Sacred Subtexts: Depictions of Girls as Christ Figure and Holy Fool in the Films Moana and Whale Rider

Moana

Disney’s animated children’s film Moana tells the story of a young Polynesian girl and is set during a mythological past time. Moana is the only daughter of a tribal chief and is destined to succeed her father to become chief of her people. Her destiny and future succession are accepted and celebrated by her family and tribe and the fact that she is a girl is never presented as an obstacle to leadership. Moana loves her tribe and her village on the fictional island paradise of Motonui, where they live an idyllic life centred on communal values and subsistence living from the abundantly fertile land and sea around them.

However, Moana’s community is faced with ecological disaster as their crops begin to fail and the fish diminish in their tribal fishing grounds, with environmental crises encroaching on their happy village life in the form of what they call The Great Darkness (death). At the same time, young Moana, approaching her typical rebellious teenage years, feels bored and stifled by the monotony of her island life and by her father’s well-intentioned helicopter parenting and overprotectiveness. She feels a deep inner calling to venture out onto the ocean and across the protective reef, which is the boundary of their tribal space, to explore the unknown world beyond the familiar.

Guided by her grandmother, Moana discovers an abandoned cave where her tribe’s ancestral boats have been hidden for a long time. She discovers that her ancestors were seafaring folk, which explains her deep desire for exploration and discovery. Moana defies her father and runs away, taking one of the old ancestral boats to cross the reef – to satisfy her curiosity and adventurous spirit and to heal her community and save her people from famine and ecological disaster.

Her aim is to find Maui, a demigod of the wind and sea. Raised on the tribal legends and myths told by her grandmother, Moana, along with the viewer, knows the following about Maui: in a mythical time around 1000 years prior to Moana’s present time, Maui stole the magical greenstone heart of Tefiti, The Mother Island and creator of all life. Maui was punished by the gods for stealing the greenstone from Tefiti – he did this as a Promethean-like gift to humanity – and he was subsequently banished to a remote island, where he lives as a hermit until Moana arrives, while the life-giving greenstone was lost to the sea. The theft and subsequent loss of the greenstone were followed by the introduction of The Great Darkness to human experience. But Tefiti’s greenstone heart is returned to humanity when it is given to young Moana by the sea, thereby marking her as the chosen one who should return it to the mother island and so redeem humanity.

Armed with the greenstone, Moana sets off on one of the tribe’s ancestral boats to find Maui, who must guide her to Tefiti. With the aid of the ocean, Moana finds Maui and, like the quintessential odd couple of so many adventure narratives, they must learn to work together to achieve their aim. In their collective effort, communion and unity lie the salvation and redemption of the world.

The climax of the film is reached as Moana faces down Te Ka, the deathly volcano monster and lava demon. But mid-battle, Moana has an epiphany and realizes that violence and war against Te Ka is futile and will only bring further destruction. The ocean parts as the two unequal opponents, the lava monster and the little girl, meet one another in a cosmic encounter. But instead of a battle to the death, Moana and Te Ka unite to exchange the traditional Polynesian greeting, or hongi, by placing their foreheads and noses against one another’s – a sign of trust and respect that symbolically means sharing or exchanging breath and life force.

Te Ka’s volcanic shell starts to crumble and fall away, to reveal her alter ego, Tefiti, The Mother Island, on the inside. Life and death, creation and destruction are revealed to be one and the same. Devilish Maui, the heart thief, and Moana, the saviour of the world, are reconciled with Tefiti, as The Darkness fades away from Moana’s village and a new utopia of prosperity, abundance and cooperation ensues. Moana returns in triumph to her recovered island and village, where she is reconciled with her family, is celebrated by her people and accepts her destiny as the next chief of the tribe. The film ends with a rousing song, We Know the Way, sung by the entire tribe as they venture forth in their reclaimed ancestral boats across the ocean to other places and towards a new and better future.

Whale Rider

Unlike Moana, Whale Rider is decidedly not a Hollywood children’s film, but a highly acclaimed and much-awarded independent film from New Zealand that speaks to a more mature audience. Whale Rider tells the story of Paikea, a Maori girl, living during the 1980s in a small rundown coastal village, Whangara, amid her Maori tribe’s people, the Ngāti Porou. Both the town and tribe really exist and are where the author of the novel, Witi Ihimaera, grew up. In the novel, the people of Whangara are increasingly succumbing to a type of spiritual and cultural death, familiar to so many Indigenous postcolonial and rural contexts across the globe.

