What is your relationship to Disney and animated children’s culture? I had to look at a list of Disney movies from my childhood to regain my bearing. The VCR didn't arrive in our house until I was somewhere between ten and twelve years of age. So the only access to Disney films of the time was an occasional presentation on network or local television or one of the many live action films Disney produced. Many of these titles were demonstrating an evolution to empower girls and women at least in that girls were the leads. Jodie Foster and the Richards sisters got numerous appearances in those days.
As for animated children's television most reruns of comedic shorts such as Yogi Bear, and Tom and Jerry along with the numerous super hero cartoons such as the SuperFriends and Anime imports of the time were my mainstays. I can now see how they may have contributed greatly to my benevolent sexism score of 2.73 out of 5. (My hostile sexism score is much lower.) http://www.understandingprejudice.org/asi/ So the knight in shining armor attitude is one I've learned well but I'm not a leading man.
The superhero script especially would have numerous white male protagonists who were strong if not invulnerable or who could otherwise remediate any lack or setback in roughly nineteen minutes before the climax of the story around 22:00.
I was a little too young to watch more than a few episodes of the live action Wonder Woman with Linda Carter. I am glad Jill Lepore's new book has helped us understand this crucial American characters more thoroughly in her recent book. http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-History-Wonder-Woman/dp/0385354045
What role did these texts play in your life as a child, if any?
I'm an Anglophile who loves the lore of the monarchy and royalty but my class awareness from early on in my life made me see the prince/princess dyad as something I would not be much at peace with or appropriate for my own story. I would be the stable boy or some other hired hand who would find another of the same station in life.
How do your memories challenge or reflect Christensen’s claims?
The cultural story is alive and well and the prom sub-culture of high school. When I was a younger teacher I was amazed that the prom king and queen were chosen at random (during the prom) at my first high school of employment.
How does Brave meet or challenge your memories of princess culture?
The names are a key insight for me. Fergus, Elinor and Merida are all names that are strong. We truly have a protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist. Fergus means manly, Elinor means shining light and Merida means high place of honor.
Dan - I love the link the to the Understanding Prejudice website! Really interesting results and comparisons at the end. This would be really cool to use with kids before and after a media studies unit. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteBrittany, Thanks for the confirmation on that resource. It's a challenge to use in a single sex school so I bring in other faculty of both genders to debrief the items on the scale (so it's not just me playing defense of the nature, validity and meaning of the survey). I think there's a way to find it on the web in a conventional paper form too.
DeleteDan, it's surprising how much Disney has become so huge in our society today. As we see this pop culture changing, we see society changing. Also, it is so cool to know what the names of the characters in Brave means; it truly gives insight into how Disney is taking a stand to reverse these stereotypes.
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