Learning an Inclusive Blue Humanities: Oceania and Academia through the Lens of Cinema

James L Smith,Steve Mentz

doi:10.3390/h9030067

Abstract

Hollywood films such as Pixar’s Moana (2016) and Warner Brothers’ Aquaman (2018) have drawn on the aesthetics and stories of the island cultures of Oceania to inform their narratives. In doing so, these works have both succeeded and failed to respect and engage with oceanic cultural knowledge, providing a cultural vehicle to expand communication, while also exploiting Oceanic culture for financial gain. Cultural tropes and stereotypes pose a heavy intellectual burden that neither film fully shoulders, nor are the complexities of their content acknowledged. Moana sought to enlarge the franchise of the “Disney Princess” genre, but could not avoid issues of cultural appropriation and tokenism becoming entangled with an ongoing process of engagement. Moana’s desire to represent the cultural memory of Oceania raises questions, but while Pixar presents digital fantasy, Aquaman hides its global ambitions beneath star Jason Momoa’s broad shoulders. If the blue humanities is to follow the seminal postcolonial scholarship of Tongan and Fijian cultural theorist Epeli Hau’ofa by exploring a counter-hegemonic narrative in scholarly treatment of the global oceans, then how can it respond with respect? This risk applies equally to academic literary inquiry, with a more inclusive mode of receptive and plural blue humanities as an emerging response.

Highlights

The blue humanities as a critical practice, especially as written by white scholars from the global north, runs an ongoing risk of being co-opted by imperial maritime histories, racializing ideologies, and the interests of capitalism
We propose that the process of confronting one’s own internalized hypocrisies, dichotomies, and habits of thought to see a world that is more nuanced than imagined is, in itself, a productive endeavor for the blue humanities
Rather than seeing the blue humanities as singularly global or globalized, we proffer a plurality, and we explore that plurality in the production of globally produced and marketed films

Summary

Introduction

The blue humanities as a critical practice, especially as written by white scholars from the global north, runs an ongoing risk of being co-opted by imperial maritime histories, racializing ideologies, and the interests of capitalism. By focusing on mass-market films, we deliberately choose collaborative and public art forms that, even if they do not fully succeed in moving beyond familiar capitalist patterns of appropriation, do attempt to listen to Oceanic voices Both the films and our own scholarly practices attempt in different, but potentially interacting ways, to make oceanic spaces legible, and to uncover multiple ways in which the great waters engage with human bodies and cultural legacies. Recent Hollywood films such as Warner Brothers’ Aquaman (2018) and Disney’s Moana (2016) have drawn on the aesthetics and stories of the cultures of Oceania to inform their mass-market narratives These works have a complex relationship with oceanic cultural knowledge.

Bodies and Authenticity

The Geometry of Ocean

Tangled Agencies and Identities

Voyages for Identities

Oceania and Academia