Moana is technically not a princess, a fact that she rightfully points out herself when she talks to demigod Maui in one of the first encounters, but the live-action has certainly given her the look of one. While her village is eating coconuts, the daughter of the chief shocked everyone with her stunning blowout that feels like it can only come from a Dyson Airwrap. It’s a fact that surprised many viewers even before the live-action remake was officially released.
Moana is a girl who is constantly in the water, whether she is accidentally falling in as she learns how to become a wayfinder or she gets thrown in by Maui in their earlier moments. But in her journey to restore the heart of Te Fiti, she is lead far away from her village and resources. Despite this, her hair dries in looser curls that definitely do not match the character’s iconic hairstyle from the film. In fact, Moana’s hair was so new for the animators that they had to create a new animation process called the Disney Elastic Rod model which allowed them to bring her stunning hair to life.
So it was a pretty baffling change to notice, especially when live-action actress Catherine Laga'aia already had the perfect hair type for the role. Rolling Stone Australia asked the film’s director, Thomas Kail, why they decided to use a wig for the production. “Moana has 30 different looks for hair, and we really tried to make sure that the given circumstance, when she gets knocked around the ocean in the storm, it’s gonna look quite different than when she’s being presented in front of the village.” The use of wigs is certainly not the problem. It’s how they still went with a looser style than her tight curls despite having the ability to create wigs with Moana’s tighter and curlier hairstyle.
And to be fair to the actress who is making her big debut in this role, there are so many other people who come to a decision like this when it comes to what a character ultimately looks like on screen. However, it’s hard not to point out what a big opportunity this was for younger girls to finally see themselves and their hair in a real-life version of one of their favorite characters.
Growing up, my hair was one of the biggest pain points. I didn’t know how to style it and was simply too lazy to properly learn the curly girl method. The big poofy Hermione-style took over my life until I got my first wet-to-straight flat iron. It was my best friend throughout high school, college (where I accidentally set off a fire alarm one time in my 10-floor dorm), and the start of my professional career. It wasn’t until the pandemic forced me to stay home that I learned how to properly style it and find out what worked for me.
I certainly do not have the same hair texture as Moana, even in her animated version, but I do often think about the impact it would’ve had on me if I was younger. In the Disney Princess line—which Moana is officially a part of despite her previously mentioned quote—only two characters have curly hair: Moana and Merida from Brave. Tiana, the only Black character in the line, has her hair up the majority of the time, which made it difficult to see her actual hair texture until the release of Ralph Breaks the Internet where it was finally shown loose and down. Then there’s Mirabel in Encanto—she is not part of the iconic line of characters—whose curls finally felt similar to mine and went against the idea of “pelo malo,” a term I often heard growing up that translates to English as “bad hair”, a phrase often used in Latine culture to refer to textured hair.
So why is it that at the first chance to see one of them as a real-life person, Disney decided to go in a completely different direction? Could it be seen as not up to the standards of what a Disney Princess should look like? Of course, we won’t actually know the reasoning behind the decision and there are a number of reasons why they probably went in that direction, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be questioning it.
One refreshing part of this whole ordeal? How Catherine Laga'aia has been rocking her natural curls on the blue-carpet events for the film. We can only hope that the little girls who discover her for the first time via the film really do feel seen in her real-life appearances.
