Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240066
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: KING WILLIAM LENGTH: Medium
So what's wrong with this picture?
Walt Disney Co.'s ``Pocahontas,'' due in theaters this summer, does not square with historical fact. Unlike the make-believe stars of Disney's classic cartoon features, Pocahontas and John Smith actually lived.
Pocahontas had not yet reached her teens when Smith - in his early 30s at the time - arrived in the New World. Pocahontas, a chief's daughter, spared the settler from death at the hands of her angry tribe and taught him about Powhatan Indian culture. He, in turn, schooled her in English.
But the two were never an item.
The cartoon Pocahontas will not be the innocent 11-year-old who saved Smith's life. Instead, she will be a slender, tawny-skinned enchantress in a form-fitting buckskin sheath.
``It's a beautiful story, if it didn't carry the name of `Pocahontas,''' Shirley Custalow McGowan, an American Indian known to her tribe as Little Dove, said of the contrived romance.
Because of her high cheekbones, Disney artists modeled their Pocahontas character after McGowan. During a visit in August to Disney's California studios, she discovered that both Pocahontas and Smith will be in their 20s in the movie. When she asked why, Disney officials explained that a romance would make more money, she said.
``They really have it accurate about the heart and soul of our people, but they're not doing a film about the Powhatan Indians - they're doing a film about Pocahontas,'' said McGowan.
The life of the real Pocahontas was not as glamorous as her cartoon namesake.
She was born in 1595 near Jamestown. According to a 1612 account written by William Strachey, the British first secretary of the Virginia colony, she married a chief from her tribe when she was about 14.
In 1613, when fighting broke out between the Powhatan tribe and white settlers, Pocahontas was lured aboard an English ship and temporarily held captive. During that time, she converted to Christianity and fell in love with Englishman John Rolfe.
In 1614, they married and two years later, Rolfe sailed with her to England. There she met King James I and the British acclaimed her as an American princess. But before she could return to America, she fell ill with smallpox and died at age 21.
Somewhere along the way, the original story line faded.
Disney tried to ensure the film's accuracy: its executives met with Virginia Indians and even visited Jamestown. Disney animator and director Mike Gabriel said in 1993 that the movie could be entertaining without departing from historical accuracy.
Disney officials confirmed that the movie Pocahontas will be a young woman and Smith will be twentysomething. But the studio declined repeated requests for interviews about the production. ``It's really too early to start talking about this,'' Disney spokesman Howard Green said.
Viewers got a glimpse of ``Pocahontas'' last fall in a brief clip shown in theaters prior to Disney's ``The Lion King,'' the top-grossing film of all time. In the clip, a lissome Pocahontas sang about the beauty of America to a dashing John Smith who is clearly smitten with her.
The clip has drawn mixed reviews from the nearly 10,000 Virginia Indians who are descendants of Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas.
``I've got some serious reservations from what I saw of it,'' said Warren Cooke, assistant chief of the Pamunkey tribe.
Cooke said Disney has an obligation to be true to the life of Pocahontas.
``With fictional characters you can do whatever you want to, but this goes back to the founding of the nation,'' he said.
But William Swift Water Miles, chief of the Pamunkey reservation, said Disney simply used artistic license. Because American Indians were portrayed favorably, Miles said, the fictional romance between Pocahontas and Smith did not bother him.
``I don't find that particularly objectionable. The only written record we have is from John Smith's diaries. Nobody can verify the accuracy of what he wrote.''
McGowan said the inaccuracies will serve only to inspire her to teach the truth. For 28 years, she has traveled to schools across the nation to teach children about Indians.
``I think the film is going to be a big hit. Kids are going to think it's true - that's what they're going to remember,'' she said. ``I'll just have to teach them that you don't take a real person and make a mockery of history.''
by CNB