"Doing Disney" Fosters media literacy in freshmen.Abstract Media-literate citizens understand that cultural productions transmit ideologies and influence private and public life. The Disney assignment sequence uses academic and non-academic sources to engage college freshmen composition students in reading and writing about Disney in order to develop media literacy Media literacy is the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms. It uses an inquiry-based instructional model that encourages people to ask questions about what they watch, see and read. , helping them become more critical consumers and helping them understand the cognitive dissonance cognitive dissonance Mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. The concept was introduced by the psychologist Leon Festinger (1919–89) in the late 1950s. that leads to real learning. Introduction Having been avid consumers of media for eighteen years or more, most college freshmen have unconsciously absorbed a worldview world·view n. In both senses also called Weltanschauung. 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. which endorses consumerism consumerism Movement or policies aimed at regulating the products, services, methods, and standards of manufacturers, sellers, and advertisers in the interests of the buyer. , validates the most ubiquitous messages of culture, and balks at criticizing the producers of media. Developing an understanding that media productions are ideological and that profit, not social or personal development, is the driving factor behind those productions may help them see that a quite limited range of acceptable emotions, behaviors, and futures are being sold to them in supposedly ideology-free packages. Developing media literacy in college students also serves my disciplinary goals for freshman composition by reinforcing that writing is inquiry, that writing is a tool for learning and a tool for change. I introduce the students to Kenneth Burke's idea of the parlor, the ongoing conversation. Burke writes Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about.... You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. (110-111) What I want to do is prepare students to join the social construction of our world by becoming media-literate citizens. Using documentaries and articles, I engage my freshman composition students in critical analysis of Disney films, focusing particularly on images of women and minorities in their most popular animated features. "Doing Disney" while teaching the basic writing strategies of summary, paraphrase par·a·phrase n. 1. A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning. 2. The restatement of texts in other words as a studying or teaching device. v. , and synthesis allows students to read and write about a topic they already have familiarity and experience with while achieving my larger mission of making students into more critical consumers of the media by helping them see that ideologies inform every public message. This media literacy project is inspired in part by Henry Giroux's The Mouse that Roared, which recommends examining how media culture has become a substantial, if not the primary, educational force in regulating the meanings, values, and tastes that set the norms that offer up and legitimate particular subject positions--what it means to claim an identity as male, female, white, black, citizen, noncitizen. The media culture defines childhood, the national past, beauty, truth, and social agency. (2-3) Disney programming is, he asserts, "largely aimed at teaching young people to be consumers" (3). Giroux acknowledges that Disney is not a monolithic Single object. Self contained. One unit. evil giant, conspiring against democracy, but he urges us to examine the powerful and appealing images Disney projects of fun, magic, and innocence "for the futures they envision, the values they promote, and the forms of identifications they offer" (7). Narrowing this charge to a specific analysis of values and identifications associated with gender and race provides an easily-discerned framework for developing media literacy. Introducing students specifically to some feminist responses to Disney illuminates not just the ways the physical bodies of the heroines offer limited options for acceptable womanhood wom·an·hood n. 1. The state or time of being a woman. 2. The composite of qualities thought to be appropriate to or representative of women. 3. , but also how the personalities, social positioning, and life choices of the heroines perpetuate per·pet·u·ate tr.v. per·pet·u·at·ed, per·pet·u·at·ing, per·pet·u·ates 1. To cause to continue indefinitely; make perpetual. 2. a narrow range of acceptable female behavior by reinforcing the cultural notions that women are compliant, pleasant, malleable malleable /mal·le·a·ble/ (mal´e-ah-b'l) susceptible of being beaten out into a thin plate. mal·le·a·ble adj. 1. Capable of being shaped or formed, as by hammering or pressure. , and male-focused. The young women and men I teach need to learn to interrogate (1) To search, sum or count records in a file. See query. (2) To test the condition or status of a terminal or computer system. such media stereotypes against reality and possibility. Resistance and Cognitive Dissonance Many students initially resist feminist readings of Disney, offering several categories of protest: that women are no longer oppressed op·press tr.v. op·pressed, op·press·ing, op·press·es 1. To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority: a people who were oppressed by tyranny. 