As seen
in the movie Mickey Mouse Monopoly, Disney has a lot of control over what
children all over the world see. Disney has the power to influence what
children think of themselves and how they think about other people. In the
movie, Disney is said to give a false depiction of what women should look like,
give a racist depiction of other cultures and commercialize everything in kids’
culture. The people interviewed in the movie were people who stood against
Disney and what they were deciding children should see. Some concepts that came
to mind when watching were the cultural studies and Cultivation research.
Disney
has a lot of influence on what kids know about other cultures. Cultural studies
are when people look at how media represents culture. As it is said in the
movie, Disney doesn’t give people the right outlook on other cultures. In the
movie Peter Pan, the Indians are all
seen with feathers in their hair, living in tepees, sitting a specific way and
hitting their hand on their mouth to make “tribal noises”. This is not actually
how the Indian people act or live, but this is what kids are seeing in the
movies. Another part of Disney movies that is damaging is the way they seem to
make the dark charters the evil ones. Like in The Lion King, Scar is the evil lion and he happens to
be a dark lion. This can damage kids’ views of other kids they may relate with
scar. Disney seems to have a racial stereo type of a lot of cultures that can
be bad for young children to pick up on.
Another thing that made sense in the
movie is Cultivation research. Disney has a lot of power to shape what kids
think about, but something Disney really influences is what kids think of
themselves. When kids see a Disney movie they see beautiful, skinny, large
breasted women and handsome, muscular men who always have to save the girl.
This gives little girls the wrong idea of what they think they need to look
like. They see women in the movie that don’t look like women they actually
know. This makes it hard for them to know that that’s not the only way a woman
can look. Another thing that is brought up is that television can teach
children to take abuse and you will be able to change the person in the end.
Like they show in Beauty and the Beast,
Bell takes a lot of abuse from Beast but she will change him into her prince if
she deals with it long enough.
Disney has a lot of power in the
media world today and children soak up everything they see. Disney has a lot of
control over everything kids see and they learn to think from what Disney tells
them. Disney has a lot of power and with that power they should be using it to
help children gain more honest views of what cultures are out there and how to
act and be a girl or boy.
Good analysis! I also used cultural studies when reviewing the documentary and I liked descriptive response you gave when discussing the topic. You go in depth to explain offense portrayed to Indians from Peter Pan. Growing up, that was something I never thought about as a child and makes think that the movie isn’t as innocent as people think it is. Thinking about it, I definitely agree that Disney is blatantly being offensive by portraying Indians to make “tribal noises and how they live in tepees. As I child, I actually believed this and I can assume that the idea was sub consciously placed into my head through movies like Peter Pan. I find the example of Scar really interesting because I can watch the movie right now and this would still go over my head. It is a good point and a second example really backs up your argument for the cultural studies aspect of your analysis. Your cultivation perspective is also interesting. I talked about the “damsel in distress” types situations as well and how this gives false perceptions to child about society. I also never thought about how children can learn to give abuse from a Disney movie, but your example really backs up the idea. Overall, great analysis and I agree that Disney has a lot of power in the media and they are very influential with their films. I also do agree with the power they have, they should be portraying things more correctly.
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