What is your relationship to Disney and animated children’s culture? What role did these texts play in your life as a child, if any? In that of any children you share time with? How do your memories challenge or reflect Christensen’s claims? How does Frozen meet or challenge your memories of princess culture?
In unlearning the myths that bind us by Linda Christensen, the “secret education” refers to the indoctrination of young children through books and movies. This wouldn’t be so dreadful if it were not for the fact that the marginalized remained voiceless and invisible.
Because most of our early information about how others live does not come from first hand experience, our cultural stereotypes are shaped and distorted by what is seen in the media.
For me personally, being in the minority of the minority, Hollywood and media images portrayed did not represent me. The images of the Latina in the ‘novelas’ were always fair-skinned or white as this is what is valued in the Latin culture due to colonized mindset. Whenever, I would see the images depicting Latina that are upheld as a standard of beauty. I was not celebrated, as I did not see my reflection in them. My image was not mirrored within the dominance of the minority culture. This absence is an aspect of the oppression I felt. The indoctrination left behind by the colonizers runs deep in the blood of my people that the ideologies are accepted and the vicious cycle of negation is perpetuated. The negation of who we are to who we think we must be.
How has this affected me in my adulthood? Accepting the notion, that I could not play the damsel in distress as I lacked the characteristics of beauty as portrayed by the media, I came to a resolve that strength and intellect would be my innate qualities. These same qualities have been my driving force and kept me motivated to push past and redefining for myself what is beauty.
Frozen the Disney movie challenges my memories of princess culture, because she chooses her love for her sister to teach her how to control her powers. Even though she is locked away and isolated in a castle, it was by choice. A choice made from desperation and lack of guidance. In the end, she no longer had to hide and suppress who she is. Embracing her true self, and understanding her love for her sister lead to her happily ever after.
Thank you for sharing your experience with Disney, Hollywood and media images. I grew up in a very homogenous community and sadly, most of my knowledge of other cultures was learned through Hollywood and media. As teachers, it's our responsibility to introduce histories, stories and characters, or in my case scientists, that represent diverse cultures and experiences. In "Chapter 2 Defining Multicultural Education for School Reform" Nieto and Bode discuss how historical texts in the classroom are "written by the conquerors, not by the vanquished or by those who benefit least in society.....all education must be multicultural because it needs to take into account the diversity of our student population." My question is when school leaders choose the school curriculum in Providence Public Schools, is this considered? Do our curricula reflect the many cultures represented here in Providence? -Alex Romano
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