While reading Christiansians article Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us, I felt a mix of emotions. While going into it I knew I was going to have the preconcieved feeling of disagreement. I have always been a very strong supporter of Walt Disney and his work that he has done to create images and characters for young children to look up to as fantacies. However, Christiansian brings up a few points in her article that have an underlying truth to them.
"Personally, handling the disection of dreams has been a major cause of depression for me. Not so much dissecting-but how I react to what is found as a ressult of the operation. It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out how my whole self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about are years of being exposed to TV images of girls and their set roles given to them by TV and the media." There were a lot of points that the author made that made me think, but this one was the one I really did agree with. While I do not think that it is necessarily Disney that does this, I do think that society itself has created these images and pressured our youth to be things that are fairly unnatainable. Even myself, I have found myself desireing the typical fairytale ending with a handsome wife and kids and living happily ever after. However, I do not think that children take this as seriously, I think that Disney and cartoons are more of a way of sociodramatic play in which children can pretend to be prince or princesses, or evil vilians. They get to use their imaginations to set up a pretend
"I;m not taking my kids to see any Walt Disney movies until they have a black women playing the leading role." I could see and understand where the author was trying to go with this, by trying to take a stand and make a point, however I think not letting your chlid see a Disney movie until they change their ways may be taking it a bit far. Avoiding media stereotypes is quite impossible, they are everywhere. It is one thing to take a stand and make a point, but to abandon Disney may just be taking it too far and causing a bit too much isolation.
"I am uncomfortable with those message. I don't want students to beleive 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 supposidly leads them to "happily ever after." I dont want my female students to see their "sisters" as competition for the scarce and wonderful commodity-men." I feel this woman is a bit bias, clearlly she is a strong feminist that has had reality hit a bit hard. I do not think that it is a bad thing for people to want a happy ending, or to want to live happily ever after. Frankly I think this woman is very negative in her connatative points she makes, and while I respect her for taking a stand, I think she should also take a look at all the positives Disney has done for us.During my childhood I watched every Disney movie known to man, where stereotypes may have been shown, and every ending was as happy as ever after could be. But isn't that what childhood should be like? Shouldn't children be able to live in a happy, ignorant bliss as long as they are young? Reality is a rough turning point, and I think that children should be able to avoid it while they can, and think what they want and let their imaginations take them wherever they may.
