Blog #3

            The past couple of weeks, we have been talking about how media influences culture. Something that really stuck out to me was the video about Disney that we watched in class. I grew up in a little surf town in Southern California where the predominant race was white. My parents tried their best to monitor everything that my sister and I heard, watched, and learned. They never wanted our bubble to get popped, so to speak. Disney movies and programming were one of the few things we were actually allowed to watch. I don’t think my parents ever thought about how Disney was sexist and gave women unrealistic standards, or how it was racist and made certain characters out to be certain races.

            After watching this video, I thought about the ways that it could negatively affect children. I’ve always had very powerful women in my life, and very supportive and encouraging men, so I never felt like there was a certain way that I had to be. I was never raised in the mindset to be racist, so I would never recognize if an animated character sounded like an African American. Now that I am an adult, I see what Disney did throughout many of these children’s movies. It really does ruin a little piece of my childhood, and I’m sure many other’s as well.

            I think the way you were raised helps a lot with perception. Sexism and racist are also very difficult and dense topics to bring up to a six year old. It is important to educate children, but for topics like these you should probably wait until they bring it up.

            Overall, there are many ways media influences culture, but Disney is not something we should be stressing about. There are plenty worse influences to tackle.