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The Moana movie showed partially some of the Pacific cultures and very interesting to watch. The songs sounds magical and very appropriate for the actions of the movie. However, the part of Maui the Semi God is like a joke, modernised Semi God and in some cultures of the Pacific they do not joke about the heritage of a culture because it shows disrespect. How does this fit in with a Western perceptive of what Pacific Island cultures beliefs are all about?

In talking about any indigenous culture, mainstream Western white culture talks about it in the past tense. People don't realize that people they've oppressed for generations are still fighting for their rights, beliefs, and practices. It's tragic how white culture talks about indigenous people in the past tense.

I don't think the makers meant any disrespect. They did a good job in introducing some aspects of the culture. most people never even heard of it till the movie.

I think that it's a fabulous movies for children's to watch as it's a movies for kids. It shows some natural good background view. It's songs were amazing and pleasant for listening.

The disney called moana is a native culture which shows what they live and where they lived. In order to know what are they doing in their culture, the beliefs of one another. The magical and mythycall world of nature.

I enjoyed the music from the movie. and the plot twist at the end. overall, it was a great movie.

Love this movie. It's beautiful and magical. The music was great. It was also very funny.

As a Pacific Islander, I think the movie was great and the Sun God Maui, was finely portrayed in human form.

That movie was really a bomb.I think it's wonderful and portrays the culture of the Pacific islanders

I think Disney is aware of their impact on American culture and about the importance of representation. They have certainly had a fair amount of cultural and racial faux pas in their older shorts and full-length features, notably Uncle Remus, Fantasia, and Dumbo. Their treatment of South Pacific culture in this movie was joyful, appreciative, and celebratory.

In Moana, they chose to represent girl who was also a leader at heart, not some damsel to be rescued, and who carried herself with strength and willpower, even facing overwhelming odds. Following in the footsteps of Frozen, it wasn't based on a romance but on an individual's relationship to herself and on the struggle between forging one's own path and one's responsibilities to the family and community. Maui, as a trickster deity, is subject to both great successes and great (sometimes hilarious) failures within Pacific Islander mythology; he was kept accessible for children, but still shown as a powerful being in his own right.

In my opinion, Moana was a lovely movie with an empowering message.

You said it perfectly AMRMullins. Moreover the songs give us an insight into Pacific culture as well. Like "Where you Are" and "You know the Way"

. This movie is very interesting to watch with family...

It is a children's movie. My niece enjoyed it thoroughly and looked at it numerous times. In fact, we always watch it.
Persons interested in learning more about the culture within the movie may research it. But this is a movie intended for kids and they just want a movie that holds their attention. The songs, the colours and all the characters were wonderful in doing so.

Because Maui is traditionally a trickster figure in legend, it feels appropriate to me that he be portrayed rather jokingly on occasion.

On another note, I once encountered a class of children in Hawaii (at least half of which were of Polynesian descent) all singing songs from the movie. Not that an absolute judgment could be drawn from this one example, but it seemed to me that they had a positive opinion of the film.

I don't think they meant any of it to be disrespectful.I know people have problems when they watch movies from their culture, I understand that the hollywood adaptations are very westernized and do not reflect the intricate details, but given that it is a children's movie, it was pretty good. I didn't know this culture or gods like maui before and learnt about it after I saw the movie. Plus, I liked a disney movie with a female lead that doesn't wait for a "Prince Charming" to rescue her.