This occurred to me last week when I came across a truly mind-boggling screed in the Guardian (where else?). ‘Moana is the hero we need in the age of Trump and Musk’, reads the thrusting headline, ‘so thank the demigods she’s back’.
In theory, this article could easily be satire, poking fun at that peculiar subset of adult society that takes children’s entertainment way too seriously. But I fear not. This stuff is sincere, with a capital S.
Author Ben Child (a hilarious example of nominative determinism) seems to genuinely consider Moana – the animated Disney movie about an ancient Polynesian princess who embarks on a magic-filled quest – to be a piece of deeply significant cinema. When Moana was released in 2016, he explains, it was a cultural corrective to the election of Donald Trump and all the ‘knuckle-headed, white supremacist, women-hating conservatism’ that, apparently, came along with it. Child now hopes that the recently announced Moana 2 will act as another antidote to what will likely be a second Trump presidency.
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