Historical Trauma and Healing in Disneys Moana

Disneys newest princess film, Moana is an exquisite piece of entertainment and fun
it also happens to asks real questions about historical trauma, race, and recovery. The movies
titular character, Moana, is Disneys first Polynesian princessa spirited and open-hearted girl
who feels the ocean calling to her from beyond the safety of her islands reef. After her village
is contaminated by the blight of the lava monster Te K, she sails away in defiance of her
fathers wishes to find the demi-god Maui. The young girl and demi-god together set sail to
restore the stolen heart of the goddess Te fiti, and bring balance to the natural world. The
characters and monsters in Moana are based loosely on ancient Polynesian mythology, but the
ending of Moana speaks to a much more recent history of white colonization, internalized rage,
and grief passed from generation to generation. The films big reveal (GIANT SPOILER
WARNINGread no further if you have not yet seen the movie) is that the lava monster Te K
and the earth goddess Te fiti are one and the same. The villain of the movie is not a monstrous
or white alien other, but rather a powerful goddess of life transformed by rage following the
theft of her treasured heart into a destructive force that jeopardizes the existence of the very
people who revere her. With this revelation in mind, the villain of Moana can easily be
interpreted as the personified grief of a people stripped of their cultural center, which when
directed internally can result in self-destructive and violent behaviors.
Psychologists since the late 1980s have used historical trauma theory as a framework
for understanding self-destructive of behavioral patterns in some Native peoples. The theory
suggests that the increased rates of depression, domestic violence, dysfunctional parenting and
substance use disorders in some Native populations may be the consequences of cross-
generational grief symptoms originating from historical loss of land, life, and culture. More
recent scholarship amends this theory by adding that on-going segregation and discrimination

also likely contribute to the increased morbidity in some of these communities, but historical
trauma theory remains a useful device for understanding and healing many psychological
wounds. Whether or not Disney intentionally meant for their latest movie to touch on issues of
historical trauma is unclear. In an interview with Buzzfeed, Osnat Schurer who was a producer
on the film indicated that the final fight was not so much between humans and their history,
but rather between humans and nature saying, The idea that what we perceive as the villain of
the film is actually nature wronged was always an idea that we had, and wanted to build
toward. It ties back to everything we learned when we spent time in the [Pacific] Islands.
However, Schurer goes on to say, but the root is within the culture. Statements like these
suggest that the Disney team may have erroneously conflated the idea of nature wronged
with people wronged. It is, after all much easier to sell a narrative of natives in touch with
nature than the more unsettling truth of white colonization and destruction.

Regardless of the Disney teams intent, cultural tensions are very much present in the
films ending through both covert and overt references onscreen. As Moana recognizes that the
lava monster Te K is actually the island deity Te fiti, she calmly walks toward the monster
singing in English over a chorus of voices singing in the Tuvalu language:

Loimata e maligi
I have crossed the horizon to find you
Toku loto fanoanoa
I know your name
Ko galo atu
[May] have stolen the heart from inside you
A fakapelepele
But this does not define you
Ko galo atu
This is not who you are
You know who you are.


It is worth noting that while the official Disney songbook lyrics are unavailable online, several
websites including USA today cite the 3rd line as They not May in reference to the stolen
heart of Te fiti. This collective mis-hearing or mondegreen speaks to an interpretation of the
ending in which an unidentified plural other has stolen the heart of Te fiti instead of the demi-
god Maui who admits to taking the heart earlier in the film. Whether of not the lyric is They or
May, the subject responsible for stealing the heart is left ambiguous. Who this subject might be
becomes clearer when we consider the translation of the Tavulu interspersed with Moanas
song. The lyrics are in fact from another song, written in 2002 by the band Te Vaka following
the tragic loss of 19 young women in a fire in a boarding school on the island of Vaitupu. The
translation is as follows:


Let the tears fall down
(Loimata e maligi)

My heart is full of sorrow,
(Toku loto fanoanoa)

For we have lost many loved ones (Ko galo atu/ A fakapelepele)

For we have lost.
(Ko galo atu)


Although the Tavulu words may originally have been written to commemorate a specific
modern-day tragedy, when interspersed with Moanas own plea to Te Fiti the words take on a
far greater cultural significance. Te Fitis loss is the loss of many loved ones, not just her own
center. Her heart is an emblem representing thousands of men and women, and its theft
symbolizes tremendous cultural loss following colonization. The ambiguous They in Moanas
song is perhaps the films only reference to the white, alien other responsible for the hearts
theft and by extension the unfathomable damage to the people of the Pacific Islands.

Moanas song, however sorrowful, also suggests a path to recovery. Her simple but
powerful statement that the hearts theft does not define you, emphasizes that the loss of
culture does not define the culture itself nor does the anger following such a loss represent the
culture that was stolen away. As she restores the heart of the deity saying you know who you
are, the lava monster Te K shares a moment of hongi with Moana, a Mori ceremonial
gesture of sharing breath, and is transformed back into the green goddess Te fiti. The action
suggests that knowing who you are is synchronistic with restoring your heart, and by extension
healing from tremendous loss. In Moanas case, knowing who she is includes participating in an
ancient ritual of the Mori people, suggesting that participating in her own cultural heritage is
itself key to knowing who she is as an individual. The natural extension of this argument is that
participation in cultural ritual is an act of re-discovering who you are, and is necessary to heal
from cultural loss.
The theme of re-discovering ones own culture as a path towards healing is indeed
interwoven throughout the film. A key plot point early in the movie is Moanas discovery that
her people were once voyagers in great ships that sailed across vast stretches of ocean from
island to island. Her father, the village chief, has since walled off these ships in a stone cave
and forbidden his daughter from learning to sail. It is notable that the actor playing Moanas
father, Temuera Morrison, is of Mori descent and is one of the few characters in the movie
with a noticeably Mori/Kiwi accent. With that in mind, it is also important to consider that

between 1867 and 1969, many Mori children were educated in so-called native schools
established by the crown of England, in which children were taught English-only curriculum and
were punished for speaking their native language. Here through their casting choices Disney
again perhaps unintentionally references cross-geneerational historical trauma such as the
programmatic deprivation of cultural knowledge from children and child abuse.
Moana is only able to save her island by defying her father and learning how to sail from
the demi-god Maui. However, in doing so she learns that sailing or way-finding is less of a
skill for tying knots and raising sails, and more of an art of knowing where you are by seeing
where youve come from. That Moanas cultural heritage is linked to navigation gives a few
lines her grandmother sings later in the film a deeper meaning, Sometimes the world seems
against you/The journey can leave a scar/ But scars can heal and reveal just/Where you
areMoana listen/Do you know who you are? These few lines create a kind of fuzzy logic
connecting identity, the cultural heritage of navigation, and healing in one breath. Although
here healing the scar is actually what reveals where you are, the grandmothers question Do
you know who you are? at the end suggests that this order of cause and effect might be
reversible. Revealing where you are might in fact also result in healing the scar, and for Moana
finding where she is in space is actually an exercise in exploring her cultural heritage of
navigation and her sense of self. Therefore, it is by learning about her cultural heritage of
way-finding and later teaching her village how to sail as well that Moana is able to heal her
island and secure the future of her people. Yes, Moana is about a princess, but it is also about
healing cross-generational historical trauma and grief.