How “Moana” is the Conscious Canary in the Coal Mine
“Climate Crisis, Climate Crisis!”
*This analysis is filled with s p o i l e r s
Cli-fi “media” (Climate Fiction): the relatively new and emerging subgenre.
It’s the kind of thing you see in Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, book-wise. In the movie world, you’ll find Cli-fi in “WALL-E,” “Interstellar,” and even “Kingsman.”
However, Moana is more obviously centered in this genre than most of the works I just mentioned.
Moana is the princess of a Polynesian island that is quickly being desecrated by an ominous “Darkness”. Only by finding her courage and demi-god Maui can she save her homeland. She must gain the strength to fight The Darkness by finding her identity. Then, she can help Maui find his so they can work together to restore the heart of Te Fiti, returning her power to create life. Only this will stop The Darkness from destroying the only home she’s ever known.
With “The Darkness,” Moana establishes that it’s not only a story about finding one’s identity in a collective society, but about an island nation struggling to continue its way of life through the tipping point of environmental catastrophe. And, how that catastrophe can be averted.
A note: In this review, I’m omitting analysis pertaining to caricatures about Pacific peoples, wrongful and stereotypical depictions of Maui, and cultural appropriation, and histories of colonialism and neocolonialism for the sake of length and clarity. But if you want to read about it, visit this website.
And yes, Moana as a story about native peoples fighting environmental catastrophe is heavily romanticized. But that’s beside my point. This particular analysis is about what the movie’s message was trying to be, despite its obvious and not-so-obvious failings.
Moana is one set apart from the rest of her village: not easily scared and itching for adventure. As village Chief Tui’s daughter, both her community— and her father — expect her to assume the role of service to her homeland as Princess. She must help them sustain their current way of life: subsistence agriculture on their island called “Montunui,” a fictitious island located somewhere in Polynesia.
However, she yearns for the ocean and to go beyond the reef.
Her grandmother, the self-proclaimed village eccentric, encourages and guides Moana in her relationship with the ocean. But out of both love and fear her father pulls her incessantly — and angrily — back to village life, the only life she has ever known.
Moana faces an ultimatum.
As Princess, she is confronted with a variety of failures in the village’s local environment. First, the coconut crop fails (she finds a solution.) But when she finds out the fishermen aren’t catching anything in their nets and suggests they fish on the other side of the island, the fishermen inform her they’ve already tried, and nothing. The ocean tugs at her again as she realizes the only way to get her people a consistent fishing source is to go beyond the reef, an idea immediately shot down by her father, yet again.
But then, Moana’s grandmother quickly falls ill and dies over the course of an evening.
Her Gramma Tala’s dying wish was that she “Go, Go!” to restore the heart of Te Fiti with the help of demigod Maui. This journey to return the heart is the main plot of the movie.
Montunui’s environmental crisis
The movie is built upon the orally transmitted village legend of “The Darkness.” In fact, the story is the first thing spoken in the film. It’s not an origin story, but rather more of a mythical legend told to children as entertainment.
It quickly becomes clear that Moana is completely entranced.
Click here to read the story, tellingly told by Gramma Tala.
Montunui (based on the real island “Samoa”) is the picture of idyllic. The peaceful village works smoothly, as everyone has their own roles in service to the whole tribe.
Montunui depends upon nature and has cultural traditions based specifically on different aspects of nature. The culture is knit together through traditions, like a coming-of-age ceremony (for Princess Moana), and storytelling about their natural history, the ocean’s character, and its inhabitants. They have subsisted off the land for as long as anyone can remember, depending on their coconut crops, fishing nets, etc. to feed their people. I’m not romanticizing native culture the world over when I say the tribe is more intimately aware of and connected with nature than many cultures.
The island’s natural beauty is resplendent. Palm trees, white sandy beaches, clear water, abundant wildlife. You know, our desktop screensavers.
This is why it’s so jarring when a stunned member of the village holds out a blackened, disintegrating coconut and implores Moana to find a solution to this loss of a crucial food source. While the rest of the island’s nature is luscious and vibrant, this coconut turns to ashy crumbs in your hand. It’s the death of nature, juxtaposed against all the abundant life that’s always surrounded the island. Nevertheless, Moana points to a clearing and orders a new coconut crop to be planted there. One and done. All fixed.
The real challenge comes when the village fishermen aren’t catching anything anymore, despite having tried all sides of the island. The way Moana knows to solve this problem based on her village’s way of life fails her here. The only way to prevent her people from dying of starvation is to fish beyond the reef.
The old way of doing things will not save them. Moana is called to adventure outside her village identity to reshape it and, more importantly, the future of her home.
Moana proclaims that the only solution is to indeed fish beyond the reef. But Moana’s dad (the chief) forbids her or anyone else to do that. Actually, staying within the protective reef is the island’s only explicit rule, and he argues for the “rule that keeps us safe.” Moana, on the other hand, fights this, urging her father to see that “no going beyond the reef” is an old rule for different circumstances, “when there were fish.” When nature behaved as they knew it. When their way of life wasn’t threatened to its core.
