I will admit that I actually loved this article...mainly because I hated it. What I mean is that the subject matter truly challenged me, and I sort of love the back-and-forth that's going through my mind right now. The "rational" and overly-optomistic-of-society part of me is thinking "this guy is nutso and completely over-analyzing Disney films." But then there's the student inside of me, who has learned to look at everything as critically as possible....and that part of me agrees with everything Giroux said, and it made me realize that I'll never be able to look at Disney in the same way.
With that being said, I can't help but think that Giroux is placing a bit too much blame on Disney for the racial and gender-role themes present in their films. Look, I understand that Disney is one of the largest and most powerful media corporations in the world. I get that. And I 100% agree that they should be held accountable for the messages that they provide us with. However, the roles and meaning that Disney films portray to the audience are nothing new. The subordination of women and racial stereotyping has had a place in our society long before these Disney films came along.
Giroux, in my opinion, is pretty much spot on with his criticism of these Disney films (I personally was more convinced with his assessments of Aladdin and Pocohontas, and not so much with The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast). And I do believe that Disney's portrayal of race and gender roles is harmful in contributing the the stereotypes we already have in place. It would be naive to think that a media corporation as large and influencial as Disney should not be held accountable for this. But like I just said - these are stereotypes that I believe have already been present in society before Disney came along. And I'm pretty sure that Giroux would agree with that, but I just don't think that he made that a strong enough point in his article. Instead, I came away with the impression that Disney is evil and Disney alone provided us with all of these skewed images and beliefs of race and gender roles.
In the article, Giroux compared Ariel to an anorexic Barbie figure (or something like that). Before I continue, can I just say that I find it very offensive when people refer to a thin person as being anorexic? Anorexia is a disease - not just the result of a vanity laden female. ANYway, this was one of his criticisms that I didn't find incredibly valid, and not because of his use of the anorexic term. The reason it didn't hold ground with me is because the image of Barbie is one that has been around long before The Little Mermaid was even released. Our society has been overwhelemed for decades with the image of the "perfect" woman, complete with a tiny waste, large breast, and curvy hips. This is nothing new. Sure, one could still argue that Disney is portraying Ariel's body shape as the stereotypical "eye candy" of a woman, but isn't that what we as society expect? In fact, isn't that what we desire? I would argue yes.
I belief that this applies to most of the other areas of Disney films that Giroux criticized - Disney used meanings and beliefs already held by society, rather than Disney implementing them onto society. I guess you could say I'm taking a post-structuralist stance on this. With that being said, I will be the first one to admit that many of Giroux' criticisms (especially that of the opening song in Aladdin) are indeed very troubling. I would like to hope and believe that it is not the Disney corporation as a whole that holds these racist views, and that people like Giroux will continue to hold Disney accountable. Although racial and gender based stereotypes have been accepted as being inevitable in our society, we cannot stop being critical of these media portrayals...no matter how much we want to defend our beloved Disney films, in this case!
1 comment:
I guess it's part of the concept of hegemony that powerful cultural voices don't so much need to inject new ideas into society to be influential--rather, power is maintained by repeatedly and/or continuing to get people to consent to ideologies that already work in the interests of the powerful. It's more about reinforcement than new indoctrination.
If we believe that there would be value in expanding the cultural discourses on gender, race, class, etc., then a company like Disney, that seems to work pretty hard to keep the discourses confined in the same limits that have been in place for decades (if not century) is working counter to healthy change.
Incidentally, I just saw the movie Ponyo today, which is a Japanese film distributed in the States by Disney. It would be VERY interesting, I think, to watch Ponyo and The Little Mermaid back-to-back and to consider how productions' takes on the Hans Christian Andersen story compare and contrast. (Ponyo is in theaters now.)
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