Paikea is being raised by her grandmother and grandfather, Koro, who is the leader and patriarch of their tribe, while her father, an artist, works overseas. Paikea was born as one of twins, but both her twin brother, the first born boy of a new generation, and her mother died during the birth. Paikea’s grandfather mourns for his dead grandson and heir, and what he sees as the lost legacy of his tribe, as he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge his new granddaughter as his successor. Grief stricken at the loss of his wife and son, and angry at his father’s rejection of his daughter, Paikea’s father insists on giving her their heroic male ancestor and tribal founder’s name – he calls her Paikea. Ancestor Paikea, so tribal lore holds, rode from their original ancestral home in Hawai’ki, across the oceans, on the back of a whale, their tribal totem animal, found a new tribe in a new land, Aotearoa (New Zealand).

The rejection by her grandfather, whom she very dearly loves, causes Paikea heart-breaking distress, moreover because she feels a deep inner calling to be the leader of her troubled community. Her grandfather becomes obsessed with finding a suitable male successor from the community’s young boys and starts a tribal school to teach the boys the traditions of the tribe, from which he bans Paikea. However, she eavesdrops on them during meetings and secretly learns everything the boys do, excelling in using the traditional spear (taiaha) and doing the Maori war chant and dance (haka), both traditionally male domains. Despite her clear aptitude and desire to lead the tribe, her grandfather refuses to train her along with the boys of the community in tribal customs and leadership. Koro feels humiliated by Paikea’s defiance, strengthens his resolve against her and intensifies her exclusion. He succumbs to melancholy despair after he loses his tribal totemic chief’s necklace (reiputa) to the sea. He takes to his bed and chants lamentations to the ancestors, rather than break with patriarchal tradition and acknowledge Paikea as his successor.

The climax of the film is reached at a school concert where Paikea emotionally delivers a speech about her proud heritage. She delivers an invitation to her grandfather to attend the event as her special guest. On the evening of the event, he leaves the house to attend the concert, but is waylaid on his way there by the call of a pod of dying whales, stranded on the nearby beach. As the totem animal of the tribe, the pod of whales is a clear link to the ancestors and the fate of the tribe, and their suffering and dying is an analogy to the existential crisis of survival the tribe and community is experiencing.

At the concert, Paikea delivers an account of her tribe’s history, in honour of her absentee grandfather, who is, unbeknownst to Paikea and the tribe, struggling to save the dying whales on the beach. On their way back from the school concert, the community encounters Koro with the stranded and dying whales on the beach, and all rally together through the night to try to move the whales back into the water. But the whales refuse to budge and by daybreak the exhausted community must give up and they dejectedly leave the animals to die.

At this moment, Paikea separates herself from her people. She walks towards, gently strokes, and then climbs on the back of the alpha whale, after she respectfully shares the traditional Polynesian hongi forehead greeting with it. Without anyone noticing, the whale turns around, with Paikea on its back, and leads the pod back into the water and back to life. The last sight the community has of Paikea is of her riding on the back of the whale towards the horizon, with all the other whales following, then being submerged under the waves. Like the original ancestor-founder of the tribe rode a whale out from the ocean onto the land to found a new tribe, so young Paikea, in reverse, sacrificially rides the whale from the land back into the ocean, to signal the much-needed transformation of her community.

The film, however, does not end here, but continues to show Koro days later receiving a phone call from a hospital to say that Paikea had been found and is in a coma. The family hasten to the hospital, where Koro finally transcends his own myopic, self-righteous and patronizing limits, and begs Paikea’s forgiveness with the words, ‘Wise Leader, forgive me; I am just a fledgling new to flight’. Paikea opens her eyes to acknowledge his appeal and to grant him forgiveness and redemption.

The film ends with a community event, a collective resurrection of sorts, much the same as the one depicted in Moana, in which the previously half-carved discarded tribal boat, now finished, is triumphantly and collectively launched and rowed out to sea by the entire community, with Paikea at the helm alongside her father, uncle and grandfather. The film ends with Paikea saying, in voice-over, ‘I’m not a prophet, but I know that our people will keep going together with all our strength’.

