“Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us”
Author: Linda Christensen
It is hard to look at this paper and not find it concerning, worrying, and funny. The authors’ main focus is to have students critique the portrayals of hierarchy and inequality in children’s movies and in cartoons. “Then I want to enlist them to imagine a better world characterized by relationships of respect and equality.” The author starts by decoding cartoons and making students think critically and focus on specific stereotype of the characters seen in the cartoons. Racism, sexism, social inequality, the strive for the perfect body, economic and political issues all these labels strive in images we see not only in cartoons but in magazines, TV, radio, etc.
By analyzing some of the contemporary cartoons one question came to my mind: Is it good or bad that SpongeBob Squarepants is not portrayed as a male or female? Even though the cartoon itself seems stupid and has no purpose whatsoever. My son Jayden can spend a whole afternoon watching this particular cartoon. Do cartoons like this teach our kids better sexism value due to the unknown sex of the character?
Society has the powerful tool to infect the minds of humans throughout the media. They teach us how to want, to live, to dream, and to hope. But sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves for what? I wanted to find a comparison with Tomas Hines reading and I found that most teens in our society spend most of their time and energy: “figuring out where they fit in –the universe, the world, the economy, their social circle, their family…” The main concern of teens is that they want to find a place in society and adapt to it.
“No one wants to admit that they have been “handled” by the media.” That is were young women start dealing with the so-called “Barbie syndrome” and the depression (at a very young age), anorexia, bulimia. Also boys have a tendency to grow up with the mentality of a warrior, and then the machismo takes place in most males because of what our children see everyday in the media. But if or youth starts embedding itself onto what the media portrays, our children are going to suffer one sad life growing up.
Author: Linda Christensen
It is hard to look at this paper and not find it concerning, worrying, and funny. The authors’ main focus is to have students critique the portrayals of hierarchy and inequality in children’s movies and in cartoons. “Then I want to enlist them to imagine a better world characterized by relationships of respect and equality.” The author starts by decoding cartoons and making students think critically and focus on specific stereotype of the characters seen in the cartoons. Racism, sexism, social inequality, the strive for the perfect body, economic and political issues all these labels strive in images we see not only in cartoons but in magazines, TV, radio, etc.
By analyzing some of the contemporary cartoons one question came to my mind: Is it good or bad that SpongeBob Squarepants is not portrayed as a male or female? Even though the cartoon itself seems stupid and has no purpose whatsoever. My son Jayden can spend a whole afternoon watching this particular cartoon. Do cartoons like this teach our kids better sexism value due to the unknown sex of the character?
Society has the powerful tool to infect the minds of humans throughout the media. They teach us how to want, to live, to dream, and to hope. But sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves for what? I wanted to find a comparison with Tomas Hines reading and I found that most teens in our society spend most of their time and energy: “figuring out where they fit in –the universe, the world, the economy, their social circle, their family…” The main concern of teens is that they want to find a place in society and adapt to it.
“No one wants to admit that they have been “handled” by the media.” That is were young women start dealing with the so-called “Barbie syndrome” and the depression (at a very young age), anorexia, bulimia. Also boys have a tendency to grow up with the mentality of a warrior, and then the machismo takes place in most males because of what our children see everyday in the media. But if or youth starts embedding itself onto what the media portrays, our children are going to suffer one sad life growing up.
1 comment:
Fabulous points here, Benelix! I love the questions you ask about Sponge Bob! This is exactly what I was trying to get at in class last week when I raised the issue of "intention" vs. "implication." You do an excellent job trying to figure out the implications of the text without get stuck on the intention.
LB :)
Post a Comment