The Politics: Redemption Song

Considering all of the Disney songs from Disney films that get stuck in your head for hours on end and for all the racist and sexist propaganda that comes with them, Pocahontas holds perhaps one of Disney’s few redemptions. This redeeming moment in Disney Princess film history does not warrant the forgiveness of all its other crimes. Take a listen to the song below and follow along as I dissect how this film uses the song ‘Colors of the Wind’ to make political commentary on the wrongs of colonialism.

Colors Of The Wind

You think I'm just an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places; I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see, if the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know?
You don't know...
Disney, through Pocahontas questions the historical claim to the savagery of difference that was used to justify the colonization of the United States and other places. The question she poses in the above verse is: who is the real savage?

You think you own whatever land you land on
The earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name.
Her appeal to her link to nature is what was regarded as savagery to the English colonizer, as stated in another song from the film; the Indians were seen as ‘savages, barely even human,’ whether or not this is actually savage is the question that this film exposes.

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew
Here Pocahontas highlights that an unwillingness and inability to understand difference not as bad, but as difference. This verse begs that people try to understand and empathise with one another rather than judging them for an ignorance that they too possess.

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sun-sweet berries of the earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle in a loop that never ends

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or let the eagle tell you were he's been
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind?

How high does a sycamore grow?
If you cut it down then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountain
We need to paint with all the colours of the wind

You can own the earth and still
All you'll own is earth until
You can paint with all the colours of the wind.

Each of the preceding verses talks about colonialisms destruction of nature, or people. The destruction of a civilization because the colonizer never tried to ‘paint with all the colours of the wind,’ meaning understand the place they invaded.