Christensen, "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us,"

Christensen, "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us," 

Peter Siner

Quote 1

“I start by showing students old cartoons… we both look at the roles women, men, people of color, and poor people play in cartoons. I ask students to watch for who plays lead, who plays buffoon…”

Let me start by stating how ridiculous this article is, Christensen is asking students to dissect their childhood and look into any kind of influence they had and find what’s racist or sexist about it, not at first glance but after thoroughly looking into it. I know things start to ware on people after a while but I don’t think I ever used analytic processes when I was five watching cartoons.  But let’s play along and answer Christensen’s questions, women and men generally played the lead roles, love was usually involved and some kind of power. Women were not always seen as inferior in fact the first movie, Snow White has a woman as the main character, she isn’t scantily clothed, and she is loved by the animals. Men’s roles vary drastically throughout the many movies so it’s hard to pinpoint what they are. I watched many Disney movies as a child the only people of color I can think of in these movies are those which play leading roles, also poor people in movies usually prosper at the end because of personality and merit. For instance Aladdin is about an Arab man who is poor; he falls in love with the princess but is not allowed to marry her. Already this depicts a poor person of color as the main character and a woman holding a dominant ruling role as princess. Although they cannot marry due to Aladdin’s social status his personality and perseverance changes the Sultans mind. This is racist?

In another movie a woman strives to fight for her country after her father dies, her determination leads her to enlist in the military and hide her gender in order to fight. Not only is this another movie where a woman is the main character but this woman is also Asian. The movie is Mulan. Another movie depicts a young boy raised by wolves after he is abandoned, he is adopted by a bear and taught by a lion, both of which are dark colors (dark gray and black). They are both characters that represent good; the evil characters are the orange tiger and the green snake. The boy is Indian, and the movie is the Jungle Book, another example of a story in which someone other than a white person in dominant.  To say that cartoons and Disney movies only depict other cultures as evil and stupid is an easy way to falsely accuse all cartoons of racism. Another movie Pocahontas, is about a Native American woman, she is beautiful and one with nature. Disney gives her a lot more credit than she deserves. The name Pocahontas is a nickname for the “naughty one” and John Smith said on many occasions that she would do naked cartwheels through the town to entertain him. Now if Disney was a racist and sexist propaganda producer why wouldn’t they use a true story to demine women and minorities? I find it somewhat hypocritical that we can look for the racism in Disney movies and then turn around and talk about why it’s good to introduce children to homosexuality by reading them a book about 2 rich kings who are gay,  doesn’t this glorify being gay a little?

Quote 2

While there is no one quote to sum this up, there is a lot of talk about how people that are darker are evil while white is peaceful and good, for example Ursula from the Little Mermaid. Yes she is dark, she is also a squid or an octopus which are generally dark, not to mention their ink is black. This idea that black magic means bad because of black people is also nonsense. It is correct that Western world views black as evil and white as good, but Asia and Africa do just the opposite. Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and many South Africans are white skinned so if this notion that good and bad colors are based on peoples skin doesn’t make much sense.  The very idea of black magic being evil and white being good actually dates as far back as Ancient Egypt during the invasion of the Cush Tribe. Are we to say that people who had never seen a white man and people whose population made up of black people thought their own skin color should depict evil?

Quote 3

“They graded each show A through F and wrote a brief summary of their findings”

The students graded childhood’s shows and movies, Duck Tales, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Popeye. I would like to note that these shows were not very prominent, I watched all of them but Popeye was made in the late 60’s which is a little outdated. Things were different during that time period, blacks had very unequal rights and there was segregation and white prominence so of course a cartoon is going to reflect its culture. However I still believe America is the greatest country, it’s called Nationalism, it’s not racist or ignorant to have pride in your country especially one that so many have died for. The other is Duck Tales; they claim that this show depicts an uncle who claims money is the only important thing in the world. If this was the only plot I don’t think they could make 100 episodes and a movie. The Uncle is named Scrooge McDuck, Scrooge should sound familiar considering it is the name of the main character from A Christmas Carol, in this play Scrooge is a greedy and money-hungry character.  Lastly they rate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they claim that this show falsely shows children you can eat pizza and fight and not get hurt. This is such a broad view, what about the fact that even with turtles it shows the values of good and evil. I think parents and other social outlets have enough power to counter the supposed influence talking turtles have on children.