Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us- Linda Christensen

argument

In "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us," Christensen writes of her personal experiences and issues with American media, along with teaching her students to analyze the “secret education” of it. She "wants students to question accepted knowledge and the secret education delivered by cartoons as well as by the traditional literary canon" (127). Christensen argues that Disney movies and Saturday morning cartoons are not being critically reviewed by children-they accidentally accept the stereotypes and grow up believing them to be true. Girls start believing women cannot have beauty and brains-Ursula is the evil sea witch from The Little Mermaid and while she's smart, she's ugly (130), and if a girl wants to be happy, it "means getting a man, and transformation from wretched conditions can be achieved through consumption - in their case, through new clothes and a new hairstyle" (133). The cartoons and movies also portray that "men must be virile and wield power or be old and the object of 'good-natured' humor" (131) Children take these stereotypes and form them into how men and women are supposed to be portrayed-whether it be their looks or their position and society and it becomes hard to change that.

Christensen thinks the solution to this problem is that that people should not just make note of and realize these stereotypes are in place, but should try to enact change. Through her classroom exercises she shows her students how each of these stereotypes are played into a variety of different cartoons. Her students start to realize that they have grown up with this notion their entire life and start to try to enact change, for example like the boy who turned off the cartoons on his cousins and brought them to the park. Little baby steps like that effect the world- believe it or not.

I like Christensen’s argument here. I guess you never really notice those things until you analyze it-"many students don't want to believe that they have been manipulated by children's media or advertising...they assure me that they make their own choices and the media has no power over them - as they sit with Fubu, Nike, Timberlands or whatever the latest fashion rage might be" (128). I think that quote pretty much sums it all up but I think as teachers it’s important to teach what Christensen is preaching here.

this is a YouTube video that highlights the stereotypical gender-roles, the construction of femininity/masculinity, and the portrayal of dominant/single women in its animated feature films.

In class I want to see if we can come up with any Disney movies that don’t portray stereotypes, because honestly I cannot really think of any.