Today we had a lecture titled "The Disneyfication of culture," at the beginning I was very sceptical as it looked as though it was going to be a history of the Disney corporation and their films, we did cover these things but in a lot more depth. Because of the Disney corporations enormity in the world they have a lot of responsibility of what messages they are sending out to young children with there toys, films, games etc. We watched a small video about how male and females are portrayed through Disney characters. The video featuring a compilation of female Disney characters really shocked me as every female character is made to be extremely seductive. I already knew that they were all made to look pretty so that they are pleasing to watch and attractive to children but I had never noticed the vulgar behaviour they have been designed to carry out on screen. The flutter of there eyes, the flirtation dancing and sexy movements were something I would expect to see in a pussycat dolls video not in Snow White or Beauty and the Beast. There were interviews with adults from various Universities across America who were slating the messages and morals that Disney films and characters send out. I feel that there views were quite extreme but I can now see exactly where they are coming from. Parents are innocently letting there children watch these films that are sending out underlying messages that may effect them with there life decisions without themselves or there parents noticing.
So yes here I am again ranting on about how terrible things are but I always feel this way after a lecture. When we had the lecture about teenagers being obsessed with brands I hated brands. Last year we had a lecture about how consumerism is killing the world and it scared me in to recycling and I became obsessed with trying to save the world. I feel that what I hate is the big powers of the world that make the wrong decisions for all the innocent naive people out there who are being shaped in to people that are not healthy for our environment. So basically big powers stop thinking about money and think about the world for once!!.....You've got enough money already!
Our lecturer talked about "Celebration" which is a village in Florida owned by Disney. We were shown a magazine article about Celebration that described it as a "super-modern Disney town with an old time feel....so pastel perfect it's almost surreal." Celebration has it's own school, it's own malls all under the Celebration name, all residents have to obey by strict rules: they can only paint there house certain colours, there lawn must be cut to a certain length. There is a large billboard that states "The destination your soul has been searching for." This not only freaks me out but kind of makes me feel sick. Disney have created what seem's like the perfect place to live but it sounds more like the army or prison with all the regimented rules. They are brainwashing people on a giant scale to think that this is perfect. We can't just ignore all the problems in the world. It's like something out of Wall-E where the made up company Buy'n'Large has brainwashed and taken over the world. Is this what we are heading for?
The lecture gave me a lot to think about and left me more angry at our consumer habits and our ability to be sucked in to the consumer world by major companies.
Good quotes from the lecture:
"Airports-big shopping centres with a few aeroplanes"
"we live in a melting pot of values and don't know where our moral compass should take us"
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