Moana - a stitch in the tapestry, or a cut in the fabric?

Island life

Disney’s Moana has been highly acclaimed for its masterful fairytale narrative, its respectful approach to the polynesian culture, and its compelling and well rounded characters. Moana herself is bold and inspiring and the motives that drive the plot are compelling. However, what is most interesting about the film is the way in which Moana’s story develops and what ultimately gives her the strength to finish what she starts.

Moana is a polynesian princess, raised on an island to take her father’s place as leader of her people. She is contained and her life is pre-defined. The island paradise we’re presented with is portrayed as restricted and, despite the beauty, somewhat stifling. Simply put, Moana is not free. The song, Where You Are literally states:

That’s right we stay

We’re safe and we’re well provided

And when we look to the future

There you are

Moana is under pressure to fill the role that has been assigned to her, very much like other Disney princesses. Their domestic entrapment, where they are expected to follow pre-defined paths that are assured to bring them happiness, is what unites them, as does their desire to escape. Belle is expected to stay in her town but wants adventure in the great wide somewhere, Pocahontas is meant to marry Kocoum but dreams of what’s around the riverbend, Ariel wants to be where the people are and Ana is just happy to have some form of human interaction. In the meanwhile, Moana is called by the line where the sky meets the sea and eventually takes adventure into her own hands.

The escape

The motive for Moana’s escape is typically selfless. While Belle races off to rescue her father, Mulan goes to war in the place of hers and Ana leaves in search of her sister, Moana leaves to return the heart of Te Fiti and ensure the survival of her people (the one who stands out here is Ariel, who leaves because her father upset the balance of her kleptomaniacal brain by destroying everything she’d hoarded).

It’s Moana’s dying grandmother who directs her quest, and it’s her ancestors who provide the means. She takes one of her people’s ancient boats and goes in search of Maui, a demigod who is said to have stolen the heart of Te Fiti and started the cycle of destruction that threatens Moana’s world.

The journey

The first stop on Moana’s journey is Maui’s island. She must find him and convince him to undo the damage he has caused. But instead of helping her, Maui does everything he can to derail her mission. Like Belle, whose fate rests in the hands of an unknown psychopath, and Ariel, whose survival depends on the unsure emotions of a prince, Moana’s success does appear to be in the hands of an egotistical and selfish male.

However, Moana’s true mission is never far from her mind and she sticks with him despite his best efforts, determined to make him fulfil the role that she has ascribed to him. This is in direct contrast with Belle, who even after escaping her village finds herself fulfilling a predefined role as the awaited woman who will break the spell. Towards the crisis-point in the story Maui and Belle take on similar functions inasmuch as they are both required to fit into a story that is not their own, they both leave just when they’re needed most, and they both return of their own free will to aid the hero and save the day.

Unlike the Beast, however, Maui’s departure does not signal the end for Moana. Instead it prompts her to focus her journey inwards.

The revelation

The most powerful moment in Moana comes after Maui has unceremoniously left her and her people to their fate. Moana is then visited by her grandmother, who asks her one simple question: do you know who you are?

This inspires a moment of introspection in Moana, and as she reflects on the various elements pulling her in different directions, her island, her people, her ancestors, the sea, she realises something very important. In that moment Moana realises that the biggest reason for her to finish what she has started is herself.

And the call isn't out there at all, it's inside me

It's like the tide; always falling and rising

I will carry you here in my heart you'll remind me

That come what may

I know the way

I am Moana!

In that one crescendo she acknowledges that while her people and her ancestors may be contributing factors in why she’s doing what she’s doing, the biggest factor is her own self-interest. Her people may have needed her to go on her mission, but she always wanted to go. Her ancestors may have voyaged, but she has journeyed further, and still the call is strong. It’s in that moment that she realises that she is the key to her own success, not Maui, not her lineage, but herself.

This self-driven motive is unique to Moana’s story arc. Belle and Mulan are driven by their fathers and their love interests, Pocahontas and Ariel are driven by their love interests alone, and Ana is driven by her love for her sister. Only Moana admits that her call to adventure is on no one else’s shoulders but her own.

