Disney Fails US History
While in Kentucky this vacation, I spent quite a bit of quality time
with my younger cousin. We spent time building forts and listening to
music and playing tag and other such childish games. We also watched
Disney's
Pocahontas. My Uncle reminisced about how his daughter -
now preparaing for college - had leaped on the couch as a child screaming
"savages! savages!" when the song in the movie was sung. My
Aunt (the mother of our younger cousin) said that's silly; they were wonderful
friends.
But were they?
Of course, anyone who's passed middle school history class knows that this
isn't true. However, Disney's version of events still begs a question
that ought to be answered: who's the best parent, the one who allowed his child
to get into the more accurate side of the movie, or the one who tries to shield
her child from the evil in humanity's past?
Disney, and America should the popularity of Disney movies be taken as an
accurate representation, seems to really love this idealistic world that
children live in. God knows I do; I spent all of my childhood watching
their movies, and the entire ride down to Kentucky was spent listening to the
Disney channel on Pandora radio (the whole 13 hours of it). Not only do I
love Disney's movies, I also have a soft spot for the themes: those of eternal
love, that love conquers all, and, perhaps most famous, true-love's kiss can
overcome anything.
Our children are taught from a young age to be optimistic and idealistic;
they learn that love is the only thing that matters, that anyone (even "savage"
natives and the British) can get along. Therefore, when they're older and
this carefully constructed reality crashes to the ground in the face of the
real world, it can be shocking, traumatizing, and embittering.
Many adults who live in this world look back and miss the time when the
world was simpler. They long for the days when love was worth sacrificing
anything for. They long for the days when if it was a choice between a
job and the one you care about, the choice would be simple. They long for
the days when an Indian and a Brit could look each other in the eye and fall in
love.
Is it fair to do this to our children? To set them up for the fall when they
realize that the world isn't the beautiful, magical place which we've taught
them it is? Which parent is better: the one who encourages her child to
buy into the lie, or the one who encourages his daughter to see the true
side? Many people say that a child's innocence should be kept at all
costs, but that isn't necessarily true. Children are adults in the
making, and our society encourages us to teach them to be disillusioned and
ignorant, even of our own history. What's more important: telling the
truth or keeping a child's innocence? The first is the beginning of a
journey to a better society, while the second sets a person up to either live
their lives in a bubble or to be ignorant for the rest of their lives.
**********
Merry Christm~ Oops. I meant Happy Holidays.
I have a little ******* I made it out of clay
And when it's dry and ready, then ******* I shall play
It's beginning to look a lot like *********
Ev'rywhere you go
******** oh ********
Come light the *******
Hark! The herald ****** sing
Glory to the newborn king!
When did the holidays become so censored? When did it suddenly become
unacceptable to go up to a person and say "Hey, happy *insert your
personal holiday of choice here*"? Nowadays any mention of a
religious celebration earns an awkward silence as everyone stares at you,
nervously clears their throats, and wonders to themselves how you could be
so
damn insensitive.
I understand that people are trying to be inclusive to all religions when
they say "happy holidays", but in my opinion, that line is a paranoid
and insensitive over correction. We've become so afraid of conflict that
we go out of our way to be politically correct; in that process, we've lost
much of the emotion and feeling that used to run through our every day
conversations. This does not show anywhere to the degree that it does in
our politically correct holiday greetings. "Happy Holidays" is
far too tentative and lacks the pride and joy of a celebration which a person
can call his or her own.
I'd like to take a moment to say that while I am rather irritated by
"happy holidays," I
am not one of those people who pickets and
screams things like "Put the 'Christ' back in Christmas!" I do
not believe that you're going to hell if you don't celebrate my holiday, and I
do not take it as a personal offense if you do not wish me a Merry Christmas,
despite my Protestant upbringing.
If you wish me a Happy Hanukkah, you're remembering the dedication of a
temple following a great victory. How could I possibly object to that?
The same with the birth of a savior, a good harvest, or the last day of
prolonged darkness. I should be pleased that you want to share your
happiness with me, not offended.
The other thing that irks me about Happy Holidays is that it's meant to keep
from causing cultural rifts and to help us coexist more peacefully. It
completely fails at this. The key to getting along isn't to ignore our
differences; we ought to celebrate them. We should be able to hear
"Happy Hanukkah" and if we're not Jewish, go "wow Hanukkah!?
That's so cool! what do you do? how do you celebrate?" That
enthusiasm, that curiosity, is what is going to make the world a better place,
not the tendency towards paranoid ignorance that we like to keep today.
**********
North vs South
Many Americans along the east coast have a very specific, structured view of
their country: North vs South. The stereotype of a busy, liberal, elitist
northerner conflicts sharply with the stereotype of a laid-back, conservative,
redneck southerner. Is this divide as set in stone as it is in our minds?
Just a quick glance at a political map, like the one shown below, seems to say
yes.
I have the luck to have family down South - not very south, just Kentucky -
whom I visited over vacation. While there, my cousin (the one going to
college) and I discussed some of these ideas that seem to conflict between our
two cultures. Our discussion centered around religion in our lives, gay
marriage, and standardized testing; not only was I fortunate enough to get her
insight to these topics, I also heard where some of her peers stood on
them. Some of the answers surprised me, some fell right into the
stereotypes, and some provoked thoughts and questions about my own life and
culture.
