“ Malo fau and many thanks Professor Maui-Tava-He-Ako Dr Tevita 'O. Ka'ili for rigorously keeping the intellectual debate going lively. By the way, it is both highly critical and exciting! Anyway, let me, like Professor Maui-Tava-He-Ako Dr Ka'ili, in the free spirit of art and literary criticism, just add a point or two of great relevance to the issue.
From a Moana, Tongan tavaist perspective, the so-called Disney animated film Moana, like many, if not all, films, is concerned with a number of distinct but closely related artforms, namely, material art of film-making (tufunga hele'uhila), material art of story-making / script-writing (tufunga fa'utalanoa / fa'utohi), performance art of film-acting (faiva hele'uhila) and performance art of story-telling (faiva talanoa) amidst others.
Whereas the material art of film-making (tufunga hele'uhila) and performance art of film-acting (faiva hele'uhila) are associated with the mediation of intersecting or connecting and separating images by means of light and colours, the material art of story-making / script-writing (tufunga fa'utalanoa / fa'utohi) and performance art of story-telling (faiva talanoa) are connected with the mediation of intersecting or connecting and separating human meanings by way of words or language.
In the case of both the material and performance arts, such a mediation or conciliation (fakatatau) involves a time-space (ta-va), form-content (fuo-uho) and functional ('aonga) transformation or configuration of the subject matters under the creative process from a condition of crisis (fepaki) to a state of stasis (fenapasi) through sustained symmetry (tatau) and harmony (potupotutatau) to create beauty (malie / faka'ofo'ofa).
On the other hand, the original Moana, Tongan folklore (myths, legends, stories, tales) that are told and retold in the Disney animated Moana film are featured in myths, legends, stories or tales as either comedies (faiva fakaoli) or tragedies (faiva fakamamahi) or a mixture of both. This is in addition to the myths, legends, stories or tales as also material and performance arts, the means through which both comedies (faiva fakaoli) and tragedies (faiva fakamamahi) are told or retold in the productive process.
While the performance art of comedy (faiva fakaoli) engages in the mediation or negotiation (fakatatau) of intersecting or connecting and separating human meanings of normality (ngalipoto) and absurdity (ngalivale), the performance art of tragedy (faiva fakamamahi) involves a mediation of intersecting or connecting and separating social meanings of sociality (anga'itangata) and animality (anga'imanu).
The resultant effects or outcomes of laughter (kata) and shame (fakama) following the former and the latter respectively are a social celebration of the awareness of the human mind in the commission of such errors in human thinking. Their mediation or arbitration (fakatatau) is to do with their time-space (ta-va), form-content (fuo-uho) and functional ('aonga) transformation or transfiguration from a condition of chaos (fepaki) to a state of order (fenapasi) through sustained symmetry (tatau) and harmony (potupotutatau) to create beauty (malie / faka'ofo'ofa).
Given the fact that the so-called Disney animated film Moana involves telling and retelling of old Moana, Tongan folklore in new ways, should they have made good use of the existing art genres in which they are told and retold in novel ways in the Moana, including Tonga?
What about, say, both English and Greek folklore told and retold in books, films and plays? Would Disney do the same? Take, for example, the famous tragedies of both Shakespeare and Sophocles, namely, "Romeo and Juliet" and "Oedipus the King" respectively -- where the intersecting or connecting and separating love ('ofa) and death (mate), in the former, and freewill (tau'ataina) and predestination or predetermination (popula), in the latter, are symmetrically mediated or negotiated in the creative process in the name of harmony and beauty.
Leva e malnga kae a'u,
'Ofa ma'u moe 'anau. ”