#nostalgia #tvcommercials #videogamecommercials #gamingcommercials #oldvideogamecommercials #90scommercials #90sads #1990scommercials #2000scommercials #2000sads #2001commercials #1991 #1992 #blockbuster #tacobell #nintendo #nintendocommercials #mcdonalds #dailymotion #youtube #facebook #twitter #twitch #motiongraphics #deezer #tv #dlive #instagram #stream #motion #twitchstreamer #fightingmentalillness #twitchclips #twitchretweet #twitchaffiliate #twitchshare #ant #scribaland #tiktok #greece #spotify #gelio #games #vimeo #google #motionmate #youtuber #greekquotes #vhs #fullmovies #fullmovie #Music #Video #Funny #Gaming #Viral #Trending #Movie #Trailers #Sports #News #Entertainment #Education #Howto #DIY #Travel #Food #Animals #Cars #Technology #Science #top #acharliebrownthanksgiving #timetraveltv #charliebrown #2000 #a #animated #movie #movies #anime #videogames #digimon
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:24I think Disney makes movies because people
00:29like their movies certain as the sun rising in the east tale as old as time song as old as
00:42rhyme beauty
00:44the Disney is dangerous because it's a sublime kind of education it's absorbed by our young
00:52people's minds as entertainment you have your looks your pretty face and don't underestimate the
01:01importance of body language you can read into a movie too much something that's mainly for mere
01:14entertainment value as I see Disney to be check it out man let's take this baby to Atlantic City it
01:23takes an adult it takes someone who's been around a while to notice sort of the underlying meaning and
01:28I don't think it harms children long live the king I just remembered a comment that my daughter made
01:43once and she said mommy I don't want to be racist so she knows this word but why is it
01:49that dark
01:49people are always doing bad things I wrote a book about Disney called the mouse that roared Disney and
02:13the end of innocence and one of the things that I wanted to do in this book was I wanted
02:17to in some
02:18way talk about how Disney represented the merger of corporate power entertainment and what I call
02:26public pedagogy and all of a sudden I was getting tons of radio interviews and I guess it's fair to
02:34say that for the most part eighty percent of those interviews were really quite hostile especially the talk
02:43radio interviews in which the public would call in and the basic comment would be how could you possibly
02:51possibly believe that Disney is political or how could you possibly think that there isn't something entirely
02:59innocent in the world of Disney oh who the hell who the hell are you to do don't you have
03:05anything better to do that to write about Disney
03:08the Walt Disney company has been a powerful force in creating childhood culture all over the world
03:15Disney's massive success is based on images of innocence magic and fun its animated films in particular are
03:24praised as wholesome family entertainment endorsed by teachers and parents and immensely popular with
03:30children well I think that Disney is it is really a very very important part of American culture in terms
03:42of its identity if you can imagine for a moment that children in fact have been raised on Disney for
03:50many generations now that they've seen Mickey Mouse all of these icons of Walt Disney have been part of their
03:59life since
04:00and say we're children
04:24I think it's very like fond memories and very good things because I mean I remember going into movies with
04:30my
04:30best friend when I was like seven and my grandmother and it was in watching it with my mom and
04:34it had a lot to do with family and like people who I loved and I guess it was I
04:39don't know a very salient aspect of my childhood
04:43the first time I probably saw a Disney movie was probably before I could talk because my mother has a
04:50huge love of Disney as well
04:51it's entertainment and that it's enjoyable to watch and for some reason people love to buy t-shirts and stuffed
05:01animals and you know it's just it's magic
05:04you wish upon a star makes no difference who you were
05:12I think that one of the things that's so interesting about Disney as compared to other corporations is that Disney
05:21has made a spectacle of innocence
05:23I mean it hides behind innocence in a way that allows it to separate corporate culture from corporate power and
05:32it has a kind of romance about it that allows us in some way to treat Disney as the ultimate
05:39form of fantasy
05:40fantasy a fantasy that never needs to be questioned
05:49Disney is a transnational media conglomerate owning TV and radio networks cable systems internet sites music studios media production companies
06:00magazines sports teams theaters and theme parks
06:04as a result Disney exerts a tremendous influence on national and international popular culture
06:11the Disney corporation a few years ago bought ABC the biggest networks in the US ABC itself had already been
06:19affiliated with capital cities another big media conglomerate
06:23so Disney buying ABC also bought capital cities became in fact at that time the second biggest media corporation in
06:31the world
06:31so Disney are one of now of six or seven media corporations that really own most of the media that
06:37we consume
06:39media conglomeration raises fundamental concerns about its impact on democracy
06:44because enormous conglomerates like Disney own so much of the media
06:48they exercise unprecedented control over the images and messages were exposed to
06:53the result is that were presented with a very limited world view skewed and dominated by corporate interests
07:00the thing that I found very very interesting was that
07:05almost everybody who interviewed me would often begin by saying
07:08aren't you afraid of writing about Disney critically
07:12and I was stunned
07:14and I thought where am I living
07:17am I living in a police state
07:19I mean I thought I lived in the
07:21a country that described itself as the apigee of democracy
