Blog Post #4

The overall summary of Thanksgiving and Pocahontas was very vague for me before we looked at the readings this week. I knew that most visual representations of these weren’t very true to the reality of what really happened or what role they played. Although I never really thought about looking up the backstory since I was influenced by these representations when I was younger. In school, I didn’t really get a concrete idea of the stories either, making it more surprising to find out where these ideas came from in reality. I don’t believe that it made it more confusing for me to understand, but it did open my eyes to a greater idea of what I have learned about the topic over the years.

I think that being able to understand the complexity of their history is a great way to realize that the things they went through have been interpreted in so many different ways that can shape how people describe them. This also influences the idea of showing future generations the facts and what really happened. This can be seen in Disney’s movie “Pocahontas,” which doesn’t represent reality or who Pocahontas really was accurately.

For example, using “Who is Pocahontas? Two Portraits,” we can determine right away that the visual description isn’t relatable at all. Not only this, but her life was completely different than what is depicted in the movie.

Overall, being able to grasp an understanding of historical complexity can help form personal ideas about how things truly unfolded and influence others who may not yet have that understanding.