Transcendence, Redemption, Self-sacrifice and Relinquishing Self-interest

The two most significant characteristics of narrative christ figures are their transcendent and redemptive qualities. As Kozlovic (2004) notes, a christ figure is ‘a benign entity who brings wisdom and knowledge, the imparting of which brings resolution, insight and the beginnings of personal or political harmony’ (p. 1). Christ figures are also always depicted as in some way relinquishing self-interest to help others (who are often ungrateful for, or unaware of, the magnitude of what is happening), thus choosing self-sacrifice – these are another two of Kozlovic’s (2004: 8, 15) christ figure characteristics. In Moana and Whale Rider, the themes of transcendence, self-sacrifice and redemption are abundantly clear, as both girls transcend their limited and limiting surroundings and the forces that constrain their societies (represented mostly by the patriarchal father and grandfather figures, as bearers of myopic traditions), by engaging in what essentially are suicide-missions, in order to redeem their communities and propel them into a more enlightened future. Paikea’s self-sacrificial exchange of her own life for those of others is especially clear in the original novel, when she says (author Ihimaera uses the word ‘orders’ here, which alludes to her supernatural power; also, the whale she rides calls her ‘my lord’), as she disappears under the waves with the whale, ‘Let the people live’ (Ihimaera, 2003: 130). As the whales later return her to the world of the living, the whale matriarch tells Paikea, ‘Child, your people await you. Return to the Kingdom of Tane and fulfil your destiny’ (Ihimaera, 2003: 150).

Challenging the Established Order and Facilitating Transformation

This relates to another two of Kozlovic’s (2004: 9) christ figure characteristics, namely that christ figures challenge and change the established order and facilitate improved people or situations. This is also where the depiction of the characters most clearly intersect with the trope of the holy fool – they are truth tellers and challengers of their societies’ established orders. In both films, rebellion and tradition are juxtaposed, with the dogmatic father figures depicted as gatekeepers of tradition (like the biblical Pharisees of the Jesus story) who cling to dysfunctional traditions, and their own investment of power in these traditions, despite the crises experienced by the communities they are supposed to lead. Moana’s father tells her, as he instructs her about her duties as a future chief, ‘tradition is our mission . . . you must find happiness right where you are’, myopically implying the tribe and the island, but definitively not the unknown world beyond the reef. In Whale Rider, Paikea’s grandfather tells her, when he catches her practicing the traditional masculine art of the taiaha, ‘you don’t mess around with sacred things’.

When Paikea overhears her grandfather say to her father ‘take her with you, she is of no use to me’, she asks her father, ‘why doesn’t he want me?’ Her father answers, ‘He’s looking for something that does not exist anymore’. Her grandmother, sadly but also sarcastically, later tells Paikea that her grandfather has ‘got a lot of [“traditional” and “male” are implied - author] rules he has to live by’, to which Paikea resolutely simply says, ‘it’s unfair’. When he instructs the boys in the sacred tribal school, Koro tells them that he will teach them ‘the old ways’, then proceeds to show them the stance they have to adopt when performing the haka war dance – his first instruction to them is to ‘hold on to your dick’, thus implying that they should protect their traditional male privilege and dominance. For Koro, protection of the tribe is synonymous with protection of his ideal of manhood and, as a girl, Paikea signifies a threat to this established ideological order which shaped and defines his life and ideas.

In opposition to the staid and stagnant male-dominant traditions represented by their father and grandfather, the girls are the revolutionary forces, the bearers of new things, the transformative socio-spiritual emancipatory change-makers for their communities. When Paikea’s grandfather catches her practicing to use the taiaha, he exasperatedly and angrily says to her, ‘Right from the beginning you knew this wasn’t for you, but you keep coming back’ (signifying both her resolution and resurrection), but the film ends with him realizing his mistakes and asking her forgiveness for his lack of vision, thus with his conversion and transformation. Not only does he redeem himself through this act, but also releases his tribe from blind adherence to outdated customs and beliefs and so opens the way for communal redemption.

Similarly, when Moana miraculously returns to her family after her adventures at sea, her father acknowledges her wisdom by saying that going beyond the reef, which he previously explicitly forbade, suits her. The two men’s transformations and change of attitude (their conversion, in Christian terms) signal renewal, rebirth and redemption for their communities. As Koro ironically, and unintentionally prophetically, says when they are struggling to save the whales, ‘if you can move [the leader] the others will follow’. As the narrator, Paikea alludes to this when, telling her story in retrospect, she says early in the film that ‘my grandfather wished that I had never been born, but he changed his mind’ (author).

A Holy Age and Innocence

Kozlovic (2004: 12, 16) notes that christ figures are often depicted as being of ‘a holy age’. This most often is depicted as between 30 and 33, which reportedly was the age at which Jesus was baptized, performed miracles and was crucified, though his exact age is not specified anywhere in biblical texts. However, a more definitive holy age for Jesus can be found in the biblical book of Luke, which pertinently states that Jesus accompanied his family to Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, as was customary, when he was 12 years old. When the family travelled back to their home in Nazareth after the festival, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem on his own (without his family’s knowledge, which can be read as a small teenage rebellion of sorts) to engage, with wisdom far beyond his age, with the religious teachers at the temple.