07:25where dissent was fundamental to what it meant to be an American citizen
07:30this image of Mickey Mouse and a mousetrap
07:34was the image that we decided was going to be on the cover of my book
07:37and all of a sudden at the last moment the publisher rejected
07:41using the image because they were afraid that they might be sued by Disney
07:45in this culture
07:47publishers
07:49absolutely petrified
07:50about using Disney images
07:53writers who use Disney archives
07:56have to give their manuscripts
07:57to I don't know who they are
07:59the Disney Imagineers
08:01to go through those manuscripts
08:03and to make sure
08:04that those materials in some way are consistent
08:07with what Disney wants to represent
08:09about itself
08:10I have appeared in books
08:13where people have actually written in the introductions
08:15that they couldn't use certain titles
08:17that included Disney names
08:19because the publisher
08:20in this case Indiana University Press
08:22was fearful of being sued by Disney
08:25you know you can't take a picture of Disney World
08:28and use it in a book
08:29you have to get permission
08:31one author had an image in his book
08:33which he talked about Disney World
08:34and it was just space
08:36and his point was he couldn't use the image
08:39I mean Disney had monopolized the market
08:43on how it represents
08:44so
08:44Disney is very concerned about policing
08:46its image
08:48about policing its representations
08:50because Disney are such a large media corporation
08:53and their products are so ubiquitous
08:55and so widespread globally
08:57Disney's stories, the stories that Disney's tell
09:00will be the stories that will form
09:03and help form a child's imaginary world
09:06all over the world
09:07and that's an incredible amount of power
09:11enormous amount of power
09:13and when you have that kind of power
09:15when you're essentially becoming a dominant storyteller
09:17for children globally
09:20you know we have to begin to ask very serious questions
09:23about what kind of stories are being told here
09:25are these the stories we really want our children to hear
09:28would we like to ask children to hear other kinds of stories
09:31and if we don't ask those kinds of questions
09:33then essentially we're allowing Disney to shape our children's imaginations
09:38in certain kinds of ways
09:46I think it's a mistake for us to imagine that the only way that the media affect us
09:51is through an immediate impact on the way we think
09:55the way the media influences the way we think
09:58is much less immediate and much less a sort of straightforward impact on the way we think
10:04and it's much more a question of creating a certain environment of images
10:09that we grow up in and that we become used to
10:11and after a while those images will begin to shape what we know and what we understand about the world
10:17and that's not an immediate kind of whiz-bang effect
10:20that's a slow accumulative effect and it's much more subtle
10:23Don't love me too
10:26I'm scared!
10:28Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
10:33Taste the sun sweet berries of the earth
10:39Come roll in all the riches all around you
10:45And for once, never wonder what they were
10:52Encoded in media images are ideologies about how we think about the world
10:57belief systems, constructions of reality
11:00and we develop our notions of reality
11:04from the cultural mechanisms around us
11:07and one of the most important cultural institutions that we have today
11:10is indeed the media
11:12It gives us a whole array of images, of stereotypes, of belief systems about race, about class, about gender
11:21and we now live in a media based system
11:24where most of our leisure time is spent consuming media
11:27and so it's really important to analyse the institution of media
11:31in order to understand how we as consumers and as citizens
11:35understand the media and the role the media plays in socialising us
11:40into certain belief systems
11:42Ta-da!
11:43And of course you know that we are so beautiful
11:46We are the prettiest one, huh?
11:49See we
11:50John
11:50But
11:52Tend the thing
12:11What's amazing when you look at Disney, Disney movies over the years
12:16is how little the image of females has really changed
12:25You still have the same highly sexualised female body with the big breasts, the tiny waists, the fluttering eyelashes, the
12:34coy expressions, the seductress
12:47These images seem very similar over the years
12:51and even when they're in animal form, you know, you've got this very seductive little female animal
12:57I will
13:00Ah
13:01ah
13:03ah
13:03ha
13:11Hello
13:14What we find is that this presents people with a kind of notion of what femininity is about.
13:22This is not a mirror on society. This is not reflecting who women really are or what females really are.
13:28It is basically constructing notions of what femininity is.
13:33And these are not notions that necessarily Disney invented.
13:36But what they do do with these notions is they caricature them.
13:40They wrap them up in this Magic Kingdom wrapper and they sell them to children.
13:45And that's really the power of Disney.
13:47When they're young, they're trying to figure out what does it mean to be a woman?
13:51What do I look like if I'm a girl? What should I look like?
13:54And they'll focus on the most salient, dramatic images they can see.
13:58They don't necessarily think about, well, that doesn't look like the women I know in real life.
14:03They don't make those kinds of comparisons because that's kind of like making a movie,
14:08putting a whole story together, doing logical comparisons.
14:12They think about one slide at a time.
14:14This is how it looks here.
14:16Gee, that's interesting.
14:17Maybe I want to look like that.
14:19So it shapes kids' images about how they're going to look.
14:35In Beauty and the Beast, you have Lumiere, the candlestick, and the broom, the feminine broom,
14:43acting out these male-female themes where he's the aggressor, and she's saying, oh, no, no, no.
