Disney Article

Disney was a huge part of my childhood and still is today. I have been to disney world five times and I love it more and more every time I go. I have pretty much watched all of the disney movies, however I forget a lot of them because the last time I watched them was when I was a child. Since I was very young, I did not catch all of the references that Henry A. Giroux is talking about in his story. However, as I read about the arguments that he makes, I understood what he was trying to say. Most of his arguments make sense, and for a while I thought it was Walt Disney who had a lot to do with what appears in the movies, but after reading the story, I realize that it is just the Disney corporation in general. One of his main arguments is that most of the movies are racist. At first, I had no idea what he was talking about, but after reading more in depth, I began to agree with what he was saying. The theme song to Aladdin is a great example as to how the movie is racist towards Arabs. Being a child, most people will not catch on to the racism slurs that are presented in the movies, but if parents were to watch it with them, they might be very offended. I also agree with his statement about children learning from exposure to popular cultural forms. If children watch these movies enough times, they might fall into the idea of what the movie is trying to show within racism. This will not benefit them in the future, because they will look at certain people in negative ways. Another point that Giroux brings up, is that the movies are sexist as well. I agree with this to an extent, but I also think that when the girl does things for the guy in her life, it is out of love and not because of the males power over the woman. When I watched these movies as a child, I thought of them as love stories or comedic stories. I did not look in between the lines as to what was really happening. When I went to Disney World, I enjoyed every minute of it, and the movies had no influence on the way I felt about the characters or souveneirs that were being sold. All of the points that Giroux brings up are more for the parents to encounter, rather than their children. I also have heard about inappropriate gestures that were in the cover of movies and in the movies themselves. However, as a child I didn't pay attention to those things, because I didn't really know what they meant. As I grew older, I began to look for these inappropriate things, because I found it interesting that Walt Disney would want to do such a thing. It just shows a lot about who Walt Disney was as a person and how the Disney corporation is run. However, no matter how many offensive things that are shown in the movies, they are still one of the largest corporations there is and they benefit from everything that they produce.