Intertextuality and autonomous fictional worlds in Disney : the case of Moana (2016)

In this essay I approach Moana (2016), produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, with a special focus on a musical scene that represents the counterargument of what is ostensibly the main lesson in the film (the “look-inside-yourself” motif so central to many Disney titles). I am referring to the scene in which the young heroine Moana, daughter of the chief of a Polynesian island, faces the giant crab Tamatoa in the undersea environment of Lalotai, also known as “The Realm of Monsters.” At the request of Moana, who tries to distract him by feeding his ego, Tamatoa agrees to introduce himself “in song form” (this is, of course, a self-referential statement that lays bare the conventions of musical films) and then proceeds to perform the song “Shiny,” the main object of my analysis here. This song was composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (creator of the Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton) and Mark Mancina, with lyrics by Miranda; it is performed by actor and musician Jemaine Clement, member of the comedy duo Flight of the Conchords. The “Shiny” scene contains very explicit intertextual references to the figure of David Bowie, an aspect that makes this scene exceptional in contrast to Disney’s common practice of creating fictional worlds that appear to us as self-sufficient entities somehow insulated from external references, as I will comment on later. My essay renders homage to Petr Bogatyrev’s 1938 essay on Snow White, the first structuralist essay on what was Disney’s first full-length animated movie ever. As it is well known, Petr Bogatyrev wrote “Chaplin and The Kid” and “Chaplin, the Fake Count” in 1923, two articles studying the construction patterns in three of Charles Chaplin’s films – The Kid, The Count and The Immigrant. In studying Chaplin’s art Bogatyrev paid special attention to elements of plot construction such as contrast, retardation and so on, operating within the theoretical framework established by Viktor Shklovsky (ostranenie, “how art is made”, etc.), who was the editor of the collection of essays on Chaplin. Fifteen years later, in 1938, Bogatyrev published [ Theatralia 22 / 2019 / 2, Supplementum (72—82) ] https://doi.org/10.5817/TY2019-S-6