14:49And then, by golly, he sweeps her off her feet after she said, no, no, no, no.
14:54Oh, no.
14:55Oh, yes.
14:56Oh, no.
14:57Oh, yes, yes, yes.
14:59I've been burnt by you before.
15:03So it's a replication of the woman as holding back, woman as being coquettish,
15:09or even woman as saying, no, I don't want this.
15:11But what she really means is, yes, I do.
15:13Jasmine, in the Aladdin film, in which there's a scene where she becomes a seductress to distract
15:23the person who's after Aladdin.
15:25I never realized how incredibly handsome you are.
15:32Hmm, that's better.
15:37Now, pussycat, tell me more about myself.
15:42Your beard is so twisted.
15:47This I find very dangerous because you have, again, it gives young girls the idea that that
15:56that is the way that you get what you want.
15:59You use your body to manipulate people into, and specifically men, into, to get what it
16:08is that you want.
16:14One of the themes seen repeatedly in Disney's movies is that however strong or powerful a
16:19female character may be, she still needs to be rescued by a male.
16:24In the world of Disney, females not only get into trouble easily, they also lack the ability
16:29to save their own lives.
16:31This is true even of Disney's films of the 80s and 90s.
16:43The Princess Mermaid one is a really big theme with girls.
16:46When I just walked into the room, two of the girls were playing.
16:49One girl was laying, dying, and the other one was crying.
16:53And one of the girls was playing at the playground, and she was up against a fence like this.
17:00And the boys were coming to her rescue.
17:09And how it had happened so early, it amazes me that they just, they grab onto that.
17:19When you look at the image of Snow White, today, you know, with a sort of feminist sensibility,
17:25you realise how ridiculous the image is.
17:27Here you've got this young female, completely isolated, at home, enjoying cooking and cleaning,
17:35and her friends are the animals, and she's happy.
17:38I mean, it just makes no sense today, given that feminism and feminist discourse seep down
17:45into everyday life.
17:46Now you wash the dishes, you tidy up the room, you clean the fireplace, and I'll use the room.
17:55So what Disney has to do, in order to keep up with the themes of a society, is they have
18:01to keep changing.
18:03In Little Mermaid, you know, she does defy her father.
18:07There is a sense of a more powerful female here.
18:10I set certain rules, and I expect those rules to be obeyed.
18:16You don't even know him.
18:18Know him?
18:18I don't have to know him.
18:20They're all the same.
18:21Incapable of any feeling.
18:23Daddy, I love him!
18:24And of course, ultimately, she's willing to give up her voice to get the male.
18:42And once she's given up the voice, the only thing she has left to get him is the body.
18:51Now, a more interesting, complex reality is Mulan, where this is a very powerful, strong
18:58character who almost single-handedly wins the war.
19:01And so we do have a real independent female.
19:06However, after the war, and she goes home, then the expectations of femininity are exactly
19:11the same.
19:12It's as if it never happened.
19:14Great!
19:15She brings home a sword.
19:16If you ask me, she should have brought home a man.
19:19Excuse me.
19:20Does Fah Mulan live here?
19:22We have examples like Beauty and the Beast, where their argument was, this is a strong,
19:28powerful woman.
19:29And why is she strong and powerful?
19:31Because she's reading a book.
19:32Ah, Belle!
19:33Good morning.
19:34I've come to return the book I borrowed.
19:36Finished already?
19:37Oh, I couldn't put it down.
19:38Have you got anything new?
19:39Well, in reality, it's just a pseudo-feminism.
19:44Because ultimately, in Beauty and the Beast, is that she marries a batterer.
19:57A great deal of my work and my professional life has to do with family violence.
20:02And when you look at that movie with that eye, the abuse is horrific.
20:09No, Belle, listen to me.
20:11I'm old.
20:11I've lived my life.
20:13Wait!
20:13Belle!
20:14Wait!
20:15He screams at her.
20:17He imprisons her.
20:19He throws her father out the door and rips her family away from her.
20:26No!
20:27Please!
20:29Please!
20:32His behavior is, without question, frankly and horrifically abusive.
20:39Where is she?
20:41She's not coming.
20:43What?
20:44Okay.
20:45You're free!
20:46You're evidence!
20:48Don't feed me, kid!
20:52I thought I told you to come down to dinner.
20:54I'm not hungry.
20:56You come out or I'll break down the door.
21:00Gently, gently.
21:04Will you come down to dinner?
21:06Please?
21:07No, thank you!
21:08You can't stay in there forever!
21:09Yes, I can!
21:10Fine!
21:11Then go ahead and starve!
21:14If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all.
21:20And yet the whole thrust of the story is that she returns to him.
21:27That she socializes him.
21:30That she excuses him.
21:33That she reinterprets his rage and his abuse as temper.
21:40That she reinterprets his personality as tender and vulnerable.
21:49And then that she falls in love with him.
21:51There's something sweet and almost kind.
21:55But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined.
21:59And now he's dear and so unsure.
22:03I wonder why I didn't see it there before.
22:08And this is a movie that is saying to our children, overlook the abuse, overlook the violence.
22:16There's a tender prince lurking within.
