Disney movies and Sex?? WHAT?...you are probably thinking to yourself, “What in the world could these two things have in common?” Well… I thought the same thing. A paper written by Jamie Rosier, explains just that and how these animated films by Disney Productions do in fact include many hidden messages and sexual content. Her findings were especially intriguing to me because I too remember my classmates in middle school talking about the how the word S-E-X was written in the clouds during a scene from The Lion King. We tried for hours to find it and see if the rumors were true. Immature? ...
YES, but we were not allowed to view such material, or at least I wasn’t, and were shocked to see that the rumors were true. My mother always steered me away from watching MTV and other shows or movies that she considered inappropriate for my age. I do not think I even saw a PG- rated movie until I was in middle school. At the time, these restrictions on what I could watch made me very angry because I did not understand why most of my friends were allowed to watch them, but I wasn’t. Little did my mother or I know that the Disney films I had been watching since I was at least 1 year old, were filled with sexual connotations and obscene hidden innuendos. Of course I did not notice them, considering I was so young, nor would I have known their meanings if I did, the fact that there were still there, right in front of me, is mind-boggling. And for WHAT reason??
This paper, Hidden Sexual Messages Found in Disney Movies, explains some examples of how Disney films have snuck in the hidden messages in order to boost the sales of their children’s films. This seems rather ironic to me because I thought that Disney’s target audience was definitely young children and not pervert teens or even adults for that matter. In the movie Aladdin for example, viewers began to speculate that during one of the scenes, Aladdin says a dirty phrase to Jasmine. Apparently the rumors were true, after researchers read the closed captioning of the film and found the remark that Aladdin made. I believe that there are in fact obscene messages in the films from the proof given in the movies themselves and the research that has been done on this issue. BUT, I pose several questions here.
1. Why would Disney do this and risk losing all of their devoted viewers?
2. Did the creators of this movie just think it would be some sort of funny joke or that no one would notice? And, if the creators of Disney simply did not know these messages were there, was their no one reviewing or censoring the films before they published?
3. Were these messages placed here for a laugh or did adding the messages or images really boost movie sales that much to be worth ruining the reputation of the company as a whole?
4. Or even stranger to think about… were there really sick people out there renting Disney movies for sexual pleasure? GROSS!
This paper by Rosier did seem rather bias and claimed that Disney knew about the messages and did indeed add them on purpose. This may be true but I just find it hard to believe that Disney would intentionally put these images in their movies, unless the cartoonist or writers of the films were trying to get the company in trouble. It is just shocking to me that a major company such as this, designed to make films for children would jeopardize their image for a few random pictures of penises? I still struggle with this idea and the reason for why these messages were put in the films. WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON IT? Read this article or watch the films and you be the judge.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
"Tired of Playing Monopoly?" by Donna Langston
When reading the article, Tired of Playing Monopoly, I was met with conflicting opinions on whether I agreed with all of the views the author had or not. I understood and fully accept the arguments in primarily the whole first half of the article; the definition of class and classism and how one’s class is based on more than just the amount of money they make. Your “class” is also formed by one’s cultural background because it can affect the educational opportunities you are more likely to have if you are one race or another…where you will typically eat and shop, and even where you work or the positions you are likely to hold in that job. One sentence that I felt particularly summed up the definition of class nicely was the following:
As a result of the class you are born into and raised in, class is your understanding of the world
and where you fit in; it’s composed of ideas, behavior, attitudes, values and language; class is how
you think, feel, act, look, dress, talk, move, walk; class is what stores you shop at, restaurants you
eat in; class is the schools you attend, the education you attain; class is the very jobs you will work at
throughout your adult life ( Langston, 2007, p.1).
I also believe that accepting the titles of class that society has put on you, whether a good or bad label, only further emphasizes classism. Those who are considered “low class” individuals must not settle for what they get or blame themselves for the economic positions they are in, unless of course your unemployment and lack of incoming funds is due to something you have directly done. (For instance, an excessive drug problem or doing other illegal things that has caused you to be viewed as unemployable to most companies. You cannot blame society or others for your own poor judgment.) I also believe that if we keep believing, as a society that is, that the current economic distribution is unchangeable, we are only increasing the chances of classism and widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
My main disagreement with the author, Donna Langston, in this article begins on page 103. The author described the “working class” as having distinctions within it, the “white” working class and then everyone else, people of color, female-headed households, and so on. The author does not consider the “white guys in overalls” to really be part of that working class, even though they could be working just as hard and receiving the same low pay and lack of benefits. I feel the author is semi biased here, because I do not think that every working class white man is necessarily living the life of luxury. Not that the author says this but she seems to feel there is a great distinction between the two. There are in fact many white men that suffer the same classist stereotypes as others simply because they work in these low paying less desirable jobs. How are these people’s privileges any different, when they are also working all hours of the night away from their families and getting the same benefits from their jobs? Outside of work, things could be different, but if the author is speaking specifically about this type of working conditions, I do not think it is fair to place them in a different “working class” altogether solely based on their color. I could be wrong, but this is how I feel.
As a result of the class you are born into and raised in, class is your understanding of the world
and where you fit in; it’s composed of ideas, behavior, attitudes, values and language; class is how
you think, feel, act, look, dress, talk, move, walk; class is what stores you shop at, restaurants you
eat in; class is the schools you attend, the education you attain; class is the very jobs you will work at
throughout your adult life ( Langston, 2007, p.1).
I also believe that accepting the titles of class that society has put on you, whether a good or bad label, only further emphasizes classism. Those who are considered “low class” individuals must not settle for what they get or blame themselves for the economic positions they are in, unless of course your unemployment and lack of incoming funds is due to something you have directly done. (For instance, an excessive drug problem or doing other illegal things that has caused you to be viewed as unemployable to most companies. You cannot blame society or others for your own poor judgment.) I also believe that if we keep believing, as a society that is, that the current economic distribution is unchangeable, we are only increasing the chances of classism and widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
My main disagreement with the author, Donna Langston, in this article begins on page 103. The author described the “working class” as having distinctions within it, the “white” working class and then everyone else, people of color, female-headed households, and so on. The author does not consider the “white guys in overalls” to really be part of that working class, even though they could be working just as hard and receiving the same low pay and lack of benefits. I feel the author is semi biased here, because I do not think that every working class white man is necessarily living the life of luxury. Not that the author says this but she seems to feel there is a great distinction between the two. There are in fact many white men that suffer the same classist stereotypes as others simply because they work in these low paying less desirable jobs. How are these people’s privileges any different, when they are also working all hours of the night away from their families and getting the same benefits from their jobs? Outside of work, things could be different, but if the author is speaking specifically about this type of working conditions, I do not think it is fair to place them in a different “working class” altogether solely based on their color. I could be wrong, but this is how I feel.
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