Our first topic of discussion was religion. She attends a Catholic
high school, and as one might assume, religion plays a relatively large role in
her life. However, what surprised me was that her school has a class on
world religions. It's a required course, and the students study religions
from all over the world. I'd have assumed that a course like that would
be found in the North, where stereotypes dictate that the people are more open
minded and would want a required course to educate their children about
different religions. However, despite all the stereotypes, it's a school
in the South with this requirement. What does that say about the
supposedly liberal environment of the North? Are we really as liberal as we'd
like to believe?
The discussion of religion eventually led into one of gay marriage.
This was the same as the religious discussion: some surprises, some expected
answers. My stance: that of what I perceive to be the proper liberal New
Englander, or "There is nothing at all wrong with gay marriage,"
something I believe in with all my heart and fight for if necessary.
Hers: "Um it's ok, I guess. I just don't find it
natural." The expected answer: reluctance, a sentiment of "it's
unnatural." The surprise: hesitance, an openness to change, and when
I pointed out that being gay is natural for people who actually are gay she
nodded and admitted that I was right. So what does that mean? Does it
mean she's just young, or are my conceptions of life in the South completely
incorrect?
At this point, we said our goodnights and fell asleep. In the morning
we talked about the topic on the minds of every teen preparing for college:
standardized tests. What's the difference between the SAT and the ACT?
Which is better? Should I take one, or both?
And then the most important question in my mind: Do the kids in her school
react with depression if they don't score well? Do they question their value as
people? Her answer was generally, no. Does that mean that Southern
students don't care as much about their futures?
Then my mind wandered down a different path: is everyone in the North really
like that? Certainly some of my friends, but not even all of them.
So is it just me?
What does all of this mean? Sure, there are some general trends; my
cousin's tendency towards religion and my tendency towards perfectionism, but
do those trends mean that an entire part of the country is like
that?
The obvious answer is no, of course not. It's stupid and egotistical
to think that way.
So what does that mean for our carefully constructed world of
stereotypes? Put simply, they shouldn't exist. We try to simplify
our world and see it in a way that we find easy to understand, but very rarely
is this the best way to view the world. We need to do away with the
stereotypes of our society and try to view the world complexly. A
society, just like a person, is more than a couple simple traits that can be
summed up in a few words; there's always more than what meets the eye. We'd do well to remember that, especially when
dealing with people from our own country.
**********
So…Many…Ads…
Everywhere you look, you see
ads. They're on the sides of websites, posted along roads and train
tracks, in between tv shows, sometimes even in the show itself. My
cousin, whom I've mentioned in previous posts, purchased a huge magazine of
prom dresses. That night, as the adults talked, I leafed through
it. When I reached the end, I turned to her and said "you know, you
just spent ten dollars on a big book of ads."
We've become desensitized to
advertisements. They're everywhere, to the point that you really don't
even notice until you look for them. Then you realize just how many
products there are to choose from, just how many sellers are being pushed at
you at all times.
Very few of these ads make any sort
of impression. Many people sit through the trailers at the start of a
movie, but very few of these people remember any of them. What does our
allowance of this constant stream of new products say about our society?
I believe that it communicates many things, especially when we consider that
all of the people being used to sell are
- Famous
- Beautiful
- Or some combination of the two
This leads to the conclusion that we
as a society are not happy with ourselves. Each feels that he or she is
not successful enough or pretty enough or organized enough; he or she is just
not good enough. Advertisements
encourage this belief by giving us people to compare to; the ads imply – or
sometimes explicitly state – that if we only buy the product, we will be
successful, rich, and beautiful beyond our wildest dreams; we’re promised that
any and all shortcomings will be cured. So why do we tolerate these
incessant ads, when they never deliver what they promise, and serve only to
remind us of our shortcomings. Are we all masochists who enjoy it?
Perhaps it’s because of another problem; are we all egomaniacs who enjoy the
constant stream of attention?
Again, I think that the problem is a
mix of many things. There is no simple answer to how ads affect us and
why we tolerate such a steady stream of them. In order to combat the
negative influence ads take on us, we must learn to be comfortable with
ourselves as individuals. Only then can we put an end to the petty waste
of time and money that is advertising.
**********
Conclusion
Traveling to Kentucky has been an enlightening experience for me this
year. It's taught me things about my home that I hadn't noticed before;
more importantly, it's made me question just how much of what I consider to be
the culture of my home, to actually be the culture of my home and how much is
just in my head, or the culture of certain parts of my home. Because, as
my mother often reminds me, the uber liberal culture of CGS is not the same as
the rest of the Northeast, and the relatively liberal culture of the Northeast
is vastly different from the South.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, it is important for us to remember this
at all parts of our lives, from childhood to old age. The world is more
than just one cultural space; it's more than just a collection of cultural
spaces existing separately. There is so much richness everywhere, which
stems from the vast differences in our cultures overlapping.
It is not helpful to stifle any cultures because we find them offensive; it
is not helpful to teach our children to be ignorant of their own cultures; it
is not helpful to be satisfied with dissatisfaction just because that is what
our culture dictates.
This new view of my home will affect me for the rest of my life.
I’ll look at everything in a new light, and
think through stereotypes about a certain people or place instead of just
buying into it.
As for which parent is better, I mean it when I say that there’s always
more to a scenario than what meets the eye.
My little cousin had been very sick for a year; she’s only just now
recovering, and it’s been very long and very hard.
With that in mind, is my aunt a bad mother
for trying to protect her child from another harsh truth?
If it weren’t for her child’s history, I’d say yes.
However, for a child who has been completely
stripped of her youthful innocence, a mother attempting to help her baby keep
just a shred of that innocence is an excellent mother indeed.
Nothing is simple, neither people nor cultural spaces.
We would do well to remember this, and
embrace it.