22:19And it's your job to kiss that prince and bring it out.
22:24Or to kiss that beast and bring the prince out.
22:28That's a dangerous message.
22:31If Belle was my friend and I saw what happened to her, like yelling and romantic, I'd be happy for
22:38her.
22:38Because she found someone who she liked.
22:40And I'd be happy for her that she likes the beast and that she would stay with him.
22:44But I'd also feel bad for her because she gets yelled at a lot.
22:49If Belle was my friend and I'd seem to go through this whole thing, I'd probably just say keep on
22:55being nice and sweet like you are.
22:57And that would probably change him.
22:59And in the movie it does.
23:12I've worked in the media and often I was surprised, sometimes very intelligent, mostly white writers, college graduates,
23:22you know, held stereotypes about a lot of people and would write when they wrote them into stories,
23:27would write it from a stereotypic point of view.
23:29It's like they didn't know any other way to write it because frequently they were not involved in a social,
23:35personal, personal way with blacks or Latinos or Asian Americans.
23:40So they would, when they had to write something about them, they had to draw on what they knew.
23:46And frequently what they knew was what they picked up from the media.
23:50And frequently that was stereotypic.
23:52When I start to decode images of Disney in class, one of the first things the students say to me,
23:57well, is it intentional?
23:59This racism, this sexism.
24:01And, of course, the answer to that has to be, well, first of all, we do know that the vast
24:06majority of people in Hollywood who are in power and who have creative power and ownership power,
24:12basically the vast majority is white and male.
24:14We know that.
24:15But the real answer to that is it doesn't really matter if it's intentional or unintentional because the effect is
24:22ultimately the same.
24:23And also, what's the most important thing is that, you know, Mickey Mouse doesn't write these scripts.
24:29These scripts are written by real people who themselves have been socialized in this society.
24:36And they're going to internalize those norms and those values.
24:40And so when they produce work, it's bound to come out in some way.
24:44Unless, of course, they make a really conscious decision to operate within an alternative ideology.
24:52Now, baby, yeah, left foot, right foot, all right, check it out, there you go, relax, eh.
24:58Tito, you dance divinely.
25:00He's cheating.
25:01Latino characters in Disney movies?
25:03Oh, well, one comes to mind, the chihuahua.
25:07And that's about it.
25:09Even Tramp has his Achilles heel.
25:11Pardon me, amigo.
25:13What is this chili heel?
25:14It's almost expected.
25:16The character that's playing the Latino will end up doing one of the things that you shouldn't do.
25:23In this case, Alonso is stealing a car.
25:26Hey, check it out, man.
25:29Hey, forget Fagan, man.
25:31Let's take this baby to Atlantic City.
25:33At this point in my life, I can look at one of these movies and if it wasn't so tragic,
25:38it'd be comical.
25:42Allow me to introduce myself.
25:43I am Ignacio Alonso Julio Ferdico de Tito.
25:47Get away from me, you little bug-eyed creep.
25:49She insults him.
25:50She tells him he's like the bottom, the least, you know, thing she'd ever get near, you know, and he
25:55still sticks his tongue out and, you know, the more you insult me, the more I want you, you know,
25:59attitude.
26:00Alonso, darling, could I see you for a moment privately?
26:05Privately?
26:06Ooh!
26:08Coming, Alonso?
26:09Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys beat it.
26:11Oh, my baby and I, we gotta talk.
26:15Taco Bell?
26:16Disney?
26:18Why can't they not represent us as Chihuahua?
26:21What's this thing with Latinos being dogs?
26:24The crows, I mean, it's either the crows, the monkeys, the orangutans, um, they're always the ones that are sort
26:37of doing the jive dancing or the hip-hop dancing or the break dancing or the, have the kind of
26:45slow slurred speech patterns.
26:48Why, this is most irregular.
26:50Well, I just can't believe my eyes.
26:53They ain't dead, is they?
26:54No, dead people don't snow.
26:57In Jungle Book, it's that same, you know, the jive and the hustle and the dance and, you know, these
27:06gorillas that sound like, and orangutans that sound like black people who want to be like men but will never
27:14be men.
27:44That's what's happening.
27:45And also, uh, tames the natives and he knows the jungle better than the native people do.
28:02If somebody is going to show a film that in its original version was enormously racist, I guess the first
28:09question would be, why would you want to show that anyways?
28:11I mean, I guess the second question was, if you do appropriate it, uh, do you have a responsibility, particularly
28:17if it's a children's film, to take those constructions and to make them problematic so that kids have an opportunity
28:24to hold them up against some kind of critical vocabulary?
28:28Disney animator Glenn Keen was given a difficult task of coming up with a new take on Tarzan.
28:33I've been watching my son do his skateboarding and snowboarding and started thinking of Tarzan as kind of having this
28:39attitude of like a surfer kind of a guy.
28:43And then you have the film that Walt Disney comes along in this day and time and produces a Tarzan
28:52film without black people at all.
28:54So not only have they eliminated the black people in Africa, but they've also eliminated black people's presence.
29:10Kids in Africa see it.
29:12They see a white man in Africa who's superior, swinging from trees, and they see no Africans.
