Henry Giroux Response

In his work "The Disneyfication of Children's Culture," Giroux describes the need for us to look at Disney films as teaching influences and not just forms of entertainment. Although this view would suggest a neutral take on the motives of Disney, this isn't actually the case. One of his main topics is the noting of stereotypes about races and gender roles that are accentuated in a number of films, something that was novel and interesting. At least for me anyways. After all, learning that The Little Mermaid encourages feminine dependence and that Aladdin is about as racist as can be will make you question your childhood. Nevertheless, it definitely opened my eyes in many ways.

Overall I thought Giroux's argument was very logical. Although the organization could have been a bit better, with headlined sections rather than ambiguous roman numerals, his points were coherent. He starts with some personal background information, continues by leading in to his thesis, and finally using critical analysis of films and Disney's business as a whole to corroborate his claim. This is to say he actually had tangible examples, which is always a good thing. Yes, the text was rather tense which usually has me running, but it was also funny. It's phrases like "They also surrender the responsibility to challenge increasing attempts by corporate moguls and conservative evangelicals to reduce generations of children to either consumers for new commercial markets or Christian soldiers for the evolving Newt Gingrich world order" that make a work memorable. Funny yes, but colorful metaphors like this also served a point.

Nevertheless, there were definitely points I disagreed with. Giroux often described the Disney Corporations two motives for operating as being to earn profit and to spread conservative views across America. However, I would argue that the latter is simply a bi-product of the former. If you read my previous blog post, you probably know by now that I like money. Money's good, and that's all the really matters in a business. In the 90s, most of America held fairly traditional views about gender and race relationships and by making movies that didn't overstep these accepted customs in this time (which is the time frame of the majority of the movies Giroux references) Disney was able to make his films desirable to the biggest possible audience. In this sense, the conservative views stem from the desire of profit and as society evolves, Disney likely will too. And they have. Films featuring different races (such as The Princess and the Frog) and films with more independent female characters (like Brave) signal this trend.

Overall, though, the critical essay was something I generally agreed with and it provided us with a good introduction to this course. Good job Giroux.