In the 21st century, cultural pundits insisted that books, films, video games and television shape our personalities. It began in the 1980s when Democrats wanted to censor lyrics in music, and then video games in the 1990s, and then smoking and guns out of films, and now they ban books by everyone from Hemingway to Chaucer to protect us from being poisoned by content not institutionally controlled.(1)
First they came for the Disney princesses, and I said nothing, because I am not a girl...
Now they may come after dads in cartoons too. The dissertation by grad student Aino Isojärvi at the University of Oulu outlines how Disney characterizations have changed over time. The thesis is correct in stating that old shows reflect the values of society in some ways, but people leaping from that to shaping those values is a stretch. In old Andy Hardy movies, he and his father were always in suits, if media shaped culture middle-aged California men wouldn't be walking around Safeway in cargo shorts.
In the humanities, like food and chemical epidemiology, you can make anything correlate to anything, so Bambi's father reflected the stern Veteran Grandpa we all got to know after World War II while fathers today are more metrosexual so Isojärvi may have a point that at least Disney thinks it will shape culture with its portrayals of fathers. Will that be used to blame Disney for creating "toxic", i.e. not progressive universitiy men who use organic beard cream, masculinity?
Perhaps, or it could backfire. In the election we just witnessed, the largest number of defections from the Democratic party were Jews. No surprise, since progressives who also dominate in Hollywood were campaigning for terrorists on university campuses where ideological diversity has been eliminated. After that the biggest defections were a tie between men of color and suburban women. That first demographic is who Disney wants to shape and the second are whom they need as customers.
If Disney starts telling men that being a man is toxic, that could hurt the bottom line a lot. That is all Disney should be thinking about.
It's certainly fine to open up stories to represent lots of people, as long as it is in service of the script, but Disney has taken to 'We need a story where ____ is ____, find me a script we can rewrite' and that has just meant a series of cartoons people didn't watch, like "Strange World" and "Turning Red", not to mention the bombs its Marvel division has produced using a cultural mandate rather than a storytelling one.
It needs repeating early and often, because social authoritarian progressives have encroached on culture successfully far too much - media do not shape the outcomes of children. It is modern-day "Reefer Madness" and comic book "Seduction Of the Innocent" stuff.
The kids that social justice evangelists said were ruined by listening to radio won World War II. The kids ruined by television put humans on the moon. The kids who were going to be ruined by books were the harbingers of American Exceptionalism.
Yes, cultural nannies once insisted books were bad. Because they were fantasies. What sensible parent doesn't want their child reading books now or, another thing frowned upon by militant culture of the past, playing outside?
Credit: Pessimists Archive
Best of luck to soon-to-be Dr. Isojärvi, because while there will be a thesis opponent, it will only be an intellectual exercise, no one there will genuinely deny that Disney isn't remaking men in its image.
Unless it is getting men out of cargo shorts in public. The Andy Hardy movies got clothing right, so if Disney wants to be less accurate reflections and more aspirational on that front, I am all for it.
NOTE:
(1) No wonder Bluesky has become so popular among progressives who resent the freedom of Twitter; they hand-pick curators of content like the science feed so nothing pesky will be allowed, like nuclear power or GMOs or anything else that progressives deny should exist. Just look at pretty pictures of stars.
That's not how critical thinking is born.
Comments