What is your relationship to Disney culture?
How does Christiansen validate or challenge your views?
My Childhood Era Princesses
During my childhood I strived to go to Disney. I never had the opportunity as a child, but felt envious whenever a friend or classmate would come to school with their souvenir ears and t-shirts. When I would visit the Disney store was at the Swansea Mall, my eyes would light up at the walls lined with gowns, tiaras, stuffed animals and other Disney paraphernalia. My primary Disney influences were the princesses that I watched in the movies, though I had seen most every other Disney movie also and knew their soundtracks by heart. My favorite princess was Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, though I admit that I loved all of the Disney princesses.
As a child and young adult, I was naïve to the problematic nature of the movies that were so deeply engrained in our culture. In my community we did not look at Disney movies through a critical lens, rather we sought to conform to the expectations and subservient nature that the females in these movies represented. As a young child, I accepted the "norms" that were presented to me through the media. From a young age I held myself to unrealistic expectations because of the standards that I consumed regularly through the television screen. Christensen argued that the media that targets a young audience is highly influential, however, "young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mothers' or fathers' laps...the stories become accepted knowledge." (Christensen, 2016, p176) This statement rings true to my experience as a consumer of Disney media. Not only was I not critiquing the impact that these characters and storylines had on me, but neither were the adults in my family. In Christensen's writing, she mentioned a Junior named Justine who wrote, "True death equals a generation living by rules and attitudes they never questioned and producing more children who do the same." This statement reminds us that each generation has to make an integral effort to make things better for ourselves and for our children. When we neglect to look at issues through a critical lens, we perpetuate the problems.
As an adult, I am glad to see that Disney is finally making efforts to create more diverse characters. However, I think that there still needs to be a lot more integration of varied storylines and characters with more varied identities.
L. Christensen. "Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us: Critiquing fairy tales and cartoons. Rethinking popular culture and media. (2016) Rethinking Schools, Ltd: Second Edition. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/katya/Downloads/RPC&M%20Textbook.pdf
Hi Katy, I totally agree with your post. I am happy Disney is doing things to promote a change in the cartoons and promote diversity although they still need a lot of work to do but I am sure they will get there.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Katy, for opening up about your childhood experiences and aspirations of going to Disney. I agree with you and Jose: Disney is "on the right track" (although many conservatives would argue the opposite!) but still has a long way to go in order to accurately represent the social injustices and systems of oppression that are so pervasive in our society. These movies have more power and influence than I think most of us recognize.
ReplyDeleteKaty, I really liked that your brought up the idea of consuming Disney's media. This relates back to what we were discussing in class and the need to be able to interpret what we are consuming.
ReplyDeleteKaty, I completely agree with your stance on how Disney is improving their lack of diversity. I agree that there is still a lot to go. How can we course correct for future generations? If Disney doesn't adjust, can we?
ReplyDeleteI remember the Disney store at the Swansea Mall!! I also agree with your point about Disney improving (even if it is a bit slow). It is crazy (and sad) to realize how much influence and power cartoons, Disney movies, etc. hold over children. Media is constantly used as a source to influence the behaviors of young people, and I think Allison brings up an important question regarding how we can fix this for future generations. Thank you for sharing!!
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