purple stained heart

I saw Moana 2 as a Polynesian person. I thought it was INCREDIBLE. I know many people already don't really like it, but I think it's because THIS specific movie, they went harder on the Polynesian culture.

The music is even more Polynesian, and written pretty much solely by Polynesian people. The culture is even more included in it's narrative and in the details, they show more tattoos, the Kava ceremony, speaking more of the Pacific Islander native languages, even some the humor is very Polynesian humor.

I personally really enjoyed the storyline, and I liked that it introduced a "morally gray" character to help guide Moana into realizing that you have to just embrace what's given to you. It's a great representation of what the ocean is. It's sometimes not as reliable and friendly as Moana expects it to be, and has grown accustomed to. So when she asks for the ocean's help and receives no answer, she's better prepared to face it as it comes, and adapt, and embrace it.

Not only that, but in terms of Polynesian deities, there isn't just one "good" or "bad". There are complicated morally gray deities. Pele, for instance, is a goddess known for volcanoes and destruction, but she is also known as creation and rebirth. The Earth is scorched by the flames and lava to make way for new land and healthier vegetation.

The songs aren't as "memorable" to those who aren't fully embracing the culture. For me, I got chills hearing the music. It felt authentic and from the heart and soul of the Polynesian people who sang it. Sure, many outside of the culture can't "sing along" to it, but that doesn't make it inherently bad, just because it's not marketable TO YOU.

For someone who's waited forever to have representation, and grew up with Lilo and Stitch being the only one (which wasn't that much in terms of representation.) To then seeing Moana come out when I was 16, and cried then. For then Moana 2 to come out tonight, and I cried AGAIN at 24 years old. My inner child was so excited to hear and FEEL what that representation sounds like, looks like, and means.

The original Moana was tippy-toeing into Polynesian culture, where it could still be marketable so everyone could enjoy it. Because they didn't want it to flop. It feels the same as a Polynesian person having to cater to tourists who only see the Polynesian culture as something they can exploit and be entertained by.

That doesn't mean that it was bad, it was moving tides in that time, and I would take that representation over the crumbs we've had before.

But this movie? Moana 2? This was for US. This was for the Polynesian cultures. This felt like a love letter to us, as a culture, to unite and know that we have community, and to feel seen, in all of our glory, and not a watered-down version to be "marketable" to others outside of our culture.

So, I expect people to not like it. But I also expect it to be because it's coming from a place where they don't understand how it feels to experience, love, embrace, learn, and educate others about Polynesian culture.

I love my culture, and I love my Polynesian siblings as a Kanaka Hawaiian. I love my Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan, etc. siblings. I love seeing a mix of all of our cultures come together and be represented.

For those who aren't a part of our culture, truly listen to our history and our struggles and successes. Educate yourself on how to be a better ally and find cultural appreciation (not appropriation) for our culture. We are real people with real stories. Not some fictional character (or Halloween costume/party favor/etc.) you can write off and only look at as "entertainment" and can only hold value when we're catering to you. That includes our music, our language, our dances, and our stories.

It exists in a world where a joke about bringing a nail gun to the Eras tour to shoot fans gets 400k likes on TikTok, or where a reel about crashing a plane full of Swifties gets 200k likes on Instagram. It exists in a world where, on this very website, the one that promotes itself as rational and reasonable, someone says that "Taylor Swift and her fans should all die violent horrible deaths" and people applauded it. It exists in a world where, during TTPD release week men were in Swifties' comment sections declaring they would beat their daughters and girlfriends if they ever so much as listened to one of her albums. And it exists in a world where this week, fans of a TV show (which I will not name because that is not the point) sent death threats to a girl on Twitter for daring to be a fan of both their beloved show and Taylor Swift.

I don't give a fuck what your opinion of Taylor Swift is. I don't care if you think her music is grating, I don't care if you think she is the worst thing to happen to humanity since Eve ate the god damn apple. This is the dark side of stan culture that no-one talks about; where dislike of an artist becomes so obsessive that it becomes normal, even funny, to joke about killing their fans, because "it's just online, it's just a joke". It isn't. It is rarely ever "just online".

And yes I am going to be That Person and say that you can complain about Swift's brand of feminism and debate her position as a feminist icon all day long, at the end of the day, her name is still synonymous with girls. It doesn't take a genius to work out who this event was geared at.

I am not going to sit and claim that by simply not liking Taylor Swift you directly caused this. I would encourage you to step back, look at the bigger picture of stan culture, including obsessive dislike of an artist, and ask yourself how much this culture has enabled this. If making jokes on tiktok about killing someone over a pop star is normalised, how much of a leap is it to attacking kids with a knife at a fan event?

Taylor Swift || The Eras Tour || Stockholm Night 1 (17 May 2024)