“Consider the Coconut”: A Critical Analysis of the Tree of Life’s Fruit in Disney’s Moana

Abstract

[eng] This paper aims at developing a critical analysis of the coconut’s motif in Moana (2016) from a postcolonial perspective. Disney’s representation of the fruit and its cultural significance does not accurately reflect its status in Pacific societies, where the coconut is levelled as a venerated item in economy, religion, gastronomy and cultural practices. In the first section, I analyse how the mythological origin of the coconut provided by Disney does not coincide with traditional Oceanic stories but rather provides a distorted and commodified vision of the sacred fruit’s mythological tales. In the second section, I explore how Disney appropriates the coconut motif to perpetuate neocolonial visions of Polynesia, either as a tourist paradise or associating the fruit with negative perceptions of the Pacific region. The conclusion demonstrates that even though Moana inaugurated a new tendency regarding the depiction of Polynesia, the portrayal of aspects such as the coconut contributes to reinforcing neocolonial misrepresentations of the area.