Revisiting Disney: Disney Could Learn a Thing or Two, but So Could We

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Disney Could Learn a Thing or Two, but So Could We

Disney is known as a giant in the entertainment and commercial goods businesses, but the company also has a giant, invisible hand in the education industry (but in the actual American educational system and also in the metaphorical sphere of "education" that Disney imparts on its viewers). Personally, I see nothing wrong with Disney's scholarship opportunities, teacher of the year awards, and grants that it gives to various schools around the nation. Education is important. Disney supports that, therefore I support Disney in supporting education. In Giroux's article "Animating Youth: The Disneyfication of Children's Culture," he mentions Disney having these scholarship opportunities as an example of the "over Disney-fication of America." While I agree that Disney is almost terrifying pervasive in the American childhood-culture, I looked into these scholarship opportunities and I was unable to see anything distinctly wrong about them. According to the Disney Corp. website, the teacher of the year award rewards, "a member of the teaching profession whose talent, commitment, and creativity have a profound and lasting impact on our children and society." These teachers also are nominated by parents, colleagues, and their students; it's not as if Disney is hand-picking these teachers according to how often they read their class Disney stories or play Disney movies for them, it's a genuine acknowledgement of their talents as an instructor. Not only is it an acknowledgment, the company then give monetary grants to both the teacher and the institution they work for, and education could always use supplementary funding. As long as Disney isn't impressing that these teachers must imbed Disney into their curriculum, I see no fault or "over-Disneyfication" present in these grants -- they simply benefit our children. (And so what if they make Disney look good along the way?)

What I do agree with is that Disney should be taught critically in schools. If Disney were taught in class through a similar historical, critical lens as actual historical events are taught in school, they could be a valuable learning mechanism especially for younger children. Rather than just watching the Jungle Book and learning seeing it as a fun, happy-go-lucky movie about a boy and his bear, if teachers critically analyzed it with their students looking at the racial undertones and other triggers in the movie that frequently go unobserved, it would be a powerful teaching mechanism. Moreover, it could be a lens in which to view American history at the time when the movie was produced. Why was "Why is the Red Man Red?" a fine song to put into Peter Pan when now the Washington Redskins are being frequently sued for naming their team after a racial slur against Native Americans? It makes American history relatable even to young children, although it might be a little much to go into full graphic detail of the history between the English settlers and the Native Americans when children are too young. I agree with Giroux that Disney is a huge influence on American culture, I also agree that it's a money-making machine, however if examined critically, even it's misgivings are really just lenses into the past. Whatever is offensive in Disney can be acknowledged as such and that can be alright. Times have changed and as long as we acknowledge that and don't let children just passively watch Disney movies with their outdated themes and undertones, they aren't harmful. The only catch is that Disney would probably hate this idea-- a lot. Like Giroux expresses, they've worked very hard to market themselves as the ideal, wholesome, innocent children's stories and if they are read as misguided retellings of history, or highly-dated cultural representations, then Disney might not be thought of as such a harmless entertainment source. On their website, Disney Corp tries to be fairly transparent about their various human rights policies, nutrition policies, etc. regarding the production of their goods and the management of their parks, but I still don't believe they are ready for the same critical examination of the intellectual goods they produce.

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Disney's as a Boys' Toy Too

I rarely remember that little boys, as well as little girls, watch Disney movies and look up to some of the characters. In many of the earlier films, the men/princes aren't really a significant piece of the story, but more recently males are playing a greater and greater role in Disney and Pixar movies. Males like Chang, Sebastian, and Wasabi serve as role models for young boys just as the princesses do for little girls. Because of this, it's just as important that little boys of all appearances and personality types appear in animated films. The Feminist community has been more outspoken about female representation than the male community, perhaps because women tended to be placed in a subservient position to the men of the stories in earlier Disney movies. However, if you try to closely examine the character of the men or male characters in the early Disney movies, they tend to just be place holders that allow the princess to achieve their happily ever after. In later films they are hyper masculine and tough, even sometimes emotionless, if they want to be attractive to the females in the story. The non-human characters like Sebastion, Timone, and the like can be more sensitive because they aren't the male protagonist trying to win the girl and save the world. If we're going to work to build up strong, independent girls, we should work equally hard to help develop sensitive, thoughtful boys. This begins with providing more complex characters for them to look up to and more representation in the male characters in Disney films.

Identity and Disney

Disney Characters' Race Breakdown

Although Disney is often criticized for its lack of diversity in the characters in its animated and live action films, the statistics are fairly close to those of the US census. Although in Disney, about 75% of the characters are White, and so minorities are somewhat underrepresented, the statistics are fairly close to the true proportions. In America, about 62% of the population identifies as White, while 17% of the population is Hispanic, 13.2% is Black, 5% is Asian, and 3.8% of the population identify as multiracial, Native American, or Native Hawaiian. While more diversity would be nice, especially regarding Latinos considering they are 17% of the US population and only one single Disney character is identified as Latino, the statistic is less drastic that I would have anticipated.