29:17And they see guerrillas being the ones they relate to.
29:20What does that mean to an African child?
29:24Is it promoting white supremacy to these black African children who watch Tarzan in a movie theater in Africa?
29:33Of course it will.
29:34And it might be promoting it around the world.
29:37I've never seen any black people in Disney's movie.
29:41I can't think of any Disney movies that have black people that are good or bad.
29:51When you produce a discourse as public as that, and you have that kind of power,
29:56the kind of power that allows you to distribute those messages to thousands, if not millions of children,
30:03then you have a responsibility.
30:04The Lion King, the hyenas, clearly spoke in kind of street, inner-city African-American dialect,
30:11and they were considered to be the bad guys.
30:13I thought things would be bad under Mufasa.
30:16What did you say?
30:17I said Muf...
30:18I said, uh, ¿qué pasa?
30:20They made an identification of them with inner-city minority people, particularly blacks.
30:26And so they were sending a message to the audience, to kids watching this film, that was not so subtle.
30:34Hey, there he goes.
30:36There he goes.
30:37So go get him.
30:38There ain't no way I'm going in there.
30:40Why'd you want me to come out looking like you, cactus butt?
30:43I have a girlfriend who, she's a white woman, and her son's about three.
30:48And she came to me one day really disturbed and said that she had been coming back from shopping.
30:55And that her son said, Mommy, Mommy, the hyenas, the hyenas.
30:58And she looked up and she said there was a group of black children on the carousel and playing.
31:05And she said, but when you had your back turned to them, they did.
31:09They sounded just like the sound, the voicing, the laughing of the hyenas.
31:17And she could not move her son away from the attachment of the sound to the image of hyenas in
31:28the Lion King.
31:29And she said, and further, he had made the association that they were bad.
31:34When she started to shift in her assessment of what I was saying to her,
31:42but also what kinds of images she was allowing her son to see without having conversation.
31:58Disney has very, very few Asian or Asian American characters in their children's films.
32:04And that's probably why the Siamese cats really stand out for me.
32:10If you look at those cats very carefully, they clearly have those stereotypical Asian features.
32:18They have slanted eyes, the buck teeth, and the very heavy accents.
32:23They are also depicted as cunning, sinister, and manipulative.
32:28You were saying that thing swimming round and round? Yes?
32:39If we compare the Siamese cats with Mulan,
32:44I must say that Disney has made very significant improvement in the visual portrayal of Chinese.
32:50However, in order to create this model feminist figure,
32:57China is portrayed as probably the most sexist and oppressive society in all Disney children's films.
33:05We see a little boy bully a little girl.
33:08And we hear people saying that women have no value at all if they don't get married.
33:15And the interesting thing is,
33:17these matchmaking interviews in the movie actually did not really exist in China.
33:23Too skinny.
33:26Not good for bearing sons.
33:29And it has been made very clear that women should just follow man's order
33:35instead of speaking up their minds in that society.
33:39You would do well to teach your daughter to hold her tongue in a man's presence.
33:44Mulan, you dishonor me.
33:47So you'll die for honor?
33:49I will die doing what's right.
33:52But if you...
33:52I know my place.
33:53It is time you learned yours.
33:56The issue for me
33:57is not really about whether Disney should or should not appropriate other culture's stories
34:03or whether the ancient China was less or more oppressive than Disney's portrayal.
34:10The question is,
34:12what type of stories get invented, circulated, perpetuated in the public imagination?
34:20And why?
34:27Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place,
34:31where the caravan camels roam.
34:34The lyrics of Aladdin's opening song, Arabian Nights,
34:38were written by Howard Ashman.
34:40He actually submitted two versions of the lyrics,
34:43and Disney chose the version which was considered racist
34:46by members of the Arab American community.
34:49The song, you know, that goes,
34:51I come from a land, from a faraway place,
34:54where the caravan camels roam,
34:56where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face.
35:00It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.
35:04That song sets up the kind of people that live in Agrabah.
35:09Oh, you must be hungry.
35:12Here you go.
35:13You'd better be able to pay for that.
35:17Pay?
35:18No one steals from my cart.
35:21Oh, I'm sorry, sir.
35:22I don't have any money.
35:23Thief!
35:24Oh, please.
35:25If you let me go to the palace, I can get some from the sofa.
35:28Do you know what the penalty is for stealing?
35:31No, no, please.
35:32The merchants are unfriendly.
35:34They're mischievous and brutal.
35:37One merchant tries to chop the hand of the princess
35:40because she takes an apple,
35:42which goes against Islam.
35:44In Islam, you are obliged to feed someone
35:48if they are hungry over and over again.
35:51And that's what devout Muslims do.
35:53That's what devout good merchants do.
35:55And only in Saudi Arabia, if you are a thief, a real thief,
35:59and after three warnings and three convictions,
36:02if you steal something, is the hand removed.
36:05In one country, you know, with a population of a few million.
36:09And yet they opted to use that scene.
36:12It took us six months to get a meeting
36:15just to talk about the film.
36:18When Arab Americans protested against derogatory stereotypes in Aladdin,
36:22their concerns were first met with silence.