With this knowledge and responsibility she finds the resolve to right Maui’s wrongs for herself.

Moana’s power

Moana’s journey is about discovering her own power, and that power isn’t based on her beauty or her feminine powers of persuasion as it is for Belle, Pocahontas and Ariel, but a true and independent magical power of her own.

In the opening scene of the film we see her, as a toddler, chasing shells into the water, which recedes as she moves. It’s here that she discovers the heart of Te Fiti, a glowing pebble that catches her attention. However, during Moana’s first escape attempt her boat is capsized by a large wave and she almost drowns. Following this we know that Moana has some power over the sea, but it’s unclear how much control she has.

As a child raised on an island and prevented from going near the water, it’s unsurprising that she hasn’t learned to maximise her potential. Moana has been stifled just as Elsa’s powers were concealed, until the powers of both future queens burst out of the pre-defined roles forced upon them by their families.

Moana’s journey with Maui has tested her abilities and her resolve, but she always assumed that success in her mission depended on him. However, after her revelation she is truly freed from the expectations and assumptions of others, including herself. Her father expects her to be helpless once she leaves the island, her grandmother assumes that Maui is the key to her mission, and Maui expects her to fail once he leaves her.

For this reason, Moana, acting on behalf of her people, who are yet to consider her a leader, on behalf of her father, who considers her to be helpless, her ancestors, who left the sea, and the sea itself, which in indifferent to her better interests, believes that the success of her mission lies in Maui.

Until Moana shrugs away these limitations on her potential, she is unable to discover the extent of her true powers, which need no input from anyone external to herself.   

The heart of the issue

After Maui stole the heart of Te Fiti, and the heart was taken and hidden by the sea, the island collapsed in on itself and released the lava monster Te Ka. In the film Te Ka transforms back into Te Fiti once Moana, a human manifestation of the sea, has returned her heart. Te Fiti then reestablishes herself as the island paradise she once was and balance is restored. Once Moana realises that Te Ka and Te Fiti are the same, just changed, Moana’s newfound self knowledge enables her to finally own her powers and complete her task.

Moana literally parts the sea, allowing her to walk towards Te Ka, and just as her grandmother asked Moana to define herself instead of letting others do it for her, Moana says:

I have crossed the horizon to find you

I know your name

They have stolen the heart from inside you

But this does not define you

This is not who you are

You know who you are

At this point there is a true connection between the characters in both power and origin. The lava monster come earth goddess facing off against a girl who has control over the sea, brought to an understanding by a common history of being defined by others who sought to shape their lives in a way that compromised their true natures.

The incomplete and influenced Te Ka is violent and unstable, lashing out and damaging the world around her. However, when Te Ka and Moana connect we realise that her behaviour is directed towards the cause of her anguish, which is Maui, and not towards Moana at all. In this moment it becomes clear that Maui’s role in Moana’s journey has always been peripheral. He never had the power to set things straight because only Moana, with her control over the sea, could reclaim the heart and return it to Te Fiti. And only Moana could part the waves, allowing Te Ka to cross the sea and return to her island.

Te Ka is able to heal when she remembers herself as she truly is. In this restoration she isn’t required to forgive Maui for what he did, instead what he did becomes irrelevant to her. His actions no longer define her character and she regains her power free of the influence of his violation.

In all of these ways Moana stands alone, and by standing alone in her mission she also stands alone as a representation of true power in the Disney princess tapestry. Even Elsa, who is undoubtedly powerful, requires true love to reverse the damage she is capable of wreaking. And the true love she finds isn’t a true love for herself, but a true love for her sister. Traditionally and typically, it’s love that tempers Elsa’s inner storm and brings balance to the ecosystem around her. In contrast, Moana can accept that she loves her island and her people and her ancestral heritage, but she is neither powered nor tempered by them. Only Moana controls Moana, and that gives her the power to cut through both the waves or the tapestry, even if she chooses to sail on top of the waves or add a stitch of her own to the ongoing tradition.