"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us" is an article written by Linda Christensen. She discusses how our society teaches us how to "act, live, and dream" through cartoons, Disney movies, and movies that we see as children. She argues that we have been manipulated by children's media and advertising. She focuses on the movie Cinderella and how we are taught as women to believe that our main goal in life is to get a man. In the version Cinderella as well as Cindy Elle, the girls compete with their sisters to achieve it.
She asked her students to generalize what they got from stereotypes in cartoons, and some of them were as follows: "Look, Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she's kind of dark looking. The young, pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old, pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks." Another student noticed, "People of color and poor people are either absent or servants to the rich, white, pretty people."
I've thought a lot about all of these things since reading this article. I definitely think that these ideas that we have put in to our heads as young children mold the way we are as adults. A lot of children connect so much with characters in Disney movies, or any other cartoon for that matter. If children are connecting with characters who are only searching for men, or stories that teach us that only pretty and rich people are successful, then what does that set them up to believe as adults? Parents spend so much time trying to teach their children the right lessons in life. We're taught that we should always be confident, and as women we're taught that we don't need to depend on anyone besides ourselves. How can these lessons really be learned if we're being poisoned with false ideas of happiness and success from such a young age? We can't. It's not realistic. These movies disguise these anti-feminist values through makings it's viewers identify with these so called protagonists.
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