36:25Disney responded after the issue
36:27had received widespread negative press coverage.
36:30So we go to the corporal office in Burbank.
36:34And we sit there, and maybe 15 minutes into the meeting,
36:38I won't mention the gentleman's name,
36:40but he accused us, the three of us,
36:44of drumming up negative publicity against the film.
36:47And it was only months after that meeting
36:50that they changed part of the lyric.
36:52But Disney still kept the line,
36:54it's barbaric, but hey, it's home,
36:56which prompted the New York Times to write an op-ed piece saying,
37:00it's racist, but hey, it's Disney.
37:05A lot of children come to Plymouth Plantation
37:08and visit our Wampanoag home site,
37:10and the children think that all Indian people hit their faces
37:13and go woo, woo, woo.
37:15The other is that all Indian people ride on a horse
37:18and have headdresses on with lots of feathers,
37:21and that they all live in teepees.
37:23Also, there's the, you know, sitting cross-legged
37:27with your arms folded,
37:28and you have to look like this,
37:30and the children, and very often,
37:31Native people are portrayed as saying,
37:33ugh.
37:35Oh!
37:36Oh!
37:38Oh!
37:39And when young children
37:41purport to dance and sing
37:43the way they see Native people do,
37:45they'll jump all around and kick their feet
37:47and flail their arms
37:49and have no idea what they're doing.
37:51What they are doing, without realizing it,
37:53is making fun of us.
38:01By the age of six,
38:03she's already canoed a wild river,
38:05searched for gold,
38:07discovered a new world,
38:09explored a Native American village,
38:12Pocahontas lived in a village,
38:14learned new words,
38:15butterfly,
38:16monogos,
38:17hunted for stowaways,
38:18stopped a war,
38:20and never even had to leave her room.
38:23What you often find in Disney text
38:25is not only a rewriting of history
38:30in ways that eliminate
38:31some of its most controversial
38:35political moments
38:37and free it of particular conflicts
38:40or eliminate particular kinds of conflicts
38:43or, in many ways,
38:45make it appear as if
38:46certain social events
38:47have nothing to do with power.
38:49For instance,
38:50I mean,
38:50when you look at a film
38:51like Pocahontas,
38:53which is really
38:54about colonialism,
38:56it's about Native Americans
38:58being killed
38:59in terms that could be
39:01adequately described
39:02as genocide,
39:03that isn't what's shown
39:05in Disney film.
39:06All right.
39:07Let's go talk to your father.
39:14Disney has been criticized
39:15for trivializing Pocahontas's
39:18important political
39:19and diplomatic role
39:20in history.
39:22When Pocahontas first met
39:24John Smith,
39:25she was still a young girl.
39:26In reality,
39:27there was never a romance
39:28between them.
39:30Pocahontas did eventually
39:31marry an Englishman
39:32years later,
39:33but it wasn't
39:34John Smith.
39:37I could see the romance
39:39between John Smith
39:41and Pocahontas
39:42serving mainstream America
39:44because it's similar
39:46to Thanksgiving,
39:47okay?
39:48We want to deny
39:49our history of genocide.
39:51We want to deny
39:52that Europeans
39:54came to North America
39:56and practically
39:58eliminated
39:59a race of people.
40:01We committed
40:02our own
40:03American holocaust.
40:05So we've got to find
40:06points in history
40:07where we can show
40:10Europeans
40:11and later European Americans
40:12getting along
40:14with the Indians,
40:15where we were all
40:16one happy family,
40:18sitting down together,
40:20having a dinner,
40:22and then we have
40:23people falling in love,
40:25a native woman
40:26and a European man
40:28to bring two communities
40:30together in peace.
40:32So I could see it
40:33serving a political purpose
40:34from a propaganda standpoint.
40:38Tiffany is putting forth
40:39this attitude of
40:41we can change your history,
40:42we can portray you
40:44to look any way we want,
40:45we can put little
40:46plastic figurines
40:47of your historical figures
40:50in your child's
40:51Happy Meal
40:52or a kid's meal
40:53at Burger King.
40:54We can put you
40:55on the sheets,
40:56on the lunch boxes,
40:57we can have your,
40:59you know,
40:59little non-native kids
41:00dressing up
41:01as you at Halloween.
41:03You can't do anything
41:03about it.
41:09We can't do anything
41:16the drums of war.
41:18Savages?
41:19This is what it was all about.
41:22Whites thinking
41:23that Native Americans
41:24were savages,
41:25Native Americans
41:26thinking that whites
41:27were savages,
41:28and that the problem
41:29was that these were
41:30two groups
41:31who couldn't understand
41:32each other.
41:33They're different from us,
41:34which means
41:34they can't be trusted.
41:36We must sound
41:37the drums of war.
41:39They're savages,
41:40savages.
41:41First we deal
41:42with this one.
41:43Then we sound
41:43the drums of war.
41:46Let's go get
41:47men.
41:48Savages,
41:49savages.
41:50Now it's up to you,
41:51men.
41:51Savages,
41:52savages,
41:53they're even human.
41:55Now we sound
41:56the drums
41:58of war.
