Friday, July 23, 2010
Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power
The film "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" seemed to pull out so many opinions from the class this week and I was wondering what anyone else thought about it? Do you agree that Disney is using it's corperate power to influence children with the negative morals? Or do you think that it's only a movie and kids don't understand so it doesn't matter? Does anyone think that the race, gender and class issues presented in the film were blown out of proportion or are serious issues that need to be discussed further?
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This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I can't comment on a blog all weekend, ahha.
ReplyDeleteMulan, for instance, depicts a scene taking place in the Sui Dynasty (581-618) in China. In reality, China's view on gender was rather soft at this point in time as they believed that females were not any different than males; gender was solely a social construct. We can even look back to this dynasty and find evidence of female enlistment, labor, and rights.
From the beginning of the 10th century during the Tang dynasty, women's issues began to unfold. It became practice to bind women's feet, permanently disfiguring and disabling a woman for the rest of her life. Although it proved a woman was not laborious and low-class, these toe-breaking procedures started at the age 3 and were eventually considered extremely sought after in terms of marriage and highly erotic. The practice of foot binding removed women from daily life at large, considering their lack of being able to walk. This practice was carried into the 20th century and people still suffer from bound feet today.
(Really, this is just one point I could touch on, but like I said- I'm not going to write all weekend.)
Now, because of this 'recent' history being widely sexist, I can assume that Disney does not set their depiction of Mulan in any specific time period. They suggest the setting through their landmarks as The Forbidden City wasn't constructed until the 16th century, but one can assume it's set sometime between the 6th-16th century, during which a majority of the population was fiercely sexist and almost 100% of the entire female upper class population of china were purposely disabled and envied by lower class women for that fact (resulting in over 50% of the lower class female population to bind their feet).
I think Disney's depiction of feudal China may not be doing China justice- what with the 'marriage interviews'? Really? If you look back at China (not to mention most of the world) you see a long history of female oppression. Disney tries to show a culture that was lead into the mistreatment of females- and just because Mulan happened to fight in a war with an army, doesn't really change the entire culture's centuries-long standpoint that's shown in grandma's solitary (and extremely vanilla) statement of, "Great, she brought home a sword. If you ask me, she should have brought home a man."
China has obviously changed a lot since then, but I mean- really? Looking in history books, children will probably read about things far more horrific than a grandmother downplaying some girl's actions. Maybe she was representative of the stupid 'old' views that Mulan was defying?
There's a thousand ways you can reasonably justify Disney's depiction of women in feudal china, and a thousand ways you can reasonably argue against it- which is probably why I'm playing such a devil's advocate here. Usually I'd plead ignorance and park a kid in front of a television. (:
I am, in all honesty, very 50/50 about this issue. I can see how Disney is using the power to influence kids with negative morals. However, I also believe that it's just a movie. I know that when I was younger, I didn't know about any of these negative morals, nor did I care. And I certainly don't believe that a young child knows or cares about the hidden messages behind each film. That being all said, I think it's the guardian's job to set the kids straight about what they're seeing on their television. Take The Little Mermaid, for example: A little kid would not recognize the fact that Triton (Ariel's father), is very prejudice against humans. Nor do they see the fact that in order for Ariel to be loved, see loses her voice, something that makes her extremely unique. All they see is a girl falling in love and doing anything she can to have that feeling reciprocated. Which, is also kind of horrible, but still.
ReplyDeleteLastly, I think that yes, all the issues were blown out of proportion, but just a bit. The people in the interview were very biased, and like someone had said in class, I'm positive that the parent's shared their ideas with the children beforehand. Even if they didn't, it seemed like the whole video was biased, in a way that made it seem like the directors made sure to ask kids who they knew would say the things they wanted. I mean, they only asked like what, three kids? When I was kid, all of this stuff was nothing to me. It was just a movie. In a way, it still is.
So, in the end, let the kids know what's right and wrong after the move, don't force your opinions on them and just, like Sarah said, be ignorant and park the kid in front of a television :)
I don't think Disney purposefully put all of the racism, sexism etc.. I feel that it may have been done unintentionally but then everyone else blows it out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteThey movies are made for the children, and if people have a problem with the movies, they can explain to their child about these issues if they feel the children will grow up worse because of them getting bad impressions from the movies.
This movie drove me crazy! I was so frustrated the whole time. What really got me was the fact that all of the people featured in the movie complained about how Disney was anti- capitalist/ anti-democracy, but still had the nerve to say that Disney owed the population. Here's a crazy idea, if you don't like Disney products, if you believe that they are bad for your children, don't buy them! It's as simple as that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brian! The movie had all those anti- Disney people criticizing about Disney yet they accepted the fact that Disney is globally famous and well-known.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Brian. I think in order for the video to be unbiased, they should have included pro-Disney people or something like that. Instead, it was a movie against Disney and trying to have people conform to their views.
ReplyDelete