On Colonialism in Fiction

I had this thought earlier this week, making this one of the rare Notes that I didn’t have to scramble to come up with a topic for on Thursday or Friday. Hooray! 

So, uh, let’s talk a bit about colonialism. Some spoilers for Frozen II ahead.

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On Colonialism in Fiction

I recently saw Frozen II in theaters and while I enjoyed it I was ultimately underwhelmed. I think there was a lot of Plot and characterization that got underutilized. And I remember looking back at the Tor review and being confused, because their critic praised this movie to Kingdom Come, declaring it “about history and colonialism and how to repair the past, but it’s a story informed by the present.” This quotation is true, but that doesn’t make it a good movie, in part because it’s handled pretty clumsily.

In Frozen II, we’re presented with a wrong that has been done in an enchanted forest, done by someone from Arendelle a long time ago, and how this has made that forest cut off from the world, and now the spirits of that forest are demanding reparation. The person who made this wrong in the first place… isn’t someone we know, it’s not someone the characters talk about with reverence, like a hero of their country’s past or something. And there’s no reason for animosity between the two peoples presented: it’s not like one wants the other’s land or resources or something. And towards the end of the movie, we’re told exactly what the reparation would entail, and that it might be disastrous for Arendelle; but still, it must be done, because otherwise the world will stay out of balance and there will never be peace. Except it turns out, nope! That terrible price for fixing the mistakes of the past? Never mind, no one has to pay it. 

It’s about colonialism, but it fumbles around on the big issues. It doesn’t go into the ideas of how one figure revered as a hero in some people’s cultures is remembered by another group of people quite differently--Confederate figures from the Civil War come to mind in the US, but in this world you have other weird things like how Oliver Cromwell still has a bunch of statues around the UK despite him actively trying to murder all the Irish. No, the perpetrator is someone the characters have a tie to, but not a strong enough one that they feel particularly betrayed by the idea that he did something villainous. And it’s someone who is barely in the movie.

And I’m very frustrated, because apparently I keep running into stories that are “about colonialism” but do them very badly. I’ve been told by defenders of Thor: Ragnarok that it’s about colonialism and therefore A Good Movie, but that doesn’t really hold up for me: none of the main characters are people who are victims of that colonialism, except Loki, and almost all of Loki’s trauma is played entirely for laughs. (As is everyone else’s trauma, but when it happens again in Endgame it’s bad because… I dunno.)

And we can say “This movie proves Odin’s a dickbag!” as many times as we want, but it’s Odin who is shown to be in the right for imprisoning Hela, and it’s Odin’s wisdom that lets Thor realize his true potential as the God of Thunder. He’s not part of a past they’re leaving behind; he’s the wise mentor guy who gives Thor what he needs to keep going, and if we’re leaning into Ragnarok as a narrative about the evils of colonialism… that’s a pretty big fumble.

Heck, Asgard wasn’t destroyed because it was the natural outcome of a colonialist empire, it was destroyed because Taika Waititi admitted that he hated the place. Apparently he thought the warrior kingdom had too many nerds. No, really.

And then this year I also read the Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb, which I’ve harped on just as much; it beings by showing you the evils of colonialism and the effects it has on indigenous people, and then ends with the character riding off to his happy ending without caring at all about that conflict. His actions lead to their being a temporary peace between the Empire and the indigenous people, but there’s no telling exactly how long that will last.

Obviously, if you’re decide you’re going to write a story tackling a deep subject, you’re not going to get everything right. You’re not going to always score a complete home run, and in movies you’ve got limited time to really delve into every facet of an issue. And yeah, colonialism is a complex topic. There are very few pieces of media that handle it anything close to what I’d call ‘incredibly well’ (*coughAvatar:TheLastAirbendercough*). So no, because a work doesn’t handle it perfectly doesn’t mean that work has no merit. 

BUT it’s bothersome that there are so many really thoughtless takes on this topic out there, especially because it’s one that continues to be a part of our world today. And even more annoying is that there are critics who will praise these works because it deals with an ‘in’ topic, not really bothering to notice if it was bungled. It’s like if I cheered every time I saw a Puerto Rican character showed up on screen in television or film, despite most of the Puerto Ricans on screen being stereotypical criminals and gangsters with little to no character development other than being mooks to get mowed down by heroes or other villains.

Stop praising works for covering big topics in the shallowest way possible. And if you’re of the mind to write about colonialism, actually make it about colonialism, instead of holding back and not showing the real ugliness of it. Because there’s a lot there that people have to deal with every day.

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