Christensen

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

By: Linda Christensen

1.) “Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a cartoon? Did they have the leading role or were they a servant? What do you think this is doing to your child’s mind? She ended her piece: Women who aren’t white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess.”

This entire article was extremely informative to me. I haven’t actually noticed this to be a problem but it could definitely affect other minorities. I believe that there should be other ethnic characters that young children can look up to. Not only for their culture to look up to but others as well. It could help children to be more exposed to different races at a younger age. Although, Disney’s characters are dominantly white there are some other ethnicities shown in characters such as Mulan and Pocahontas.

2.) “I don’t want students to believe that change can be bought at the mall, nor do I want them thinking that the pinnacle of a woman’s life is an “I do” that supposedly leads them to a “happily ever after.” I don’t want my female students to see their “sisters” as competition for that scarce and wonderful commodity-men.”

I believe that this quote is saying that most children’s stories/movies are based upon living “happily ever after.” In these stories happiness is portrayed by having money and a prince charming. Basically, we are teaching children that marriage and wealth automatically means happiness. We know as adults that this is not necessarily true. Just because you have material things doesn’t mean you are actually happy, money cannot buy happiness. Also, we do not need to rely on a man to make us happy.

3.)”Because we can never look like Cinderella, we begin to hate ourselves. The Barbie syndrome starts as we begin a lifelong search for the perfect body. Crash diets, fat phobias, and an obsession with the materialistic become commonplace. The belief that a product with make us above our competition, our friends, turns us into addicts.”

People want to be what they see. When were young we are exposed to Barbie’s and Cinderella dolls and of course we’d look up to them. When we get older we are exposed to even more media. We see all these beautiful people on t/v and in magazines and think that’s what we should look like. It’s so unrealistic because those people aren’t the average American. It becomes unfortunate because people get so caught up in the media, where they are faced with eating disorders to be the “Barbie or Cinderella.”

I liked this article by Christensen. I think she has some good points. I found that it corresponded well with S.C.W.A.A.M.P because the media portrays the norms of our society to our children so young. I never really noticed that stories like Pop-Eye or Ducktales showed such stereotypes. When I think of children’s shows or stories I tend to think there so innocent, but I learned from this article is that I need to be more observant when it comes to the media.