2. or limited in our society and that these images are part of our cultural history and cannot be judged by our modern, enlightened mindsets; that the critics "overanalyze;" that the limited gender formulations of the romance plot are appropriate and/or harmless; that Disney is "better" than anything else available for kids; that they watched a lot of Disney growing up and they turned out okay; that children aren't really picking up on the larger messages or double meanings in the Disney films; that Disney really means well, really wants to offer kids some good lessons and that the good outweighs the bad. The sources and our class discussions usually present a number of rebuttals for these protests, but I begin by turning the students toward the idea of how Disney's images are consumed by our culture. I ask, if these portrayals are, in tact, simply quaint quaint adj. quaint·er, quaint·est 1. Charmingly odd, especially in an old-fashioned way: "Sarah Orne Jewett . . . and outdated representations of a previous generation of women, why are they still consumed by millions of children around the world every year? Are they consumed as historical documents, as far-fetched and ridiculous examples of how women were once treated in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. ? No, the students admit; these images are mostly consumed with no critical dialogue, no questioning of the gender roles promoted. Mostly, they agree with the thesis of Jill Birnie Henke, Diane Zimmerman Umble and Nancy J. Smith's "Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine" that Although heroines have expressed self and voicehood in some of the later films, Disney's interpretations of children's literature and history remain those of a white, middle-class, patriarchal society. (335) But, they protest, what harm do these representations do? We begin then to talk about the images of women's bodies that they see in the media now and of their own experiences with friends who struggle with eating disorders eating disorders, in psychology, disorders in eating patterns that comprise four categories: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, rumination disorder, and pica. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by self-starvation to avoid obesity. , low self-esteem, destructive behavior, distorted body image, and frustrated frus·trate tr.v. frus·trat·ed, frus·trat·ing, frus·trates 1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: ambition. We talk about the passivity of the Disney heroines and their inability to help themselves, except by being kind, obedient, and patient. Although I try to turn the discussions toward cultural dicta Opinions of a judge that do not embody the resolution or determination of the specific case before the court. Expressions in a court's opinion that go beyond the facts before the court and therefore are individual views of the author of the opinion and not binding in subsequent cases about behavior and ambition, the students are most engaged by the discussions of bodies and sexuality, and in these exchanges, I can begin to see the seeds of media literacy germinate. One student described her burgeoning understanding of the media by writing The relationship between the media and women is like that of a fluorescent blue light and mosquitoes. Women can see that the media's heightened female images are harmful to our society, yet they are still in awe of it and drawn in. I seek to push them away from individual interpretations or reactions to individual films and more toward how these images interact with social practices; as Giroux explains, "How audiences interpret Disney's texts may not be as significant as how some ideas, meanings, and messages under certain political conditions become more highly valued as representations of reality than others" (8). This ability to see the larger socio-political repercussions repercussions npl → répercussions fpl repercussions npl → Auswirkungen pl of media productions is the media literacy that students lack. The lack of a critical apparatus for reading the media reveals the homogeneity Homogeneity The degree to which items are similar. of the students' cultural experiences, which manifests as resistance to media critique. Their resistance emerges partly from the cognitive dissonance created by challenging deeply-held notions of childhood and children's entertainment, and their response to the dissonance is an insistence that our critiques of culture do not matter. In their frustration, they say things like, "Why do we even have to talk about this? We're not going to change Disney by talking about it in this class." They feel, in some sense, that their voices have no power in the culture, and that writing about such ideas doesn't matter because it does not produce immediate, direct results. I counter that it matters because it changes them to talk and write about these issues. It changes their innocent consumption of images. A student who is also a mother wrote, "Examining Disney has opened my eyes further to the injustices of the media upon our society. I not only see it in Disney movies but in all forms of media as well." At the same time, some students continue to express frustration with this discussion, writing, as one student did, Until recently I never thought about the depiction of women and gender roles in Disney movies. To be honest I think there are very few people out there who do.... I think that it is just a few people, mostly child bearing women, who have a problem with this. I think they are overanalyzing and have gone way to [sic] far. Even though many students find the reading and writing about Disney, at times, pointless and frustrating frus·trate tr.v. frus·trat·ed, frus·trat·ing, frus·trates 1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: , I remind them that knowledge is power, that complacency is death, that if you change yourself, that's real change. But I'm sure that at this point in their lives, most of them don't believe me and some have become even stronger defenders of Disney. This defense serves my ends as well, because in defending Disney, they still must carefully examine their consumption of Disney and what messages Disney sends that they want their children to see, which is certainly a more critical position than blind allegiance. They learn about ideologies and agendas in all spheres, including the classroom they're sitting in. The Disney Assignment Sequence To begin the assignment sequence in which I use critiques of Disney to teach summarizing, paraphrasing and synthesizing, I first show the Chyng Feng Sun and Miguel Picker documentary, Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse