This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
In the fall of 2016, ahead of Moana's release, Disney put a children's Halloween costume on sale: a zip up suit with brown skin colored fabric, printed tattoo art covering the arms and torso, and a curly wig, built to let a child dress as the demigod Maui. The backlash was fast, specific and named.
Chelsie Haunani Fairchild, a Native Hawaiian critic, called the costume "polyface," comparing a child wearing another race's skin to blackface, and said it was simply off putting to dress a child in someone else's body. Tevita O. Kaili, an Oceanic anthropologist, placed the costume inside a wider pattern he defined plainly: a dominant group adopting the symbols of a less powerful, marginalized culture. Disney pulled the costume from sale.
The costume was not the only concern raised about Maui that year. Teresia Teaiwa, a Pacific Studies scholar at Victoria University of Wellington, argued the character himself had been written down into a boastful "buffoon" and paired with a teenage girl rather than the female deity who often shares his voyage in the oral tradition. Marama Fox, co-leader of New Zealand's Maori Party, called the redesign "a little bit of cultural misappropriation."
None of these critics were anonymous, none were disputing that Disney had consulted Pacific specialists during production, and none said the film had nothing to recommend it. What they were saying, on the record and by name, was that a good faith process had still produced a specific choice they found wrong, and that a studio's consultation does not automatically settle what its audience, including the people it depicts, is owed.