Moana and Paikea are of a similar (teen)age when they leave their families to pursue their greater divinely inspired destinies. For Moana, this means crossing the ocean, in spite of her father’s restrictions; for Paikea, it means riding the whale back into the ocean, despite her grandfather’s refusal to acknowledge her leadership qualities. The exact age of each girl is not identified, though they are clearly around 12 years (in Ihimaera’s novel, Paikea is younger, closer to 8 years), but the exact age is less significant than the fact that both girls are at a stage of life that can be described as liminal – they are neither entirely children, but definitely not adults either. This age of liminality, which in many cultures is marked with some form of coming-of-age ritual (as attending Passover in Jerusalem for the first time was for a Jewish boy in biblical times), predisposes both Moana and Paikea for experiences that are shifting and boundary-crossing, transcendent and maturing.

Kozlovic (2004: 16, 20) notes that christ figures are also usually associated with child-like simplicity and innocence, while being the bearers of great redeeming wisdom. In Moana and Whale Rider, this is escalated to its ultimate expression, since the christ figures here are not only child-like, but are, in fact, children. This is reminiscent of the familiar verses in the biblical books of Matthew and Mark (Mt. 18.3; Mk 10.15), where Jesus says that child-likeness is a prerequisite for entry into heaven and that the kingdom of God belongs to children. In Ihimaera’s (2003: 82) novel, Paikea is described as beautiful, both inside and out, and without guile, envy and jealousy. Their age also naturally predisposes them for another of Kozlovic’s (2004: 11) christ characteristics, namely celibacy or chastity. Both films are then significantly devoid of any sexual or romantic subtexts and this is an important departure from other mainstream, often sexualized or romanticized, depictions of teenage girls. Especially for Disney, in particular, this is an important departure from their standard princess formula.

Poverty and Unjust Treatment

Poverty is also a characteristic often associated with christ-figures and holy fools (Kozlovic, 2004: 20) and they are often depicted as either being poor themselves, or as associating with the poor and marginalized of their society. Along with chastity, poverty is one of the three standard vows taken by Catholic priests and nuns; the third being obedience, which can be related to Kozlovic’s (2004: 10) other christ figure characteristic, namely having a sense of, and staying true to, a personal mission or calling, which is often depicted as being in direct opposition to obedience to traditions and traditional authority figures. Paulson Veliyannoor (2019: 71, 77) calls this the faithful’s inherent ‘conflict between the ideals of obedience and freedom . . . tradition and change’ and notes that Whale Rider is a ‘beautiful meditation on how to dissent and work for positive change, while remaining firmly rooted in love and compassion for those whom you challenge’.

Although neither Moana nor Paikea is depicted as dirt-poor, as in the sense of having no belongings at all or living in squalor, neither is depicted as what is conventionally regarded in contemporary terms as ‘rich’, despite belonging to their communities’ ruling families and therefore an implied upper class of sorts. In both films, it is more a case that all of the community are at a relatively equal economic and social level. As he instructs her in tribal tradition, Moana’s father says, ‘we share everything we make’, which is depicted as a rather utopian comfortable and happy place of mutuality and communality, where everyone has all they may need, until The Great Darkness threatens. In Whale Rider, with its subtle subtext of postcolonial and racial critique (some critics felt there is too little of this in the film; Barclay, 2003; Evans, 2006; Hokowhitu, 2007; Joyce, 2009; Ka’ai, 2005), but the novel deals with this more clearly), it is more a sense that the entire rural Maori community is rather equally impoverished, not only economically but also spiritually and culturally, as they drift away from their heritage and traditions.

Kozlovic (2004) notes that, as innocents, narrative christ figures are usually depicted as being treated unfairly, as being unjustly accused, marginalized or even pursued or killed, often ‘because of the fears of others’ (p. 16). They are essentially innocent scape goats, as in the biblical context, from the book of Leviticus (Lev. 16.10, 20–22), and in the true historical and lexical meaning of the word, sacrifice themselves for others in the hope that this will redeem the afflicted and guilty and save the world. Innocent Moana is willing to sacrifice herself to Te Ka, in order to save her community from the encroaching Darkness. Koro unfairly says of Paikea, ‘when she was born, that’s when things went wrong for us’, despite the fact that she is innocent of any of the historical causes that brought her community and family to its state of dejection. Yet, she sacrifices herself to save the whales, which are symbolic of, and totemically stand for, her community and tribe.

