Observations in Target: Mass Marketing and Young Females
“Mom, look! That’s Rocky and CeCe, from ‘Shake it Up‘! Can I pleeeeease get one of their clothes?” She stands on her tiptoes to reach the highest shelf and points to a t-shirt with an attached pinstriped vest that is almost identical to the one CeCe is wearing in the poster above the rack of clothes. “I like that one!”
My post-elementary school years have contained very little Disney Channel, which I consumed vigorously as a child. But after spending a week with a seven-year-old, I was fully informed on how Disney is functioning today. I know every person says this about the shows they watched when they were kids, but I truly believe that the shows were much better then, especially for girls. Or maybe it’s just that now I’m…
Magazines, T.V. and Disney: The Negative Portrayal of Beauty in the Media
Prince Charming: What has he done for you lately?
From a young age, I recognized a pattern in the movies I frequently watched. Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White – their major goal is to find Prince Charming. Being young and impressionable, I too started dreaming of my prince charming I would one day come to meet.
As I got older, around my pre-teen years, I developed a collection of magazines due to my interest in style and fashion. I’d flip through so many each day, and without even noticing how and why, I began to feel less and less confident in myself. And more and more self-conscious about the way I looked. Pretty soon I felt as though no guy would ever want me because of the way…
On my last procrastination streak, in addition to watching dozens of videos of young children singing pop songs on YouTube, I stumbled upon a gem from my childhood – all 44 minutes of ‘Free to Be… You and Me’. I don’t know how many of you watched, read or listened to ‘Free to Be,’ as kids, but for those who didn’t, it is a movie, book, and CD created in 1972 dedicated to entertaining kids without reinforcing gender stereotypes – boys are told its okay to cry, “mommies’” and “daddies’” jobs are unrelated to their gender, and princesses travel the world and remain single. I still remember my first “feminist moment” when, at age six, my jam sesh to ‘William’s Doll’ was interrupted by my…
Last year, I worked at an after-school day care center for kids in preschool-6th grade. Basically, after a long day at school, I hauled my ass to work where for 3 hours I was surrounded by a bunch of kids who were primarily in their single digits and not only acted as though they hadn’t just been at school for 8 hours but had also shot up some 5 hour energy. Seriously, these kids were nuts.
A family friend recently sent me this article about “prosti-tots,” a catchy yet disturbing phrase, that got me thinking about my experience at work. Basically, if you think our generation is messed up, the next one has it coming.
For some reason the little tykes at work seemed to trust me. More likely they…
So this long weekend I watched a lot of Disney movies, because I’m awesome, and I have to say Sarah Haskins pretty much gets it. It’s a debate that we’ve had before, about commercials and cartoons and even videos, but one I love to have since it’s a pretty basic part of most of our childhoods. Happy watching while I make up for all of my procrastination!
This morning I felt extremely lazy, so when I woke up at 11:00 I decided to turn on some cartoons. (Hey, we’re all kids at heart.) There were commercials on, but one of them was a little different than I expected:
I found this picture on feministing yesterday. Considering the response to my last post about Disney, I thought you guys might find this pic interesting.
I think the sexism they point out in the picture is legitimate as far as plot lines go, but statements like, “Her only asset, physical beauty…” and “her only asset, sexuality” get to me a little bit. Sure, I think Disney created some pretty sexist characters here. But they weren’t exactly dumb bimbos who acted without any purpose throughout the entirety of the movies.
As I recall, I actually identified with Belle quite a bit because we were both voracious readers. I’d say an appetite for literature is a pretty good asset to have. And Jasmine was totally empowered by demanding to marry only who she wanted.
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