Famous character of Walt Disney's animated cartoons. He was introduced in Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animated cartoon with sound. Mickey was created by Disney, who also provided his high-pitched voice, and was usually drawn by the studio's head animator, Monopoly, which introduces critical perspectives on Disney, particularly in relation to corporate power and responsibility, representations of gender and the "other," and the commercialization of children's culture Children's culture can be defined in a great number of ways and suffers from being an incredibly broad category. In recent times the study of children's cultural artifacts, children's media and literature and the myths and discourses spun around the notion of childhood have all . Mickey Mouse Monopoly emphasizes that Disney is a corporation, not an educational institution, that their primary concern is making money, not teaching us how to be good people. The documentary, through Dr. Gall Dines, makes the critical point that it doesn't really matter whether Disney does or does not intend to be sexist sex·ism n. 1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women. 2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender. or racist or materialistic ma·te·ri·al·ism n. 1. Philosophy The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. 2. , because the end result is the same. The documentary offers a friendly introduction to thinking more critically about Disney, nudging students toward suspending their resistance and preparing them for more analytical and academic studies of Disney, which come in a series of essays focusing on images of women and girls in animated Disney films. The first of these essays is Henke, Umble, and Smith's "Construction of the Female Self," which examines five popular "princess-centered" movies using standpoint feminist theories Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical, ground. It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines, prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology, economics, and research in women's cognitive development. Laura Sells' "Where Do the Mermaids Stand?" examines The Little Mermaid little mermaid the sacrifices her own life to save her beloved prince. [Dan. Lit.: Andersen’s Fairy Tales] See : Self-Sacrifice as allegorical al·le·gor·i·cal also al·le·gor·ic adj. Of, characteristic of, or containing allegory: an allegorical painting of Victory leading an army. of tensions in contemporary feminism, viewing the movie as both insidious insidious /in·sid·i·ous/ (-sid´e-us) coming on stealthily; of gradual and subtle development. in·sid·i·ous adj. Being a disease that progresses with few or no symptoms to indicate its gravity. and liberatory in its contradictory messages that women must sacrifice their voices in order to gain access to power but that the understanding of the play of gender allows women to enter the male world of power with their (wiser) voices intact (357). Students have the most difficulty with this essay because Sells is not so much critiquing The Little Mermaid as using it to talk about the contradictions of feminism. The third essay selection assuages some ruffled ruf·fle 1 n. 1. A strip of frilled or closely pleated fabric used for trimming or decoration. 2. A ruff on a bird. 3. a. A ruckus or fray. b. Annoyance; vexation. 4. feathers; Steven Watts' "The Disney Doctrine" describes, in a fairly objective tone, Walt Disney's desire to promote a particular version of the nuclear family with women as the moral centers of the family (368). The essay reinforces what the previous authors have argued, but taking a more historical survey of the issue diffuses the students' sense that the author has a political position about the subject. Turning to an essay which critiques while praising, students read Mimi Nguyen's "Who's Your Heroine? Negotiating Asian American A·sian A·mer·i·can also A·sian-A·mer·i·can n. A U.S. citizen or resident of Asian descent. See Usage Note at Amerasian. A Superpower in Disney's Mulan." Nguyen writes about her reaction to Mulan, explaining her pleasure in seeing a Disney tomboy tomboy Psychology A popular term for a girl whose developmental gender-identity/role is discordant with her genotype. Cf Sissy. but acknowledging that Mulan is also a manipulation of pseudofeminist ideas. Her non-white feminist perspective encourages the students to examine how their own reactions to Disney might be different if they were not primarily whites of European ancestry an·ces·try n. pl. an·ces·tries 1. Ancestral descent or lineage. 2. Ancestors considered as a group. [Middle English auncestrie, alteration (influenced by . The final three essays, all movie reviews, integrate the examination of race and gender in more recent Disney films. James Bowman's "Everything Old is New Again" reviews Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in ; Richard W. Hill's "The Pocahontas Phenomenon" discusses racism in Pocahontas; Elizabeth Chang's "Noted with Resignation" describes her response to Mulan. Interspersed among these readings are some online resources: "Of Mouse and Magic" (a student project analyzing social and political messages in Disney), "Who Owns Whom?" (a list of all of Disney's subsidiaries), and an online quiz about Classic Fairy Tales This is a list of fairy tales, the dates of their earliest known printed version, the author and, if known, the collection of tales in which it was published. It should be noted, however, that not all stories listed below would be categorized as fairy tales by a strict definition vs. Disney Fairy Tales. My goal in introducing so much material is to offer students a range of critical perspectives on Disney, from academics, film critics, media consumers, and fellow students. The volume of material illustrates to students that media critique is not out of the mainstream, not simply the productions of bored or frustrated intellectuals, but that ordinary moviegoers can both enjoy and analyze media products. When I first started using this material, my students used it to write a dialogue, in the tradition described by William Covino in Forms of Wondering. After choosing three of the source texts to be characters in their dialogue and creating two more fictional characters This is a list of fictional characters. It has been expanded into the following lists:
