Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us
By. Linda Christensen


Authors Argument:
In this article the author discusses the “secret education” taught to children through books and movies. The “secret education” Christensen is talking about is to see the world, sex, race, and class a certain way, subliminally through cartoons.

Quotes:

1. “The “secret education”, as Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman dubs it, delivered by children’s books and movies, instructs young people to accept the world as it is portrayed in these social blueprints. And often that world depicts the domination of one sex, one race, on class, or one country over a weaker counterpart….When we read children’s books, we aren’t just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated.”

• This quote is saying that children are taught a “secret education” through books and movies, and that this “secret education” teaches them to see the world, sex, race and class a certain way. This “secret education” is taught subliminally through these children’s books and movies, and also through cartoons, so as to be deceiving to someone not looking for racism or sexism.

2. “ It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out my self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about what I look like are years (17 of them) of being exposed to TV images of girls and their set roles given to them by TV and the media…..So why dissect the dreams? Why not stay ignorant about them and happy?”

• This quote is talking about the influence of advertising and media on girls self image. The girl who said this was acknowledging the fact, not happily, that her life has been influenced by the media and other people. She felt as though she’d rather live in ignorance of it all and be happy with the way she was living her life before rather then dissect everything in the media and see it for what it really is and be miserable that she let herself be influenced so much, and question her true identity.

3. “Because we can never look like Cinderella, we begin to hate ourselves. The Barbie syndrome starts as we begin a lifelong search for the perfect body. Crash diets, fat phobias, and an obsession with materialistic become commonplace.”

• This quote is a reference to how the media, even children’s stories, portray women. The image of women in the media is tall, skinny, and beautiful and by starting to show children this image at such a young age in everything they read and watch it gives them “Barbie syndrome”. These unrealistic images of women influence girls and women to do everything they can to achieve that perfect look, the perfect body and they become materialistic and most of the time live with an unhealthy obsession with weight.

Questions/ Comments:

I thought this article was great. It really made you think about how much you let media influence and control your own life, since you were a child even. It also made you look back at some of the movies, TV shows and books you read as a child and break them down and think of what the characters may have portrayed and taught. It was especially important to me that this article contained so much about the role of women: the portrayal of women in children’s books/movies, how media influences women, and the Barbie syndrome.