Miracles and Signs; Strange Birth and Childhood Incidents

Kozlovic (2004: 7) notes that christ figures often have odd, unexpected or obscure births, origins or arrivals and interesting childhood incidents or infant episodes. Christ figures are also usually associated with miracles and prophetic signs of some kind (Kozlovic, 2009: 17). In both films, ominous or portentous signs mark the birth and early lives of the girls. Paikea’s mother and twin brother die during her birth. She says in voice-over format at the start of the film, ‘there was no gladness when I was born; my twin brother died and took my mother with him. He died and I didn’t’. Moana nearly drowns as a young toddler, when she plays alone at the edge of the sea, and is given the greenstone by the sea in a scene which clearly depicts an anointing – the ocean parts for her (like it did for the biblical Moses), then engulfs her, returns her to the beach unscathed and significantly splashes her on the head as it lays the greenstone heart of Tefiti at her feet. This marks her as ‘the chosen one’.

Paikea, likewise, is the one fatefully chosen by the ancestors, since she lives when her brother dies, despite the fact that her grandfather remains blind to this fact because of her sex. Being given the gender-inappropriate name of their tribe’s founding ancestor is also a kind of anointing. Her anointing is also associated with Koro’s totemic chief’s whale jawbone necklace (in the book, it is a stone), which he loses when he throws it into the sea and instructs the village boys to find it (‘a test of spirit’), believing that the one who finds it will be the next chief, chosen by the ancestors and the gods. Some of the boys dive in after it, but none can find it and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean where one assumes it will remain lost forever. Paikea is not a part of this sad ritual, but she later has her uncle Rawiri (along with her grandmother in the book) row her out to the spot where her grandfather dropped it; she dives into the sea and soon effortlessly returns to the surface, smilingly holding it aloft – a clear sign that she is indeed the chosen and anointed one who must succeed her grandfather as chief. It is only later, after Paikea had vanished under the waves with the whales, that her grandmother gives the retrieved chief’s totem back to Koro, as they stand on the beach, in devastation, looking at the ocean where their granddaughter disappeared. He asks his wife which one (implying ‘of the boys’) managed to retrieve it, to which she says to him ‘which one do you think!’ stating what has been obvious to all except him, namely that his granddaughter Paikea was always the anointed and chosen one. He finally acknowledges this, sitting next to a comatose Paikea’s hospital bed, when he addresses her as ‘wise leader’ and begs her forgiveness.

More Than Human, But Also a Relatable Everyman/Woman

As Kozlovic (2004) notes, christ figures are usually in some way clearly extraordinary, or ‘more than human’ (p. 7), while paradoxically simultaneously also being ordinary. They are essentially contradictions and inherently defy binaries, bringing together within themselves complexities that in other characters would be singular and oppositional forces. This complexity is often depicted through some kind of alter ego, double life or dual nature. Yet, they are also absolutely relatable and occupy the symbolic space of everyman/woman, rather than that of a typical superhuman godhead.

If one reads demi-god Maui symbolically, as a narrative alter ego for, or mirror image of, Moana, this characteristic of the christ figure becomes quite apparent. It again emphasizes the liminality of the christ figure as one who freely moves across boundaries and in in-between spaces. Paikea’s alter ego is, of course, her dead twin brother (in the film; in the novel, where there is no twin brother, it is the boy that she can never be), whose death haunts her in that she cannot take his place, but also cannot be fully recognized for herself, since her very being is defined by her grandfather exactly because of her brother’s absence. That qualifies her in special ways to move between the worlds of gendered male- and femaleness; the living and the dead; the past, present and future; the tribe and their ancestors; and humanity and nature. In terms of the latter, something else that marks Paikea as extraordinary is her ability to communicate with the whales. Ihimaera (2003: 40, 39, emphasis original) calls this ‘the power of interlock’, a remnant of the mythical time of ‘first communion’, when there was a ‘close kinship of man with the inhabitants of the ocean, and of land with sea’. Paikea’s submergence with the whales is therefore indeed also a type of personal and communal grief work, a cleansing ritual and a laying of the ghost of her brother and of her tribe’s (male-dominated) past.

Inner Convictions, Special Missions and a Personal raison d’être

Kozlovic (2004: 10) notes that christ figures always have a sense of inner conviction about a specific personal mission; they have a specific raison d’être, which always is related to redemption of some kind. Both Moana and Paikea have such deep inner convictions about their personal purpose. For teenage Moana, this becomes manifest when her grandmother reminds her of her experience as a toddler, when she was anointed by the sea as ‘the chosen one’. Before they face Te Ka, Maui also says to Moana, ‘we are here because the ocean told you you are special and you believed it’, though in this moment, he says this rather sarcastically and accusingly. Moana’s name (which means ‘ocean’ in several Polynesian languages) also points to her destiny to cross the ocean to redeem humanity; also to a symbolic return to an oceanic original state and a subsequent (re)birthing into a new order, with new knowledge and wisdom.

