'Moana' Was Renamed In Italy And It Might Be Because Of A Porn Star

First of all, we should get over the pronunciation thing. You may think Italy is being a bit of a prude here, and maybe Italians are just insulted because it sounds a lot like "Moan," like it does in the name "Mona."

But "Moana" is actually pronounced "Moe-ana" with three syllables. So, what's the issue, Italy?

It turns out that there was a very famous porn star in Italy whose name was Moana Pozzi.

Because of this coincidence, "Moana" will go by "Oceania" in Italy instead.

This is silly to me. I'm sure there's a porn star named "Snow White" and certainly a collection of films entitled "Toy Story."

Don't even get me started about how kinky the porn version of "Wreck-It-Ralph" was.

We never change our animated features because of our kinks.

According to Cartoon Brew, Moana sharing a name with a porn star was enough for Disney to change the name.

Moana Pozzi, the pornographic actress, passed away in 1994 and had over 100 adult films to her name. She also ran for mayor of Rome, after she co-founded the now-dissolved political party, the Love Party.

You would think Disney would get behind the "Love Party," except the fact that the political organization wanted to legalize brothels and provide better sex educations to youths.

This, now that I'm thinking about it, is not a bad idea...

Here's Moana voting for herself!

There's truly no resemblance to her animated counterpart, besides the name, but apparently she is still very beloved in Italy, enough so that the New York Times named her "Italy's most revered porn star."

Disney told Vulture that they changed the title of the film from "Moana" to "Oceania" for a "variety of reasons."

Moana is a Hawaiian island that means "the point where the sea is the deepest," so we suspect that the famous, highly respected and intelligent Italian porn star was a big part of those "variety of reasons."

Citations: Disney's Moana Was Renamed in Italy to Reportedly Avoid Confusion With a Porn Star (Vulture)