Both the identity of Moana and her village family are tied up with the fate of the natural environment.
And in this movie’s case, restoring the heart of Te Fiti.
The heart of Te Fiti is stolen
Tahiti, in its various linguistic forms, including Tafiti, is a pan-Polynesian word for any faraway place. To some audiences, Te Fiti appears to be a “mother nature” figure. Te Fiti’s heart holds the power to create life, which Te Fiti shared with the world.
According to the movie, in ancient history humans wanted to possess her heart to gain the power to create and control life— Maui was one of these seekers, but he was actually successful.
By taking the heart of Te Fiti, Maui took from nature more than he gave — and could ever give.
Once Maui stole her heart, however, “Te Fiti crumbled” and transformed into the fiery villain Te Ka. Also, a Darkness was released upon the world.
The Darkness spreads in a way that’s gradual enough for Montunui to feel the environmental effects only a little at a time (think absent fish and crumbly coconuts). We soon find out that The Darkness is not just present on Montunui, but spreading to other Islands in their ocean too.
In Maori, “Moana” is the word for “ocean.” In Maori lore, fire and water are opposites, engaged in a historic elemental struggle. The struggle between Pele (goddess of fire and lava) and Nāmaka (goddesses of the sea) mirrors the relationship between Te Ka and the protagonist Moana.
But when Moana comes to the realization that Te Ka and Te Fiti are one and the same, her empathy overwhelms both the lore and, more importantly, the catastrophe. In fact, the legend is turned on its head. Ocean and fire meet, Ocean heals Fire’s pain, and nature is restored. In short, the urgent environmental catastrophe ends, and nature begins to function normally, immediately.
By healing our relationship with nature, we can help stop our current, real-time climate catastrophe.
Consider this:
Moana’s Maui is such a far cry from the Maori legend that there’s more room to analyze the character as a representation of something other than his legendary identity.
If this isn’t something you agree with, respond — I’d like to hear.
This “something else” I propose is the hubris of humankind. I’m supported by the fact that, in traditional lore, Maui is a clever demigod, but never so egotistical and so fond of saying “You’re welcome.”
Disney’s Maui is so full of ego and insecure self-congratulation that he tried to control nature.
Then contrast Maui’s character to that of Moana’s home Montunui. They live in a way that does not take from nature more than they restore. Healing nature and stopping The Darkness wasn’t about changing their habits, because they weren’t the ones harming nature. It was Maui who changed the course of natural history and brought The Darkness to Montunui, and other islands like it.
For this reason, I view Maui as the collective representation of high-carbon emitting nations (China, the United States — the highest carbon-emitting countries, and other countries.) Their country’s systems take more from the environment than it gives.
Blinded by hubris, humankind (Maui) stole nature’s ability to function properly.
Done in classic Disney fashion Moana is a fairytale about how the climate crisis can be stopped.
- There is a silver bullet,
- it takes only a couple of people,
- and everyone is helped equally and immediately.
Oh, and the protagonist knows they are born to save the world. It’s not as easy for us in the real world.
Our world is feeling a version of Montunui’s experience of The Darkness: dying coral reefs, poisoned air and water, and mass extinction — to name a few. But we call it climate change. (Side note: I think it was smart of Disney to name the movie’s environmental crisis something so vague as “The Darkness.” Fiction is a more accessible way to discuss hard things.)
This Darkness is not caused by everyone, but by a hubristic, egotistical, larger-than-life (XD) character (and many others were trying to do the same).
Ironically, it’s through a deep dive into her cultural history, back to the time when her ancestors lived as voyagers, that Moana finds both her identity and the solution to environmental catastrophe. She’s able to live out both holding her traditions and customs close, while still innovating her identity and ways of life to restore nature. I don’t relate this to Montunui, but to those most responsible for the climate crisis.
The overall message comes to light in the movie's climax.
The heart of nature was only able to be restored when Maui and Moana worked together. In an oversimplification, he has the power and she has the knowledge. Through my interpretation, this means that climate change will be healed when high-emitting nations and people with extensive knowledge of and connection to the earth work together.
Now, I’m not saying I know what that’s going to take, but it’s a message I believe in.
I also learned these lessons:
That will make sense if you’ve seen the movie
- Nature is powerful enough to take away the greatest power humans can possess. After all, the earth doesn’t need humans to survive. This concept appears in Moana when Te Ka demolishes Maui’s fishhook. It’s only when the demigod restores the heart of Te Fiti and takes accountability for his actions that Te Fiti restores Maui’s fish hook, his source of power.
- Moana’s grandmother, as the self-proclaimed village eccentric, could represent the outsiders of Western society, people who say that we need to do more to change our systems to care for our environment. She’s even described as “drift[ing] too far” in one song she features in.
- Despite Maui’s efforts, nature can’t be manipulated. Once you significantly harm nature, she will begin to die, killing other forms of life in the process.
Let me know of the ways this analysis can be improved! In structure, content, or conjecture.
