“Our society's culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream; this indoctrination hits young children especially hard.”
The quote I posted above from the article, “Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us,” really grabbed my attention when I started the reading. This quote is saying that children today live their lives through the media, by what they watch on television, and the toys that they play with. What the article and this quote in particular is trying to address is that children need to be exposed to more differences in the world and society they live in. Rather than just make belief fairy tales, and materialistic things, which don’t open a child’s mind to what is really happening in the world.
“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.”
In this article, students were asked to critique the movie Cinderella, where they realized the movie focuses on women’s beauty and fashionable attire, to find a Prince Charming. The teacher wanted this movie to be more of a life lesson towards the girls in her class. As a five year old girl watching this movie all she cares about is beautiful Cinderella getting her glass slipper from her Prince Charming. As for the Barbie syndrome, this is just a “perfect” doll for little girl to play with I feel. Once girls outgrow the Barbie phase, that’s it, Barbie is gone. I was obsessed with Barbie and I don’t look back on my childhood wishing I look like a doll I used to play with everyday. Maybe girls wish that they could actually look like Barbie, but I don’t see why anyone would compare themselves to a toy doll.
“Many students don't want to believe that they have been manipulated by children's media or advertising.”
The author of this article are trying to prove a point that children are influenced and have been manipulated by todays media. Most students in high school want to be in on the latest television series, and fashion trends. I agree that some television shows have a great impact on students in their teenage years, which is not a good influence at all. I also think that parents are not going to make their children of these ages stop what they’re watching, and how they’re dressing. If students from this class in the article want certain shows to be cancelled, then when your older just don’t show them to your children. Students are easily influenced by what they are surrounded by, but it is not likely anything is going to change in the society.
* This article made me kind of mad because of how bad the author thinks a Disney movie is, and a Barbie Doll. Let's face it Disney is going to be around forever and children and families love it. Little children don't look at the bad affects of a Disney movie, they see them mostly as magical.
Hi Megan, nice post. However, I do disagree that from my own personal experience I did compare myself to barbies and princesses during my pre-teen through teen years, in a way. All the beautiful models look an awful lot like these characters, and I think that how we shape what beautiful looks like comes from these influences. I really liked your argument though.
ReplyDelete