Talking Points #4 (Christensen)

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us
Linda Christensen

Christensen argues that media instills negative messages into our brain at an early age. She expresses how these messages filled with racism, sexism and other negative diversity stereotypes must be identified and “un-learned” so people do not live their wholes lives with the negative messages they received as a child.

“In this passage and others in her dialogue with Dorfman, Justine displayed discomfort with prying apart her identity and discovery where she received her ideas; yet she also grudgingly admitted how necessary this process was if she wanted to move beyond where she was at the time.”
This quote stuck out to me because I feel like everyone does this at their lives, whether it be small and minor reflections or large and life changing. Personally, I have gone through a large and life changing experience where I had to look at myself and determine various things. This process ended with me losing 4 out of 5 of my closest friends from high school over the span of two years because I did not conform to the “norm” and stuck to my opinions. This to me has been a decision that I have thought a lot about and even though I lost my closest friends over it, have never regretted. I feel like it has made me a stronger and better person. In those two years, I also underwent changes in a personal way and through my family, which have contributed to me becoming the person I am today. Again, I am thankful for those experience and even though they seemed impossible to get through when they were occurring, I know I would not be half the person I am today without them. Mainly, I am grateful I underwent such a “process” at an “early” age because it means I have more of my life to live with the outlook I have now and can make more of a difference then if it had happened latter in my life. Granted, it made me grow up a lot faster than I would have liked but regardless, I am still thankful.

“ ‘Look, Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she’s kind of dark looking. The young, pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks.’ ”
Alright. First of all, this quote bothered me because The Little Mermaid was my favorite Disney movie as a child. Who knows how many times I’ve watched it but never once did I think of it in this context. The characters physical appearance did not trigger anything inside of me. I simply watched it because I liked the story, the songs and I loved to swim. Therefore, I loved the movie. I never, ever regarded anything I watched as sending off negative messages about any time of racism, sexism, etc. I watched the movies and enjoyed their stories. I mean, I watched Aladdin along with The Little Mermaid and regarded them as the same time of story. The skin color or portrayal of sexes did not come to my mind and have had no affect on me. I would like to think I am a very open person to diversity and I grew up on Disney movies. Obviously, the family environment is going to have an influence on your thoughts on diversity. By no means am I saying anything against anyone’s family environment but I know I was raised to treat everyone equally. Granted, I did not experience a diverse culture until I came to college, as my hometown is predominately white. Nonetheless, I am open to diversity; I do not treat people different to any factor (race, gender, religion, etc.). The only reason I would treat someone differently is if I have a personal issue with them and then it doesn’t matter if you are the most powerful person or the weakest. I mean, its not like I was naïve as a child. I knew that not everyone wasn’t like me but it just didn’t matter to me; a person was a person and we are all different so what did it matter if one of those differences was skin color, religion, gender, etc..

“Students have also said that what they now see in cartoons, they also see in advertising, on prime time TV, on the news, in school. Turning off the cartoons doesn’t stop the sexism and racism. They can’t escape, and now that they’ve started analyzing cartoons, they can’t stop analyzing the rest of the world. And sometimes they want to stop. Once a student asked me, ‘Don’t you ever get tired of analyzing everything?’”
Ok, I get it. Its like once you see a bumper sticker somewhere and find out what it means, you see it everywhere (I know, poor comparison) but you can choose to stop. Not everything in the world is made to be important nor diverse but simply made for enjoyment; things you don’t have to think about. I mean, how many stupid movies come out every year? And I totally understand how everything should be made to be diverse to promote diversity and express how important it is for everyone to be equal. I totally agree. But going to the extent of expressing how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are “pointless” simply because it is about a bunch of talking, ninja fighting turtles is a bit extreme. Diversity aside, its made for pure enjoyment, like any for of media that we see. If these students found this cartoon to be “pointless” I can only imagine that they would find nearly every show on television pointless. I mean, why bother having a show about a fictional family who do not talk about diversity all the time on television? If we cut all the media that was “pointless” I’m sure we would just be left with the news, which to some/most people would also be considered “pointless.”

Ok, don’t get me wrong. I understand where Christensen is coming from and I think as many shows as possible can incorporate diversity. It should be effortless but meaningful. However, I think she takes this to the extreme. I personally have never had an affect of watching cartoons/Disney movies as a child. Then again, I am a white female from a middle class family so maybe because of those attributes I did not get a negative influence from those shows. The way I see it is that everything in moderation can’t hurt you. I didn’t watch excessive cartoons as a child so maybe that plays into the role as well. But I mean, it’s the same with how everything is all “organic” now. I work in a grocery store and literally, I have seen gluten free, sugar free and probably something else “free” Oreos. (I think they are called chocolate crisp crème cookies). Like…seriously? Call me old fashioned but sometimes nothing beats a good Oreo at the end of the day. I mean, I enjoy fruit and Luna bars as much as the next girl but at some point, I think again we just get too extreme. I think its great that they make gluten free and sugar free products because people are allergic to gluten or diabetic but simply getting them because you want to shield your child from “everything awful” in the world just doesn’t seem like it’s the only and best way to parent a child. Its not a horrible method but its sickening to me have these methods shoved in my face more and more. Who knows, by the time I have children maybe the trend will be to eat solely cardboard.
Ok…to move on from my huge rant, there was one other issue that bothered me with this article; the lack of positive diversity examples. Christensen provided the black Cinderella example but then it just kind of…subsided. If you want to get into extremes, I’m sure I can’t point out diversity in a Disney movie. I mean, in The Little Mermaid, a regular, non-merman human falls in love with a mermaid. Granted, they have the same skin color but they are from different world. In Beauty and the Beast, a regular human falls in love with, well a beast. Yes, these movies set up “false hopes” about life but its not like they are oblivious to the world in some way, shape or form. I mean, are we trying to say movies about talking cars or animals are better? Or, here’s a good one. Hannah Montana. Essentially, if you want to get particular, it is not teaching kids that its “ok” to lead two lives and not be true to who you are? (At least, that’s what I get from watching it with my cousin a few times) One cartoon I did think of was The Flintstones. Both Fred and Barney are “overweight” men and are married to attractive and skinny females. But is this mentioned in the article? I think not…

And I apologize for how long this is but I am in a car, on my way to Arlington to visit my brother so I was quite bored and just kept typing.