For Paikea, her mission is closely associated with her gender-inappropriate name. In the novel, there is also a moment when, as a crawling toddler, Paikea bites her grandfather’s toe, at the exact moment that he is telling the men and boys of the tribe about how his own tribal powers were passed to him when his spiritual teacher instructed him to bite his toe (Ihimaera, 2003: 36). This clearly marks Paikea as special, though her grandfather still resolutely refuses to acknowledge it.

Both girls are clearly hailed as messiahs of sorts – Paikea through her father’s insistence to name her after an ancestor whose messianic return the tribe is eagerly awaiting; while Moana’s tribe sings ‘make way, make way [for Moana]’ as her father carries her on his shoulders through the village, in a way that is reminiscent of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Moana’s father tells her, ‘you are the great next chief of our people’ and ‘sometime in future, our people will need a chief, and there you are . . .’, while her mother adds, ‘and you will do wondrous things’.

Paikea’s messianic purpose is downplayed in the film, but in Ihimaera’s novel, she is much more overtly associated with the salvation of her tribe. She is identified as the last spear of hope, which her ancestor Paikea launched from the back of a whale as he approached new land for the first time, and which is intended for a future time of tribal crisis. Legend tells how ancestor Paikea said, ‘Let this spear be planted in the years to come when the people are troubled and it is most needed’ (Ihimaera, 2003: 142). Ihimaera’s (2003) text then says, ‘And the spear, soaring through the sky, came to rest in the earth where the afterbirth of a female child would be placed’ (p. 142) – another portentous birth-related sign and therefore a christ figure marker. The traditional association of the spear with maleness, common to many cultures (in Maori tradition, specifically associated with the taiaha), is here significantly reappropriated to indicate female legacy and leadership. In the novel, her afterbirth is then indeed buried, as foretold, by her grandmother at the tribal marae or sacred meeting place. In the novel, there is much more nuanced engagement than in the film with Maori mythologies about strong women leaders and with matrilineal tradition. For example, in Ihimaera’s novel Paikea’s heritage is also traced back to these female ancestors, not only to her male ancestor Paikea as in the film.

Both girls’ births and messianic missions are foretold and they are eagerly and expectantly awaited by their tribes. However, they are, like all christ figures, not recognized when they are born as the long awaited messiahs or redeemers, which is reminiscent of the biblical verses, in the Gospels (Mt. 13.57; Mk 6.4; Lk. 4.24; Jn 4.44), in which Jesus says that a prophet receives no honour in his own town or house. Moana starts with a voice-over by her grandmother, relaying tribal origin myths to the children of the tribe. She tells them of The Great Darkness, signifying ‘devouring, blood-thirsty inescapable death’, and how someone will come to ‘save us all’. In Paikea’s case, the spear that will save her troubled people is eagerly awaited, but not recognized for what it is when she arrives. As her uncle Rawiri says in the novel ‘we were all looking somewhere else’ (Ihimaera, 2003: 32), in other words, for a boy. Like Moana, Whale Rider also starts with a voice over, here the voice of narrator Paikea herself, expressing the great expectancy with which the tribal redeemer was awaited; not only are the people waiting, but the very earth is described as expectantly waiting. This is also a messianic trope in the biblical prophets and New Testament. Paikea says,

In the old days the land felt a great emptiness. It was waiting: waiting to be filled up; waiting for someone to love; waiting for a leader . . . But now we were waiting for the firstborn of a new generation, for the descendent of the whale rider, for the boy who would be chief . . . But he died. And I didn’t.

Outsiders

As a result of their special missions, both girls ironically feel like outsiders in their communities, as if they do not fit the mould into which they had been cast by circumstances, and they have difficulty in negotiating or alternating between their dual natures, their ordinary human lives and their messianic missions or callings. Being an outsider is then indeed another one of Kozlovic’s characteristics. Christ figures are, to borrow the phrase often used in biblical commentary with reference to the farewell discourses of John, in the world but not of the world (Kozlovic, 2004: 9). As a result, they are then often depicted as classic anti-heroes – unlikely, dubious or fringe individuals, who seemingly do not adhere to typical heroic requirements, but are indeed heroes in disguise. The two girls in the films, because of the combination of their youth and their gender, are particularly effective as anti-heroes.

