Pocahontas/YMMV

• Acceptable Ethnic Targets: The lyrics to Savages had to be changed when concerns about racism toward the Indians came up (see Unfortunate Implications below). However, everyone seemed to be fine with the racism of the Indians toward the white settlers.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Kocoum has a pretty strong fanbase considering he had next to no lines. Pocahontas gossips with a tree over how much she doesn't like him that much, despite the fact that from the audience's perspective he's shown to be brave, strong, and deeply concerned for her well being.
• Anvilicious: "They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil."
  • Given that the director of the film came up with the idea after seeing the 1992 LA Riots, one could argue Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
• Base Breaker: The movie itself is one, moreso than any other entry in the Disney Animated Canon: one side will paint it as a beautiful, Scenery Porn-laden fable with a love story worthy of a live action film and simply had the bad luck to directly follow The Lion King. The other will paint it as a pretentious, preachy and boring movie with a lame villain, dull protagonists and an unmemorable story.
• Broken Base: On the sequel. Some fans may like that this movie attempts to be historically accurate by pairing Pocahontas up with John Rolfe and having her go to England. Others are of the opinion that, if the first movie was going to be historically accurate, it would never have paired Pocahontas and John Smith up in the first place, and that Disney should have left the shippers alone.
• Designated Hero: Simply being the heroine's pet makes Meeko a "good guy" despite his downright sadistic actions toward Percy and, to an extent, Our Man Flit.
• Designated Villain: Because he was originally Ratcliffes' dog, Percy is expected to be viewed as a villain, even though he's really just a victim bystander along for the ride. Meeko started all of the conflicts.
  • Ratcliffe himself could be seen as this for most of the movie, where he's mostly a greedy, xenophobic Jerkass who isn't any more unreasonable than Powhattan, until the very end when he crosses the line by trying to shoot the Indians when they've already agreed to peace.
• Die for Our Ship: Pretty much the entire Disney fanbase bashes John Rolfe for ending up with Pocahontas instead of Smith. Either that, or they act as if the sequel doesn't exist and keep shipping John Smith/Pocahontas.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: If there's one character everybody loves, it's Grandmother Willow.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Never before has there been a Disney movie that's received more fangirl hate than the sequel, for obvious reasons.
• Fashion Victim Villain: Ratcliffe's little pink bows and pigtails. And let's not get started on the solid gold outfit he wears in his Dream Sequence.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Mel Gibson voices someone who reconciles two warring races and falls in love with a woman of another ethnicity, and Christian Bale plays a meek, gentle and not-exactly-prone-to-violence-or-anger sailor. Fast-foward ten-fifteen years and Mel Gibson is yelling racial slurs at a certain race in general and his girlfriend in particular, and Christian Bale has become infamous for an on-set rant at the director of photography.
  • Ratcliffe and Wiggins both seem to have an Ambiguously Gay status. Both characters were voiced by David Ogden Stiers, who would later come out as being gay, himself!!!
  • The line "The ladies at court will be all a-twitter" in "Mine, Mine, Mine" has become a lot funnier with the ascension of Twitter.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: John Smith.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Ratcliffe.
• Ho Yay: John and Thomas, for a certain section of the fandom.
• Narm: During the song, "Savages", it gets a bit too dramatic when Ratcliff and the settlers are seen projected on a waterfall.
  • The way Thomas says "You shot him!" when Ratcliffe shoots John Smith.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scene where Pocahontas and John kiss and Kocoum notices. So what does he do? Charges at John, and screams like a lunatic. This troper had nightmares whenever he saw that scene and still does to this day.
• Retroactive Recognition: Christian Bale as Thomas.
• Scenery Porn: Sure, it's highly inaccurate, but the movie's take on Coastal Virginia sure is pretty.
• The Scrappy: Meeko.
