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How can you coach kids to be critical of what they see on TV?
by I recently came across a trailer of the excellent documentary Mickey Mouse Monopoly (hat tip to Yolanda and Kai):
Mickey Mouse Monopoly takes a close and critical look at the world these films create and the stories they tell about race, gender and class and reaches disturbing conclusions about the values propagated under the guise of innocence and fun. This daring new video insightfully analyzes Disney's cultural pedagogy, examines its corporate power, and explores its vast influence on our global culture. Including interviews with cultural critics, media scholars, child psychologists, kindergarten teachers, multicultural educators, college students and children, Mickey Mouse Monopoly will provoke audiences to confront comfortable assumptions about an American institution that is virtually synonymous with childhood pleasure.
I was particularly struck by the film's analysis of Beauty and the Beast -- I had never thought about the underlying message of the film in that way before.
What can parents do to encourage their kids to think critically about the messages they get from TV? And how do you strike a balance between allowing your children to enjoy great storytelling and educating them to be conscious of racism and sexism? Is there a point at which we over-analyze these images?
Contributing editor Carmen Van Kerckhove hosts the podcast Addicted to Race and blogs at Racialicious, Anti-Racist Parent, and Race in the Workplace.
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Overthinking?
I got the feeling that documentary was heavily overthinking the sort of messages Disney was trying to impart.
Firstly, it's not like Disney *wrote* the stories - if there's any criticism about that, they should be directed to the original writers.
About the women in Disney: very selective. It was rather disturbing to see the young girl in The Jungle Book be pointed out as "sexualized" - kids aren't going to think that! The main women in Aladdin weren't the bellydancers, but Jasmine. The leading lady in Hercules was smart, sarcastic, and funny. Esmerelda had a good heart. Or is this saying that the only way to portray a smart person is to make them ugly because any effort at beauty would be "Sexualized"?
Racism in Disney: For goodness sake, who looks at *Siamese Cats* and thinks they're representative of Asians? What about Mulan? The Jungle Book had Indian characters. Aladdin is a bit weird because it had Indian characters and imagery stuck in the middle of the Arabian desert - two different regions people! But that seems to be common for other companies too, with or without Disney's help.
Interestingly, the official translation language for Tarzan was Malay. Nothing African (though there aren't any gorillas in Malaysia last I checked...). Good or bad? I don't know.
Disney may not be all that good or perfect but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Has anyone ever asked *the kids* what they learnt from Disney movies?