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Essay / Pocahontas Analysis - 1145
When we sit down to watch television or a movie, we don't wonder to what extent this refers to the fundamentals of American politics. Whether it's politics, political power, one of the foundations of democracy, federalism or political culture, it appears in almost every episode of a television series or film produced. With so many crime dramas on television or war films hitting theaters where it's obvious to see the connection between the two, a not-so-common place one might think to see the fundamentals of American politics would be in the movies from Disney. In the almost ten years that Disney has been producing films, a handful of them show many different sides of American politics, including Pocahontas. Pocahontas is Disney's 33rd animated film, set in early 17th century Virginia. The film is based on Pocahontas, a Native American woman who is the daughter of Chief Powhatan of the Powhatan tribe located in the New World. When British settlers from the Virginia Company, including Governor Ratcliffe and John Smith, landed in the New World in search of gold, they encountered the Powhatan tribe when they began building Jamestown and digging for the precious metal. While the rest of the crew builds Jamestown on the orders of Governor Ratcliffe, John Smith begins exploring the wilderness, where he encounters Pocahontas. The two bond and quickly fall in love with each other, even though Chief Powhatan gave his daughter strict orders to stay away from the English after a few members of the tribe, including Kocoum, the warrior Native American that Pocahontas is about to marry, have entered into a relationship. fight with a group of settlers. Rumor travels to Kocoum that Pocahontas is spending time with John Smith and will confront...... middle of paper...... his advance over the Native Americans based solely on her race and class social. This impacts his decisions when it comes to engaging in war with the Native Americans and his attempt to shoot and kill Chief Powhatan. Each character has many different values that support political socialization and political culture. It's not just movies like Pocahontas that reference fundamentals of American politics, they can be found in many other TV shows and movies. Pocahontas showed many connections to politics, political power, and political culture through two completely different groups of people: the Powhatan tribe and the Jamestown settlers. American politics and its fundamental principles are not only found in movies and television series, but also in everyday life and it is important to realize how much such a thing can impact people without even realize it..