The Princess Production: Locating Pocahontas in Time and Place Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Ross, Angela Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 02/10/2021 20:51:52 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194511 THE PRINCESS PRODUCTION: LOCATING POCAHONTAS IN TIME AND PLACE by Angela M. Ross ________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE CULTURAL AND LITERARY STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Angela Ross entitled The Princess Production: Locating Pocahontas in Time and Place and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/03/2008 Susan White _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/03/2008 Laura Briggs _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/03/2008 Franci Washburn Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 11/03/2008 Dissertation Director: Susan White 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Angela Ross 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people who have helped me with my dissertation. First I want to thank my amazing committee, Drs. Susan White, Franci Washburn, and Laura Briggs. Their commitment to intellectual rigor helped shape my dissertation into a finished piece that is better than I thought it could ever be – undeniably better than it would have been without them. Susan White gifted me with her brilliant editing, as well as a finely honed oscillation between “tough love,” wit, and encouragement that kept me both productive and optimistic, and gave me a laugh when I needed one. Laura Briggs brought her discerning scholarly eye to my dissertation, always urging me to make my work stronger, and offering a wealth of suggestions to help me achieve that goal. Francie Washburn shared with me her immense knowledge of feminist and Native American scholarship, as well as her experience as a Native American woman scholar working in academia. In short, I couldn’t have asked for a better committee, and my gratitude to them is immense. I also want to thank the wonderful staff at Native American Student Affairs, who encouraged me and brightened my day. Karen Francis Begay and Amanda Tachine always believed I could achieve this goal, even when I didn’t believe it myself. Their kind words and big smiles kept me going. Dr. Maria Teresa Velez, dean of minority students, kept me going as well, with her belief in my project and her emotional and financial support. I couldn’t have accomplished this goal without my husband Aric. He was always there for me, helping me and believing in me. I also want to thank my wonderful friends Debra White-Stanley and Roger Adkins. Thank you, Roger for your intellectual camaraderie and fabulous sense of humor. Thank you, Debra for all of your great advice and emotional support. Lastly, I want to thank my family, especially my mother Sammy, my Aunt Pat, and my sister Treasure. They are smart, strong proud Native women, and I am proud to be part of their family. 5 DEDICATION To my husband Aric Villarreal, who gives me hope and purpose. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….…8 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….10 1. POCAHONTAS AS NATION……………………………………………....………28 Overview ……………………….………………………………………….......28 Noble savages, Indian Princesses, Squaws and White Heroes ……….……29 The Last of the Mohicans ………………………………………………….....32 Princesses Dying for the State ……………………………………………......35 Princesses Under Glass: A History of Native Americans in Film ……...….39 Captain John Smith and Pocahontas: Assimilation and the “Great Lady” …………………………………………………………………………..60 2. POCAHONTAS AS COMMODITY…………………..……………………………78 Overview …………………………………………………………………........78 Race, Gender, “History,” and Neocolonialism: Scholarly Response to Disney’s Pocahontas .........................................................................................79 Erased and De-raced: The Whitening of Disney’s Pocahontas ....................84 Pocahontas Products …………………………………………………….……94 The Making of Pocahontas and Animation Magazines ……...………….…..97 3. POCAHONTAS AS NATURE………………………...……..……………...…….105 Overview ……………….…………………………………………...…..……105 Understanding Malick’s Intellectual Heritage …………….…...…………107 How Malick’s Earlier Films Prefigure The New World ………………..…117 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued Pantheism, Pristine Vistas, and the Reinvented Self ……………………...118 New World, Same Narratives ……………………………………..………..132 Good Nature, Bad Civilization, and the Ugly Minimization of Economic Motive ………………………………………………………………….……..136 Pocahontas as Nature, Pocahontas as Land ……………..………………...140 John Smith: Great White Hero ……………………………………...……..142 The White Hero vs. The Gentleman Farmer ………………………………147 Pocahontas as the Emptied Signifier ……………………………………….148 Making the New World : Malick Conjures the Vanished Powhatans ….…151 Film Critics Reinforcing Cinematic Racism …………………...…………..156 4. POCAHONTAS AS NATIVE WOMAN RECLAIMED…………...………………161 Overview ……………………………….…………………………………….161 The Jamestown Expo and the Case of the Disappearing Princess …..…...163 Three Pocahontas Biographies …………………………………...………...173 Pocahontas and the World White Web: imdb.com and amazon.com …...190 Mad Magazine ’s “Hokeyhontas” ………………………..………………….192 Native American Responses to Disney’s Pocahontas …...............................195 Pocahontas, the Metonymical Princess ……………………………….……202 Pocahontas Reclaimed ……………………………………………...……….206 AFTERWORD………………………………………………………………………...213 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………217 8 ABSTRACT My dissertation, “The Princess Production: Locating Pocahontas in Time and Place,” critically evaluates the succession of representations of Pocahontas since her death in 1617. Pocahontas has become the prototypical “Indian Princess,” through which the indigenous “other” is mapped onto Eurocentric constructions of gender and race, and subsequently transformed into the object of desire to be colonized. Chapter One begins with an introduction to the Pocahontas myth, and continues with an overview of the representation of Native Americans in cinema. Given that Native Americans have been the subject of the romanticization of the passing frontier, then the image of Pocahontas, standing in for the gendered “virgin” frontier, has been problematically used to represent American nationhood. In the second chapter, I investigate the commodification of the image of Pocahontas, by way of a critical assessment of Disney’s Pocahontas (1995). Due to its extreme popularity and plethora of commercial tie-ins, this animated film was able to cement mainstream attitudes of Native Americans and especially of indigenous women. Critical discussion, however, was ameliorated through “politically correct” associations of Indians with ecological balance and moral purity versus European decadence. I analyze the symbolic association of Pocahontas with nature in Chapter Three, particularly in Terence Malick’s recent film The New World (2005), where this association is most blatant. Malick has been heavily influenced by such philosophers as Martin Heidegger, and his resulting romantic and pantheistic vision clouds gender difference and racial antagonism. The image of Pocahontas in The New World , therefore, 9 simply becomes a signifier for the grand impersonal workings of Nature. Finally, in Chapter Four, I discuss attempts by indigenous writers and groups to reappropriate Pocahontas for Native Americans, and I conclude that this is of strategic importance for transforming Indian identity. Since the image of Pocahontas has played such a large role in the shaping of mainstream attitudes and government policy toward Native Americans, then retrieving it from its colonial legacy will go a long way toward preserving Indian culture and identity in the future. 10 INTRODUCTION