direct discourse report, account - the act of informing by verbal report; "he heard reports that they were causing trouble"; "by all accounts they were to present the source materials Noun 1. source materials - publications from which information is obtained source - a document (or organization) from which information is obtained; "the reporter had two sources for the story" . One student dialogue, for example, begins as a coffee-shop conversation between Sells, Henke, and Nguyen about how Disney films reinforce the marriage plot as the only happy ending, with the waitress joining the conversation as the student's voice. The students struggled with this assignment, wanting to create characters who would defend Disney and express their objections to this cultural critique, but they were unable to develop the same kinds of arguments the critics did, and so they felt like they couldn't really "win" (no matter how many times I told them that winning is not a goal of dialogue). When I realized they weren't ready yet for the kind of critical thinking and writing I was expecting of them, I changed the essay assignment to a synthesis essay. A synthesis essay replicates the kind of interaction with sources that students do in larger source-based writing; they must educate readers about the content of and discussions between secondary sources on a given topic. In writing a synthesis essay on Disney, my students still used at least three of the sources, and they still summarized, paraphrased, and used direct quotation to accurately present the ideas in the articles. In this assignment, however, they did not have to "talk back" to the sources, to craft intelligent, researched responses to the arguments in the articles. More recently, seeing the difficulty students had understanding the concept of synthesizing sources, I have created an assignment sequence in which students write both a dialogue and a synthesis with personal commentary. Requiring the dialogue first taught students the importance of thoroughly understanding a scholar's argument, leading to more interesting and sophisticated synthesis papers. By allowing students to add a personal commentary to the synthesis, I have granted them the space for "talking back" to the scholars without having to engage them as fully as in the dialogue. The success of this sequence shows in student responses such as "Disney does know how to entertain but, I do not respect Disney as much as I used to because of the issues that have been encountered." Conclusion Students need to begin to change the way they think as they start college, to learn to ask larger questions about ideology and values, and, more importantly, to begin to feel comfortable dealing with cognitive dissonance, understanding that they will and should be challenged by their educations. Moving them into a more critical analysis of cultural critique and its value is difficult, but that's what I seek: not just analysis and critique of Disney, but discussion of why we should analyze and critique all the cultural productions that surround us. In giving them some experience dealing with uncomfortable ideas, particularly about the culture, I want to enable them to recognize opportunities for learning in future classes, so they can open their minds to new ideas "New Ideas" is the debut single by Scottish New Wave/Indie Rock act The Dykeenies. It was first released as a Double A-side with "Will It Happen Tonight?" on July 17, 2006. The band also recorded a video for the track. , to intellectual questioning. In educating students toward critical citizenship, teachers should strive to examine the ideologies inherent in all cultural institutions, even those which are considered "sacred." Using Disney in this context develops methods of inquiry which increase media literacy. Works Cited Burke, Kenneth Burke, Kenneth (1897–1993) literary critic, poet; born in Pittsburgh, Pa. After dropping out of Columbia University, he began his writing career in New York City, serving as music critic at Dial magazine (1927–29). . The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press "UC Press" redirects here, but this is also an abbreviation for University of Chicago Press University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. , 1973. Giroux, Henry A. The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. Henke, Jill Birnie, Diane Zimmennan Umble, and Nancy J. Smith. "Construction of the Female Sell." Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine." Lardner and Lundberg 334-347. Lardner, Ted, and Todd Lundberg, editors. Exchanges: Reading and Writing About Consumer Culture. New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Longman, 2001 Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood, and Corporate Power. Prod. Chyng Feng Sun. Dir. Miguel Picker. ArtMedia, 2001. Dist. by Media Education Foundation. Nguyen, Mimi. "Who's Your Heroine? Negotiating Asian American Superpower in Disney's Mulan." PopPolitics.com. 5 January 2001. 10 October 2002. <http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2001-01-05-mulan.shtml> Sells, Laura. "Where Do the Mermaids Stand?" Lardner and Lundberg 349-359. Watts, Steven. "The Disney Doctrine." Lardner and Lundberg 365-370. Virginia Crank, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Originally known for its nationally recognized physical education program,[3] UW–La Crosse now offers 85 undergraduate programs in 44 disciplines,[4] and 21 graduate programs and emphases in eight disciplines. Crank, Ph.D., is assistant professor of English and teaches courses in rhetoric and composition and American literature American literature, literature in English produced in what is now the United States of America. Colonial Literature American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in . |
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