Talking Points #4 Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us by Christensen

1. "'Look Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she's kind of dark looking. The young pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old, pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks.'"

- This quote was from one of the students after viewing some cartoons and trying to notice some of the obvious stereotypes. So many Disney movies have subliminal messaging such as this. And as this whole article pretty much says, these messages are all around us and we dont even know it--in the media, on TV, in school and as shown here, even in the cartoons that our kids watch on a day to day basis.

2. One of the girls wrote, "Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a cartoon? Did they have a leading role or were they a servant?"

- This is extremely relevant because even if you think of Disney princesses the only Asian one is Mulan and that came out in 1998. And Disney just made the new movie this past year with the black princess because they realized that there wasn't one. As the girl later on says, "Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess." Some of our family friends have a black husband and a white wife and all three of the kids are each a different skin tone. The darkest little girl always complains that she always has to be Jasmine because she's dark and she doesn't even like Aladdin--and even that didn't come out until 1992. It's sad that Disney has to add movies to become for racially diverse.

3. "I realized these problems werent just in cartoons. They were in everything---every magazine I picked up, every television show I watched, every billboard I passed by on the street."

- This is so very true. Ideas such as sexism and racism aren't just in the cartoons and movies that kids watch, they are EVERYWHERE!! Magazines, commercials, books--things that are a part of you're everyday life. So naturally these negative ideas are just etched into these kids heads.

This article was really easy for me to read because I did a project in high school on subliminal messaging which is kind of along the same lines as this article. Kids, and even adults, are subjected to all sorts of subliminal messaging throughout all types of media. And quite frankly, it's not something a parent can just not let their kids see because it's absolutely everywhere. The entire article went along with Johnson's idea of obliviousness. Because unless you sit there and try to analyze everything that is going on in a simple cartoon or commercial you probably wont notice anything out of the ordinary. Especially if you're from the privileged group.

I went a little Youtube crazy looking for clips of subliminal messaging. This first video is a collection of Subliminal messaging, in the media and in Disney.



This next video shows how women are depicted in Disney films.



This last video is all clips from Spongebob that are all very suggesting. (There's also a part 1 and 3 and I'm sure you could find other things).