Talking Point 4

"Underlearning the Myths that Bind Us"
By: Linda Christensen

1. "We are not only taught certain styles of violence, the latest fashions, and sex roles by Tv, movies, magazines, and comic strips; we are also taught how to succeed, how to love, how to buy, how to conquer, how to forget the past and suppress the future. We are taught, more than anything else not to rebel."
-This was in an essay that a student wrote. It is not often that we think of how we learn things and where they come from. a large part of what we learn does come from the media and they are teaching children all the wrong ways of success and happiness.

2. "Then the students start to notice patterns-like the absense of female characters in many of the older cartoons. When women do appear, they look like Jessica Rabbit or Playboy centerfolds..."
-This shows that women were and sometimes are only portrayed as sex objects in the media. This portrayal of women gives children the idea that women are used just to "look pretty" and other than that are useless in society. This link has to do with women and gender sterotypes in disney movies...

3." Kenneth noticed that the people of color and poor people are either absent or servants to the rich, white, pretty people."
-When i think back to movies or cartoons, from what i can remember, this is totally true. Cartoons and most movies make white people the rich and live fabolous lifestyles, when they discriminate agaisnt people of color, making them servants and economically unstable. This is not right and total discrimination against any people of color.

this was one of my favorite articles to read thus far. The media is so percise with how it goes about including discrimination on TV, in magazines, and movies as well. Just as the students in the response went back and watched cartoons, i would find it fascinating to do the same and review the cartoons that children are watching. These cartoons are putting ideas in these childrens heads that white people are above everyone else in society. not only that, they are also discriminating against women, people of color, obese people, and other cultures. when parents think that their kids are just being entertained about a simple and silly cartoon, they really dont even know the message that these cartoons are giving their kids. these children are learning that overweight people are considered "buffoons", white, pretty people get the furthest in life and make a lot of money, that being "ugly" will get you no where in life, happiness meaning having nice things and a lot of money, and that women are object and worth nothing more than a pretty picture in a magazine. This is not what cartoons should be embedding in childrens heads. As Christensen says, this ebedding becomes accepted knowledge which is so wrong.