Moana and Paikea significantly experience their outsider status more acutely because of their sex, though this is much more prominent for Paikea than for Moana. Her grandfather says about the new-born Paikea, ‘I have no use for her’. This refrain is repeated as Paikea grows older and it becomes a significant leitmotif in the narrative – the seeming uselessness (no expectations), in the view of the myopic patriarchal leader of the tribe, of this beautiful pure soul in the body of a girl child. As Veliyannoor (2019) notes, ‘it is sad how Koro notices the breakdown of the tribal cohesion, but fails to see himself as the potential cause’ (p. 78). Moana, however, again is stifled by the great expectations her father has of her as his successor, which ultimately pales in comparison to what she finally accomplishes, namely saving their world. Because of these stifling great expectations, she also feels a sense of otherness, because she fails to live within the expectations set for her by her father and community. She sings, ‘I wish I could be the perfect daughter, but I keep coming back to the water, no matter how hard I try . . . every road leads back to the place I know where I cannot go, where I long to be . . .’, reminding one of Jesus’ inner calling towards the temple during his first youthful visit to Jerusalem (Lk. 2.41–50).

Divine Intervention, Helper-companions, Betrayal and Pointing Prophets

Christ-figures also experience some form of divine intervention, have helpers or companions (disciples) of some kind, have pointing prophets who predict their arrival or identify them to a community (like the biblical John the Baptist was for Jesus) and they are often confronted by some form of betrayal by a type of Judas-figure (Kozlovic, 2004: 10, 12, 13). Both Moana and Paikea are saved from drowning by supernatural or divine intervention; in the case of Moana, many times. In Ihimaera’s (2003) novel, it says how Paikea’s comatose body was found floating amid kelp in the middle of the ocean – ‘how she got there nobody knows, but when she was found, the dolphins that were guarding her sped away’ (p. 144). In accordance with the fable-like conventions of Disney films, Moana’s world is filled with animal sidekicks. And in Whale Rider, Paikea’s relationship with the whales forms the very core of her story.

Moana’s most obvious helper (though a very reticent one at first, which provides much of the comic relief in the film) is, of course, demi-god Maui, who also becomes the figure of betrayal when he deserts her after they meet Te Ka. He later returns to help her and so redeems himself. When Moana finally faces down Te Ka, Maui says to her, ‘I’ve got our back, Chosen One; go save the world’. Another companion is Moana’s grandmother, who dies as Moana leaves the island, but promises Moana that ‘there is nowhere that you can go that I will not be with you’. One may even argue that she functions as a place holder for the Holy Spirit. She reincarnates as a manta ray after her death and is shown to swim protectively, like a guardian or guide, underneath Moana’s boat as she leaves the island, crossing the reef to the unknown. Her grandmother’s spirit also returns during Moana’s dark night of desolation when she is alone on her boat on the vast ocean – like Jesus in Gethsemane before his crucifixion – after Maui deserted her and before she faces down deathly Te Ka. Moana is even shown to fall to her knees and plead with the ocean and ancestors to ‘choose someone else’, like Christ’s moment of self-doubt in the garden of Gethsemane, when he prayed that God should take the cup of suffering away from him. Alone on the boat in the middle of the ocean, Moana is joined by the light and spirit of her grandmother, who reminds her of her strength, power and destiny and who tells her that ‘if you want to go home [code for dying, when read in a christological context – author], I will be with you’.

Moana’s grandmother is then also the narrative’s pointing prophet – as the self-identified ‘village crazy lady’, she is the one who reminds Moana of her anointing and of her destiny. She says to her, ‘remember, you may hear a voice inside, and if the voice starts to whisper to follow the farthest star, Moana, the voice inside is who you are’. Even Moana’s mother can be viewed as a companion or helper of sorts, since she silently gives Moana provisions (and parental consent) as Moana leaves the island.

Paikea’s life is also filled with helpers and companions, her grandmother also being the most significant as she protects her, supports her and even instigates Paikea’s rebellion against her grandfather. Other helpers are her uncle Rawiri (who in secret instructs her about Maori male traditions) and his girlfriend (with whom Moana stays when her grandfather descends into depression); also, her father and school teacher perform helper functions, as does one of the boys of the village, who also helps her to learn the traditions the boys are being taught by her grandfather. Maybe most significantly, though, the whales are her helpers, since they appear when she calls for them in her darkest hour of rejection by her grandfather, when she must leave his home to live elsewhere. She calls to them when her grandfather’s own attempts fail to do so. She says, ‘He was waiting for the ancient ones, asking them to help him, but they weren’t listening. So I tried and they heard me’.

