Disney and Media views on people

    One of the things we have done since our last blog is that we recently watched a movie in class that dealt with Disney and the powerful effects on children. The movie though primarily focused on the negative aspects of Disney and how it affects the children. In the movie there is a professor from Penn State University that wrote a lot of bad things about Disney and he got a lot of heat for it. He states that when he was writing about them in a negative way people asked him "well aren't you afraid", and he said he always was "surprised" to hear that. I think that one of the reasons that people said that to him was because of how powerful Disney is and the positive images that it portrays in the public and the media. Frankly majority of people always think that Disney is such a big company and most of it's content is directly focused to young children. The professor would go on to say that he "got a lot of backlash" after he published his book and the negative views that he has on Disney. He said "especially the interviews on the radio", where people would unanimously call and voice their displeasure at him. The professor pointed out that Disney is not telling the whole story and sometimes is very hypocritical. I personally am in the middle of this debate because he does make a case, but I think that at the same time Disney is one of the best companies out there and not a whole lot of their content is really that offensive or deemed really bad. It's a very interesting story because it sows the negative aspects of Disney, and that is very unusual for a company that is so well contributed to kids.

     In the movie there were a lot of people that were voicing their displeasure at some of the Disney movies that were made. They pointed out that some of the movies displayed the wrong image about people, and it created a lot of stereotypes. One lady mentioned how in all of the Disney movies the villain or the bad character was always "Black" and not some other type of color. It created that stereotype that black people are always bad because of how they are portrayed, but in reality we know that this is not true. Another person said that in one of the movies it portrayed people that were Arab or of Arabian descent that they are very bad and cold blooded people. In one of the scenes it showed the princess giving the boy an apple because he was hungry, and when the store owner asked for money, she replied that "I don't have any" , and then he threatened to cut off her hand for stealing. We know that this is not true because as one of the people in the movie mentioned that you get three warnings if you steal, and it's only after the third time that you do it that they would chop off your hand. It shows though that kids get the wrong message about Arabs and that because of watching the movie they get the message that they are bad. We all know though that this is not true and that Arabs are nice people and not that way that they are portrayed in the media  or films. I would have to say that i agree with most of these people that Disney sometimes does enforce bad stereotypes in their movies. I think that they need to stop because it could have a lasting effect on the child as he or she grows up, and they could end up getting the wrong message from it.

       The last thing that i will talk about will be the discussions that we had in class the other day about the movie and when everyone got a chance to voice their opinions and thoughts. In all honesty I thought that this was a great movie with a lot of compelling evidence and backed up theories. It actually showed Disney in a bad spotlight in which I have never seen them before because of their good image among the public and the media. A lot of people on the class voiced their concerns about the stereotypes that are portrayed and I for the most part agreed with them. I think that Disney needs to do a better job of creating a good image for everybody and not just for certain people. We talked about how people are viewed in a bad way and not in just in Disney movies but in the media as well, and of course what gets reported and what not. I think that the media in general does a very poor job of reporting stories as majority of them are just negative, and when I see the news at night all I hear is negative stories and very rarely any positive ones. A lot of people in the class voiced their displeasure in how the media does their reporting's, and a lot of people blame the media for the bad stereotypes that are created. I agree 100% with them because I think the media is largely responsible for all of these bad views, and a good example would be how Arabs are portrayed as being terrorist because of 9/11 and that all Muslim people are bad. We all know that is not true, but yet this is exactly what the media wants us to think and believe. In conclusion I would say that media no doubt plays a large role in our live and I am sure that the class would agree with me because it shapes up about what we believe and how we see other people, but we have to be careful though as not to believe everything the media tells without doing some research because in the end they may be spilling lies and you may never catch up to the real truth.

1st Blog

    One of the things that I learned for the past three chapters is that not everywhere in the world you get free media where you get to say what you want to say. Majority of other places around the world are Authoritarian where owners of mass media are supporters of a regime. There may also be Communist media where the government determines what gets reported and whats not as to convey communist beliefs. There is also the United States where we use Libertarian media in which individuals are capable of making sound decisions for themselves, and the government rarely intervenes. