disney's continuing appropriation of our ancestors, cultures, and stories, whieh began as early as their 1930s Mickey Mouse cartoons. The Mana Moana Facebookpage has a growing collection of articles, videos, photos, and memes. Anyone ean follow or join the larger discussion on Facebook: https:// www.facebook.com/manamoana wearemoanawearemaui/ and Twitter @WeAreManaMoana; hashtags #ManaMoana #WeAreMoana and #WeAreMaui ■

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Visit the Mana Moana Facebook page at www.facebook. com/manamoanawearemoanawearemaui for more discussion, articles, videos, photos and memes. - Photo: Courtesy