Did you hear about how a self-appointed political correctness activist forced Netflix to rewrite their synopsis of the plot of a Disney movie?
You can’t make this up.
According to The Guardian, one Dr. Adrienne Keene, author of a book titled Native Appropriations, took offense to the following description the streaming-movie service gave for the 1995 Disney movie Pocahontas:
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.
Keene wrote in a blog that the Netflix film blurb “reads like a porn or a bad romance novel… The use of “woman” and “yearns” is so… gross.”
Keene describes herself as Cherokee Indian and on Twitter complained the blurb promoted the sexualization of women and “only positions Pocahontas in relation to her romantic options, not as a human being, you know, doing things.”
She added:
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. Of course. It’s perpetuating the idea that white colonizers are better, more than, and the solution to Native savagery.
Netflix replied to Keene’s rant by offering an apology and writing a new movie description. Here’s their mea culpa:
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.
And the new synopsis reads as follows:
A young American Indian girl tries to follow her heart and protect her tribe when settlers arrive and threaten the land she loves.
Keene was pleased with the new wording and was glad to have made a point “draw attention to the importance of the words we use, and the ways that insidious stereotypes and harmful representations sneak into our everyday lives.”
