MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Aladdin and Pocahontas, as two of the first Disney films to feature protagonists of color and non-European cultures, appear to represent progress for racial and cultural representation in animated film. However, these films also come from and reproduce the cultural project of Whiteness, and present Western value structures as morally superior. “A Good Soul and Handsome Too” argues that Aladdin and Pocahontas use a triangulation of protagonist(s), villain, and preservationist antagonists in order to validate White hegemonic cisheteropatriarchal “good bodies” and Western “good values.” By setting the protagonist against these two different types of opposing forces, the films highlight different aspects of their moral-visual universes, and make implicit arguments about who can vocalize what kind of desires and then act on them while retaining positive moral positioning in the films’ presentation. Within the moral universes of these two films, the preservationist antagonist represents non-Western values and is set in opposition to the protagonist as a heroic individualist, while the evil villain represents deviation from the hegemonic ideal and is set in opposition to the protagonist as a good moral body. Examining the operations of visual and textual character relationships in Aladdin and Pocahontas illuminates the ways that moral codes are as much about hegemonic ideals as they are about behavior. Taking these films as case studies for how a dominant culture maintains dominance, “A Good Soul and Handsome Too” explores intersections of gender, race, morality, aesthetics, and culture within Aladdin and Pocahontas.