Paikea’s Gethsemane moment of desolation and forsakenness occurs at the school concert, when she gives her prize-winning speech in honour of her grandfather, but because of his absence, she speaks to the empty chair that was reserved for him. Grandfather Koro is clearly the figure of betrayal, because he blindly chooses patriarchal tradition above his granddaughter, ‘this young girl who was not really so brave and who would have liked the support of the one person who was never there – her Koro’ (Ihimaera, 2003: 87). Another Gethsemane moment occurs when the stranded alpha whale (who functions as the alter ego of Koro, which is much more pronounced in the novel than in the film) turns back to the ocean, with Paikea on its back. Ihimaera (2003) describes this as follows:

Quietly, [Paikea] began to weep. She wept because she was frightened. She wept because Paka [Koro] would die if the whale died. She wept because she was lonely . . . She wept because Koro Apirana didn’t love her. And she also wept because she didn’t know what dying was like. (p. 129)

Baptism, Death and Resurrection

Christ figures are usually depicted in relation to some kind of baptismal rite, experience a decisive death and resurrection and are given a triumphant post-resurrection return (Kozlovic, 2004: 13, 14, 15). The instances in which Moana is shown to be baptismally engulfed by water are too numerous to warrant individual mentioning, since their sheer abundance in the film confirms this characteristic. It suffices here just again to mention the moment of her anointing by the sea. For Paikea, her riding the whale out to sea is simultaneously a baptismal rite, an anointing and her moment of death. In Ihimaera’s novel, Paikea returns to her community – so is resurrected – after the christologically significant 3 days (Ihimaera, 2003: 144).

The number of instances in which Moana encounters some form of symbolic death and is resurrected are again too numerous to mention. I will only mention the two most significant ones. The first occurs when, after surviving a storm at sea, Moana finally encounters banished Maui on his deserted island. After stealing her boat, Maui entombs Moana in a cave – he is even shown to roll a large rock in front of the cave opening. Moana escapes from this cave grave, quite biblically, to emerge to save the world. The second example is Moana’s final encounter with Te Ka, whom her grandmother calls ‘devouring inescapable death’. Moana’s survival mirrors Tefiti’s resurrection, which is depicted as the re-emergence of the Mother Island from the ashes of the volcano demon Te Ka. Each girl returns triumphantly to her community and the community’s renewal is symbolically enacted through the boat launching scenes at the end of both films. It also serves to note that both girls are specifically marked by the post-resurrection words ‘I’m/she’s back’. Maui says this of Moana (‘and she’s back’) when she escapes from the cave in which he entombed her and is repeatedly dumped with him on the boat by the ocean. After leaving with her father, but then deciding to return when she hears the call of the whales, Paikea runs to tell her grandfather ‘I’m back’, but heartbreakingly his response is merely to ignore her.

Cruciform Pose and Associations with Light and the Colour White

Finally, Kozlovic (2004: 17, 21) notes that christ figures are usually depicted in some type of cruciform pose and in associations with a cross, with the colour white (a traditional saintly or angelic colour, alluding to purity, but also the traditional colour of shrouds, thereby folding back to the resurrection theme) and with displays of engulfing holy auras or haloes. All of these can be found in the two films. The mast of Moana’s boat is a cross signifier; her tribal clothing (headdress on the island and skirt throughout the film) are white and red (signifier of blood and death, but also life); her tribal headdress can also be read as type of halo. But more significantly, when she is alone at night on the boat before meeting Te Ka, her grandmother’s spirit engulfs her in white light; they are joined by the ghostly spirit ships of ancestors and when these spirit guides disappear, Moana is depicted surrounded by a halo of light cast by the moon as it reflects off the ocean that surrounds her.

In Ihimaera’s novel, Paikea is repeatedly described as wearing a white dress, most significantly during the moment when she rides the whale to her death. After her resurrection, she is shown amid white sheets in a hospital bed, where she wakes from a coma. In the film, Paikea is seen sitting, in a type of cruciform pose, on the handlebars of her grandfather’s bicycle, as he daily takes her to and from school, until one day he fails to collect her in punishment for her insistence on learning male traditions. Most importantly, though, Ihimaera (2003: 131–132) describes Paikea’s symbolic death on the back of the submerging whale in typical christological terms as a type of crucifixion, which resembles the familiar Christian Passion play. He describes this as follows:

She was serene. When the whale broke the surface, she made her farewell to sky and earth and sea and land. She called her farewells to her people. She prepared herself as best she could with the little understanding she had. She said good-bye to her Paka, her Nanny, her father, her uncle Rawiri, and prayed for their good health always. She wanted them to live forever and ever . . . Suddenly the moon came out. Around her the girl could see the whales sounding, sounding, sounding. She lowered her face into the whale and closed her eyes. ‘I am not afraid to die’, she whispered to herself . . . She was the whale rider . . .