Unlearning the Myths

Reflection:

Reading the topic that Christensen wrote about did not come as a surprise to me. In fact, I've known about these stereotypes for a while now, probably since my sophomore year of high school. I watched a youtube video on it, saw instagram posts about it, tweets about it, you name it.
Contrary to Christensen's student Justine, though, I don't believe that we should stay ignorant to this. Yes, these fairy tales made us feel happy and encouraged our young, flourishing minds to dress up and play pretend, but what about the other deeper, psychological effects that come along with it.

Christensen points out that she asks her students to notice the roles and how they are portrayed, using Looney Toons and Disney as an example. How are the overweight people portrayed, how are the Hispanic or Black people portrayed? What about the pretty, skinny white girl?

I am not oppressed. I experience white privilege, so I cannot speak on behalf of those that feel discriminated against based on their own skin. But I used to be overweight. Almost for all of my life actually, since three and a half until eighteen. But anyway, I digress. Even as a child, I would get saddened because I would never be a princess. Sure, being a white girl, I could have been, but not at my weight. Think about it. How are fat people portrayed in cartoons, especially Disney? The first thing that comes to mind is Ursula from The Little Mermaid.



Ask yourself, what kind of a subconscious effect is that having on the overweight little girl that was watching this? Will she ever be a princess? As I got older, I learned that if I wanted to be a princess, or get roles in plays, or even be accepted by society, I had to change. Fortunately, I was able to. However, there are people that cannot change as easily as I did.

This leads me to my next question, how do young black and hispanic girls feel about their representation?

"But Bria, Tiana's a black princess!!! And theres Mulan and-and Jasmine, and Pocahontas!!!"

Okay, let's take a moment to analyze this. There are ELEVEN (official) Disney princesses, and only FOUR of them are POC? Come ON! That's a lack of representation.

And I know Christensen focuses more on stereotypes and less about representation, and believe me, I'm getting there.

Over the summer, I babysit four young children on Wednesdays and Fridays. These children are white, come from upper middle class families, and have pretty much everything they want. After pool time, we all settle down and watch a movie, and get the two youngest ready for a nap. This summer, we watched Peter Pan. All I could think about is how all of the Native Americans were portrayed. Disgusting! 

What kind of an impression does that leave on those young children? A negative one is the only answer. Who else remembers doing the "Indian Chant" as a child, where you would parade around your house screaming and waving your hand in front of you face? I know I did. Where do you think those stereotypes come from? You guessed it, the media.


To end this reflection, I'm going to link a youtube video that talks about just how racist Disney is. Stay woke, everyone ✌🏻



Comments

  1. KaylaOctober 5, 2018 at 4:12 PM

    I never really learned about this stuff in school. I knew that it was happening in the Disney movies but going through school or in general talked about it. To find out that just 4 of the princess are poc is crazy to me. Love the pics!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nadia XavierOctober 5, 2018 at 5:35 PM

    Looking back at some of the Disney movies i watched and reading the Christensen article I now realize how some of them portrayed some very negative stereotypes, its insane how oblivious i was at the time. also you made some great points and i like how you backed up your argument by making connections from your own experience.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownOctober 9, 2018 at 9:32 AM

    Until recently none of this was really brought to my attention, and now that I'm more aware of this it makes me so sad that Disney is such a huge part of children's lives past and present while poorly showing and representing so many groups of people.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DreyaOctober 9, 2018 at 11:34 AM

    I never even realized any of the stereotypes while watching the movies because I was so young and into them,. This article really opened my eyes to the stereotypes..

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownOctober 9, 2018 at 9:25 PM

    I love this post. It is sad to think about how messed up our childhoods were. All of the Disney moves that we loved growing up were so problematic. I think that Ursula is a particularly interesting character to look at because not only is it a vilified overweight character but also it's important to know who Ursula was modeled after. Ursula was inspired by a famous Drag Queen known as "Divine." This brings in the larger discussion of childhood shows commonly queer coding, meaning hinting that characters are queer or giving them characteristics associated with being queer, their villains. Some examples would be Ursula, Scar, Hades, HIM from the Powerpuff Girls, and more. It just makes people associate being queer with being bad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bria ♥October 10, 2018 at 11:12 AM

      i did know that about ursula! but I didn’t even think about that aspect of it. You’re totally right though, and i’m glad you pointed that out. it’s so true that gay=bad in the media, even if the cartoon/movie/etc doesn’t come right out and say it.

      Delete
  6. TiffanyOctober 10, 2018 at 11:50 AM

    Until reading this article i did not realize just how many sterotypes were in cartoons, movies and books. Its crazy to think that our society has so many sterotypes. I agree with you, some of these sterotypes really are disgusting. It makes you wonder where do all these sterotypes come from in the first place and why do they become apart of our social norms?

    ReplyDelete
  7. RyanOctober 14, 2018 at 8:43 PM

    Throughout elementary and middle school I was very overweight, so I can kind of understand where you are coming from. I most likely would not have qualified to be a Disney prince lol. I to this day am still thankful for the resources that helped me get in better shape, and I agree that there are people out there who have it much harder and may not have access to resources needed.

    ReplyDelete

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