42:08Where are children
42:10going to get
42:11any sense
42:12of the history
42:13of this culture
42:13and of this country
42:15and of what happened
42:16in terms of
42:17whose blood was spilt,
42:19whose resources
42:20were stolen,
42:22whose lives were taken.
42:23I like Pocahontas
42:25kind of because
42:26the person
42:27who made the movie
42:28made a real story
42:29about Pocahontas.
42:30Pocahontas was true
42:32and Pocahontas
42:35was real
42:36and John Smith
42:37was real
42:38and the film
42:39were real
42:40and the Indians
42:42were real.
42:43Pocahontas
42:44like sort of
42:44saved the day
42:45because she ran
42:46up on the ledge
42:47and she covered
42:49the John Smith
42:50from being killed
42:52and then
42:54she made this
42:55big speech
42:56and everybody
42:57was like,
42:58oh yeah,
42:59and everybody
42:59felt really bad
43:00and then they just
43:01became friends.
43:01I think that
43:03at the end
43:04the pilgrims
43:05travel back
43:05to England
43:06because they
43:06understand
43:07that it's
43:08their land
43:08and they
43:09shouldn't be
43:09taking it over.
43:19I think the
43:20commercialization
43:20is probably
43:21the most
43:22appalling thing
43:23about the
43:23Disney movies
43:24because some of
43:24the movies,
43:25even if I don't
43:25like the whole
43:26show,
43:26and very often
43:26I think the
43:27show is
43:27overproduced,
43:29at least it's
43:30interesting
43:30and there's
43:31some things
43:32I'd like the
43:32children to
43:33learn from
43:33that movie
43:33but I see
43:34no reason
43:35why I have
43:36to go to
43:36Toys R Us
43:36and buy
43:37t-shirts
43:37that have
43:38the movie
43:38advertised on
43:39it and why
43:39they have to
43:40have a backpack
43:40that says
43:41Lion King
43:41and it offends
43:43me that I'm
43:44doing Disney's
43:44advertising
43:45and paying
43:45for the privilege.
43:54Disney and
43:56Disney products
43:57and movies
43:58is having a
43:59big influence
43:59on children's
44:00play.
44:01It's part of
44:02the whole move
44:03in media
44:04to market
44:05toys to
44:06children
44:07through movies,
44:09TV shows,
44:10video games.
44:11The problem
44:12with marketing
44:13to children
44:14and having
44:15toys that are
44:16highly realistic
44:17replicas of
44:18what children
44:19have seen
44:19on the screen
44:20is that in
44:21many ways
44:22it affects
44:23how they
44:23play.
44:24Play is
44:25natural for
44:25children.
44:26It comes
44:26natural.
44:27And through
44:28play,
44:29children get
44:31to know
44:31themselves,
44:32get to know
44:32the world
44:33around them.
44:34It's their
44:34chance to
44:35explore,
44:35to create
44:36their own
44:37means of
44:37exploring the
44:39world.
44:39They develop
44:41imagination,
44:42language,
44:43skills,
44:44social skills.
44:47If you tell
44:49the child how
44:49to play,
44:50you are
44:51depriving the
44:52child of
44:54what's maybe
44:55necessary for
44:56that child's
44:57development.
44:59mind.
45:01When children
45:01see a movie
45:02and then try
45:04to replicate
45:04the script,
45:05and there are
45:06toys that help
45:07them do that,
45:08a whole line
45:08of toys that
45:09are exact
45:10replicas of
45:10what they've
45:11seen on the
45:11screen,
45:12the message
45:13they're getting
45:13is,
45:14kids,
45:14when you
45:15play,
45:15you're supposed
45:16to play the
45:16movie.
45:17And here are
45:18toys to help
45:18you do it.
45:19And because
45:20children focus
45:21on the salient
45:21dramatic,
45:22the toy keeps
45:23them focused
45:24on that narrow
45:25plot.
45:26And when I
45:26hear a lot
45:27of my
45:27research has
45:29been teachers
45:30describing play
45:31all over the
45:32world looking
45:33exactly the
45:34same.
45:35And it can
45:36stay the same
45:37and fixated
45:38and not
45:39evolve and
45:39change.
45:40When that
45:41happens,
45:42children learn
45:43the lessons
45:44they see in
45:45the media
45:45much more
45:46than they
45:47otherwise would
45:48when their
45:49play is just
45:49a replica
45:50of what they've
45:51seen on the
45:51screen.
45:52As a teacher,
45:53I get to see
45:54the impact
45:56magnified.
45:57It is very
45:58clear when
45:59you go into
45:59a school and
46:01there's a movie
46:02about to be
46:02released and
46:04slowly but
46:05surely all
46:05children start
46:06coming in with
46:07all the products
46:08that are
46:10advertising this
46:11movie.
46:12The marketing
46:13to children is
46:14not just done
46:15through the ads
46:16that they see.
46:17It's also the
46:18program itself
46:19or the movie
46:20itself.
46:20The whole
46:21production is
46:23used as a way
46:23to sell products
46:24where it
46:25reached a new
46:25peak in a
46:26movie like
46:26Hercules.
