1) Brave and Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein
2) Connections – Christensen and Croteau
Orenstein
opened up the book with the story of her daughter playing snow white,
even though she had never told her daughter the story of snow white. Her daughter
learned it anyway. This story shows how powerful
media is and how children are learning from media, like Christensen
says, when they may not even know it. “I do not question that little girls
like to play princess: as a child, I certainly availed myself on my
mom’s cast-off rhinestone tiara from time to time.
But when you’re talking about 26,000 items (and that’s just Disney), it’s
a little hard to say where “want” ends and “coercion” begins.” (p. 16)
This quote illustrates the secret education that Christensen taught us
about. When all these products and ideals
are constantly around you, it’s just a matter of time before you are
influenced by it. The surveys done on girls after watching stereotyped
media also show the secret education or media as a form of education.
From watching just two stereotyped ads, Orenstein
says that the effects on girl’s ambitions were already apparent.
The chapter
“Pinked!” relates to Croteau’s “Media and Ideology”. Orenstein shows how
girls are gendered by the color pink and describes all the feminine
toys and products out there. Like Croteau would
say, this teaches girls to be one way and boys to be a different way.
Even as children, young girls and young boys would probably not feel
comfortable breaking the rules and going outside of the gender norms. Here's a picture showing all the pink products out there for young girls:
At the
beginning of the movie Brave, you could see that the mother was definitely influenced by traditional gender roles and the way life was
for her growing. She thought it wasn’t lady like for a girl
to be doing archery. She felt strongly about being married to a man. She
also had strict rules for what princesses do and don’t do. The mother
thought that girls, and especially princesses, should be a certain way
and that her daughter was rebellious for going
outside of these norms.
3) For Class:
I was surprised that Disney
made the movie Brave, since it was very different from the rest of their
movies. I’m wondering if anybody else was surprised that Brave was a
Disney movie and if they liked it.
Sarah, as culture we tend to mostly follow because we want to be part of "society" and we are doing what is called to be "normal" meaning it is normal for a girl to pink and play with barbies and boys to be wear dark colors and be aggressive. It is about gender constructtion.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog!! :)
I used that picture in one of my posts last semester!! There is also a picture of a little boys room that is just as ridiculous but it is so true!! We grow up learning that boys like blue and girls like pink and that is that. It can't be any other way. It is how our genders are constructed. I used the same articles that you used in order to get my points across for this weeks talking point!! I thought this was a great post.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI liked the movie Brave. It teaches girls that can be whatever they want to be. That they don't have to marry anyone if they don't want too. I would let my children watch this more then the other princess movies that are out there. I think this one teaches that we can achieve things like school and having a job. Being outside and having a bow and arrow.
I really like your post! I did mine as a connections between Christensen and Croteau, too! I'm not surprised that Disney made a movie like Brave, because (and I say this as a person who enjoys Disney movies) it is part of the capitalist conglomerate and, one, by making a movie like this they can be seen (by the public, and therefore by their consumers) as being "pro" gender equality (whether they -- as a company -- are or are not); and, two, this movie gives them a who bunch of products to sell and therefore money to make. And, yes, I do really like Brave; it's very enjoyable.
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