  • Ratcliffe is an unusual example in that, as a villain, he's meant to be disliked. However, he's disliked for a different reason than most other Characters - he just isn't cool enough or menacing enough. Like the rest of the movie, he had the bad luck to be follow The Lion King, which had Scar, who not only was more effective and menacing as a villain, but far cooler. To add insult to injury, Ratcliffe was followed by another Complete Monster who was even MORE evil than Scar: Frollo, who was succeeded by the genuinely likeable and cool |Hades, who was followed by ANOTHER Complete Monster: Shan Yu, Plus, the Disney Renaissance had previously given us Faux Affably Evil villains like McLeach and Jafar, the absolutely terrifying Ursula, and the Memetic Badass that is Gaston. Ratcliffe just couldn't cut it compared to the otherwise-stellar track record of Disney Renaissance villains.'
    • And yet, unintentionally enough, Ratcliffe ended up the worst hated villain of all Renessaince villains to a lot of kids who grew up in the 90s and 00s. Why, you ask? Because he ruined a perfectly good happy ending and wasn't likeable/cool enough to make up for it.
• So Okay It's Average
• Tear Jerker: The song "If I Never Knew You". C'mon, admit it. You get choked up at the scene in the tent, too.
• Tough Act to Follow: Yes, it was probably the weakest of the Disney Animated Canon entries of the 90s, but it also had to follow up on The Lion King.
  • Funnily enough, everyone at Disney thought that Pocahontas would be the A-level film, while The Lion King was just a low-key film that was viewed by the suits as Filler. In the end, The Lion King is remembered as one of, if not THE BEST Disney Animated Canon entry, while Pocahontas is viewed as So Okay It's Average.
• Unfortunate Implications: Several lines in the song "Savages" had to be changed as they were deemed politically incorrect:
  • "Their whole disgusting race is like a curse" to "Here's what you get when races are diverse".
  • "Dirty redskin devils" to "Dirty shrieking devils".
  • "Let's go kill a few, men!" to "Let's go get a few, men!"
    • This version of the song can be heard on the soundtrack, however...
      • You can argue that this was kind of the point, they wanted to make it so thatit was obvious that both sides actions were based on rediculous prejudices, and a few negative occurences. It was supposed to be racist.
  • When John Smith says "See? When those two wanna fight there's no stopping them", which refers to both Meeko's and Percy's conflict and the conflict between the English and Native Americans. Um, no: The reason why the Native Americans fought was to protect their land, families, and entire way of life. The reason why the English fought was because they wanted land. John Smith couldn't have said anything more inaccurate and insensitive if he tried.
    • The whole "Meeko and Percy" metaphor also has several flaws. Throughout the entire movie, Meeko (who represents the Native Americans) steals things from Percy (who represents the English). Um, shouldn't it be the other way around? Oops.
    • And he does things like... steal his bowl of cherries. That bastard!
    • To be fair, in real life Powhatan's tribe actually started the conflict by attacking the English because Powhatan thought they were a threat to him spoken of in a prophecy. Of course, this is pretty much most likely the one incident where the Native Americans actually were the instigators of the fight, so if Smith's comment is to be taken as the conflict between Native Americans and settlers as a whole, then it doesn't really work.
    • Then again, Smith is (at least in the context of the movie) ultimately proved wrong, as both fights end up being peacefully resolved.
    • And said resolution, being different from how things actually turned out, in a movie that was promoted by Disney as their first "movie based on history" (as opposed to an Alternate History) and viewed by many children before actually learning the real history, could be considered an unfortunate implication in and of itself.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: "Savages", since each side is the villain from the other's point of view.
• What an Idiot!: Oh, no! John Smith has just been shot! What will you do, O great leader Thomas? Why, send him back on a five-month-long voyage to England with inadequate medical care! What a wise and just leader!
  • What's funny is that something similar actually happened. For all the people who complain about this movie being historically inaccurate, they probably don't realize that Smith had to return to England for medical treatment (for injuries from a gunpowder explosion).