Blog Post #3: Children's Culture: A Subconscious Way to Shape our Thinking and Beliefs. | A response to "Unlearning the Myths that Bind us" by Linda Christensen | Source: Rethinking School's "Rethinking Popular Culture and Media".
What is your relationship to children's culture? How does Christensen validate or challenge your views?
In my senior year of high school, I took a pop culture and media class. Similar ideas to were explored: what does media say about race, gender, social class? How does childhood media shape our beliefs and perspectives on the way we act? It is refreshing to see these questions again after a few years to see if any of my views have changed over time. I would say that I am still in a similar position, in which I agree with the main arguments and claims that Christensen makes. Media deeply shapes our beliefs and the way we see the world, and it starts with some of our childhood favorites. I also appreciate her two-step approach to 1. point our stereotypes and 2. imagine a more equal world.
Christensen makes great points about the messaging of childhood films, books, and the portrayal of common stereotypes. Which characters are portrayed as stupid? Which ones are shown as successful? Who are we supposed to root for? What race are these characters? How is love depicted in films? What does it mean to not be represented in digital media? These are questions to be asked over and over again as media changes and shifts with time.
For example, when we watched a clip from Beauty and the Beast on the first day of class, we named the stereotypes and imagery that we saw. We discussed how masculinity and femineity were presented, how overweight people were shown, and the overall representation of ideas. Media shows representation of demographics (or lack of) race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and gender. Many times, these representations put marginalized groups down and continued to prop up historically privileged groups. The consequence of this is not only ethically disgraceful, but it can also shape our accepted truths about the world and the people around us.
Christensen offers a clear stance on the capability of how media shapes us, "The stereotypes and worldviews embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge" (page 176). This video below captures how old films highlighted harmful stereotypes and pushed what was acceptable on us from a young age. Fortunately, many of these movies have since been criticized. However, there are still lessons to be learned when it comes from moving away from stereotypical messaging.
On the first day of CURR 501, we discussed "tapping on the glass". While I do believe that we have made progress and have tapped on the glass when it comes to representation in a more genuine way that it was when I was growing up (LGBTQ+ community, race, traditional characters and role reversals), Christensen's views are still relevant and necessary to look at. There is still a lot of work to do. For example - recent casting choices for live action remakes of Disney films has led to outcry because leads are moving away from being all white-casted and more people of color are filling these roles. When Hallie Bailey was casted as Ariel, these deeply historic ideologies (when it comes to "othering") showed their teeth. This showed us that messages and beliefs are deeply rooted in pop culture.
There is a need to still unlearn, but the "tapping on the glass" shows that us that we can head towards a better imagined world, as Christensen mentions. The activity she used with her students to analyze and reflect on a piece of media of their choosing using evidence was a great way to show how we can start to jump outside of the boxes that were unknowingly placed around us from a young age.