46:39They are urns
46:40with the
46:41Hercules symbol
46:42and mugs
46:42and sneakers
46:43and it's a
46:44total anachronism
46:45in that it
46:46doesn't really
46:47relate to the
46:48times of
46:48Hercules at
46:49all but it's
46:50showing children
46:51shopping and
46:52getting all the
46:53products and
46:54all the excitement
46:54of the products
46:55so it kind of
46:57makes this kind
46:58of seamless
46:59marketing between
47:00the show and
47:01the ad totally
47:04undistinguishable
47:04for children.
47:05It's extremely
47:06powerful and
47:07no you cannot
47:08escape it as a
47:09parent.
47:09I think that
47:10you would have
47:11to, I can't
47:14imagine,
47:14lock your child
47:16in a house and
47:17not let them
47:17go out.
47:18It's impossible.
47:19It's everywhere.
47:20It's everywhere.
47:21You can't get
47:22away anywhere
47:24you go from
47:25the products that
47:26are being sold
47:27and they all,
47:28they overlap so
47:30that if Disney
47:30produces a bad
47:31film it doesn't
47:33have to worry
47:33because you see
47:34it owns a
47:35television station
47:36or it owns a
47:38television network
47:39which you can
47:40run that film
47:40over and over
47:41again to
47:42massive audiences
47:43right or it
47:44can use its
47:45retailers to in
47:46fact transform
47:47it into a
47:48video.
47:49and sell it
47:49in its video
47:50stores or it
47:51can market it
47:51abroad or it
47:52can create a
47:53whole new toy
47:53line or if we
47:55miss it, if we
47:56miss the point
47:56it can begin to
47:57advertise it over
47:59and over in its
48:00newspapers and
48:01its magazines and
48:03its journals so
48:04that eventually it
48:05will seem as if
48:06that really is such
48:07a wonderful product.
48:09How could it be in
48:10so many places?
48:11How could you
48:12miss it?
48:13I mean so it
48:13seems to me it
48:14has the power to
48:15place that product.
48:17It has the power to
48:18turn every element
48:20of communication
48:22and information
48:23into an
48:24advertiser.
48:25Now, coverage
48:26you can count on.
48:28This is News
48:29Center 5.
48:30Despite below
48:31freezing temperatures
48:32onlookers stood
48:33four deep for the
48:3474th annual parade.
48:36The big news was
48:36the return of
48:37Mickey Mouse
48:38after an 18-year
48:39absence.
48:40But this is also
48:41linked to a much
48:42bigger issue.
48:43And that bigger
48:44issue is what kind
48:46of society do we
48:46want to live in?
48:47Do we want to live
48:48in a society where
48:50seven global
48:51corporations control
48:53our culture?
48:54At the moment the
48:55only people at the
48:56table are the
48:57holders of corporate
48:58power.
48:59That's not a
49:00democracy.
49:01We have no
49:02obligation to make
49:03history.
49:04We have no
49:05obligation to make
49:06art.
49:07We have no
49:07obligation to make
49:08a statement.
49:10To make money
49:11is our only
49:12objective.
49:15Are they teachers
49:16or are they
49:16entertainers?
49:18If they have so
49:19much power, I
49:20think it's time for
49:21them to feel some
49:21responsibility to
49:24educate children about
49:25the world they
49:25really live in.
49:31I really believe
49:32that as an
49:33entertainer you have
49:33a responsibility to
49:34be a teacher as
49:35well because you
49:37have someone's
49:37attention.
49:38or Om
50:06or Om考
50:08else are
50:22I can't blame Disney.
50:23I mean, I've always certainly been opposed to people who say things like,
50:28well, I listened to this song and it made me kill somebody.
50:31I mean, it's just ridiculous.
50:32You can't have everybody take responsibility.
50:34I think when they do make their movies, they do as best a job as they can
50:39because you cannot please every special group out there.
50:43We need to create a corrupt cultural environment in which Disney is just one of many possible stories that children
50:47could hear.
50:48So children have available to them a wide variety of imaginary worlds and images.
50:53So the issue of how it's affecting them becomes less important because they're simply more available.
50:59In spite of the criticism, I still find enjoyment in Disney just because it was something that I grew up
51:07with.
51:08It's hands-off Disney.
51:10You know, they do good things and they bring joy into your life
51:13and that people are not looking for the messages or claim they don't see it that way.
51:20And that may be more troublesome because then that becomes a kind of not-so-subtle form of an actual
51:28indoctrination.
51:29It's a fantasy, and it's a place to have fun.
51:31So I'd rather do that instead of seeing what goes on behind the scenes because I think that that would
51:35lessen the magic.
51:36I'm not interested in censoring Disney.
51:38I'm interested in what Disney represents in this culture against a larger issue of what it means for this culture
51:47to survive as a democracy.
51:49I did not want my face to appear on camera because I want to get into the mass media at
51:55some point.
51:56But as we know, Disney owns a lot of the mass media and they own a lot of, like, a
52:00lot of entertainment industry.
52:03And that's pretty much it.
52:05I'm just looking out for my future and looking out for my career goals.
Comments