Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us.

The Evolution of Disney

 

After reading Christensen’s Article I have made so many connections to my cultural experience and the overall social construction of society. I have thought of all the ways everything around is controls the way we think and the way we feel. And even though Christensen mainly talks about the influence cartoons has made and how it depicts gender roles I thought about other media outlets. I began to think about my childhood and how I feel about music, movies, and advertisements that shape our beliefs.

When I think about music and childhood I primarily think about The Spice Girls. Why you ask? I think about The Spice Girls first because it is my very first memory of how music has highly influenced me. When The Spice Girls began to blow up I wanted nothing more in life than to be one of them. I begged my mom for platforms and shorts and wanted to sing like them. Of course I grew out of that phase but their music took over my life at one point and I thought about what they sang and one of my favorite songs from them was about love. I found myself listening to a lot of love songs and what many people would call unrealistic. I was drawn to idea of a man being madly in love and apologetic to a woman he hurt and it has given me a fantasy image of men and the love life. Goes to show how influential music can be to a young person.

Movies has come a long way when it comes to gender roles and race. Disney started out with a white, thin, and beautiful woman now we have women of all shapes and colors. Aside from gender stereotypes many people say there was racism in Disney. Now we have Disney princess who do not want or need a man like Frozen which showed a story with family values. I definitely think there has been more growth in Disney movies than in movies that are not animated. For example the latest controversy that was brought up for the Oscars. Although there is not complete equality and not all stereo-types have been broken society has made a step forward for change.

This picture shows how the creators of Beauty and The Beast depicted women as invaluable and not intelligent

 

One of the most common and strongest influence on society in my opinion is advertisement. Advertisement reflects the way society views women, race and America as a whole. Women often feel pressure because of how women look on commercial and magazines. Race also plays a big part in what kind of people are “socially accepted” and “beautiful.” Women and women but women more are sexually objectified in advertisement. Advertisements like movies and other media outlets have taken a step forward towards change.

Top: An advertisement from before showing beauty in only one form (thin and busty)  Bottom: A more modern advertisement showing beauty comes in all shapes and colors.

All in all I think we put too much responsibility on media when it comes to the way we think. How about our environment and what we see at home? What kind of morals can we teach our children as parents and educators so that they do not fall victim of media’s subliminal messages? The root of all these stereotypes and social construction does not come from media but from the people that create them for us to see. What can we do to make things different in our community and eventually around the country?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a video showing many old racist cartoons and how cartoons were used for propaganda. Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.  I connected this to Christensen and how she talked about the way we view the world and how it is presented through Disney movies.