Reflective Blog Post 3

I think the most startling sentence I've read in criticism of Disney is "This is not the first time that Disney and the U.S. government had adopted similar strategies."

Disney is a children's entertainment company. It is not a political force. It SHOULD NOT be working in cahoots with the government. How is it that our government is strong enough to even employ the use of Disney in brainwashing its audience into supporting military advancements? Or is it the other way around? Is Disney the powerful one with enough influence to support and play off of government agendas?

A visual representation of Disney supporting the military.

If that picture isn't disturbing, then I don't know what is. Mickey mouse, an innocent children's character, shooting a loaded machine gun is exactly what I think of when I think of Disney using it's media outlets to send implicit support of American wars. I especially don't appreciate being awakened to the fact that Aladdin-- my favorite Disney movie-- is just a political incentive.

Everything about what Disney did with Aladdin is problematic.

Number one: You CAN NOT pick and choose which characters get to be full on Arab and which ones get to white. They are all born and raised in the middle east-- they should all reflect middle eastern skin tones and values. Tom Cruise has no business in Agrabah.

Number two: You CAN NOT decide that a country's laws are stupid simply because you don't agree with them. Is it not foul to write off an entire culture because you have a "better idea" of how you think things should be run? I would say I don't blame Disney for this habit-- and blame America instead-- but I quite honestly believe that even if America was a little more open to accepting other countries' cultures and traditions, Disney would still be a bit ticked off that they can't spread their multinational corporation into the Middle East and, therefore, would still produce anti-Semitic values within their movies.

Number three: I understand that things are kept quite literal and basic within children's films so that the young audience will be able to comprehend what's going on-- but to take the literal readings of sharia law and apply it directly to the movie of Aladdin is NOT okay. This is especially harmful when media outlets even continually concede to the fact that Middle Eastern countries do not strictly adhere to the writings of those laws. Arabs aren't barbaric in nature. They aren't. And children shouldn't be allowed to indulge in any form of entertainment that suggests that they are.

My biggest problem with Disney having a political voice is that that voice is full of bigotry and unprecedented hatred. Disney is made up of individuals and those individuals have been brainwashed with the American ideal of freedom and democracy-- the ideal that we push upon every single nation that we think isn't living up to our standards. Disney took it's conservative American values to the Middle East in the movie Aladdin and people applauded them for diversity. However, how can we applaud them for making the Middle East white? We can applaud Disney for diversity when they accurately and positively portray a culture besides white America-- which they have been more successful at in recent years (i.e. Brave 2013).


I guess she counts as white... but she's NOT American!

Dianne MacLeod quotes a journalist that says "It's not racist at all! Disney is like a foreign country..." This quote pretty much implies that we shouldn't criticize Disney because they're a children's entertainment company. However, I believe that once Disney crossed the line into politics they signed up for criticism. If the writers of Disney want to be politicians, then they can receive all of the hate and burden that comes with that. Endorsing the idea that the Middle East is full of evil, corrupt, terrorists-- whether it was a popular idea or not-- was a conscious decision for Disney writers. Think about it this way: If Disney made a movie about the Atlantic Slave Trade and made the African slaves seem barbaric and criminal, and made America seem like a dream come true for them... we'd be furious (or at least I would). And over my dead body would I let someone write it off as "not racist at all" because EVERYTHING about that would be just as racist and problematic as the Arab problem.

After all of this argument, I find myself wondering if the media is really the problem here, or if Americans in general just have a lot to work on... From our "democracy is the only way" mentality to our "we have to make everyone like us" world domination plan, we live like we're the God country of the world. Don't get me wrong... I love America (at least for a few more weeks until the election is over) but HOW is it that we find it okay when WE do historically bad things, but teach our children that it's war if others do the same? Didn't Hitler brainwash Germany into hating Jews? And look at us... brainwashing our country to hate Arabs because Bush told us they were all terrorists? And Disney showed us that they were barbaric?

Maybe I finally see the problem with Disney... and it's really Disney at all... it's American media in general.