Linda Christiansen - Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"

1. "Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most influential genre 'read'. Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mother's or father's lap. The messages, or 'secret education,' linked with the security of their homes, underscore the power these texts deliver. As Tatum's research suggests, the stereotypes and worldview embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge." - page 127

   I found this quote to be kind of shocking. Put in this way the idea of cartoons and etc being influential to young people can be reasoned to be true. Children may not consciously say to themselves, oh Cinderella told me that all girls want to get a husband but ugly girls will never get a husband, but when they think things like this it just may be an unconscious thought. The fact that these fictitious stories become accepted knowledge is pretty frightening, it makes you wonder exactly what else children take as accepted knowledge.

2. "Many students don't want to believe that they have been manipulated by children's media or advertising. No one wants to admit that they've been 'handled' by the media. They assure me that they make their own choices and the media has no power over them - as they sit with Fubu, Nike, Timberlands or whatever the latest fashion rage might be." - page 128

   I can understand this feeling by the students, it is difficult to be truthful and say that you might have been manipulated, people always want to think that they are their own person and no one helps them make their own decisions. I can actually find it to be more realistic that a person is manipulated by advertising and media over children's media, but maybe I am looking at it from an adult point of view. I guess children are a lot more susceptible to being handled, and more likely to thinking things in cartoons can also be taken as things in real life.

3. "Students have also said that what they now see in cartoons, they also see in advertising, on prime-time TV, on the news, in school. Turning off the cartoons doesn't stop the sexism and racism. They can't escape, and now that they've started analyzing cartoons, they can't stop analyzing the rest of the world." - page 134

   This seemed like the most real thing that was sad, that these stereotypes happen everywhere and not just cartoons. It is also the case that when someone tells you about things you may not have seen before that it is all you see whenever you look at it again. We basically live in a world where stereotypes, racism, and sexism is always going to be a factor.

I found this article to have some pretty interesting information but it wasn't really shocking to me. I mean, we all have heard about these subtle ways that media and advertising gets to consumers and I've heard plenty of times about the stereotypes that Disney uses. Even after all of this it still doesn't really bother me, I don't know if that makes me a bad person or whatever but I kind of don't see it as that big of a deal, I grew up on these things and I don't think that and Arab person will cut my ear off if they don't like my face (for those of you that don't remember thats from the opening song of Aladdin). Christensen would probably say this is because I'm still in denial about the effects that these things ultimately have on children, but I feel like if children can only base their beliefs about society based on cartoons, literature, and commercials than we might have something more to worry about. I feel like if parents, teachers, and the community is proactive about showing and helping children to see the realities of life than they should still be able to enjoy growing up with Cinderella or Aladdin....

Here are two videos that I found to be pretty interesting about some of the views of sexism and male & female stereotypes that Disney seems to portray a lot.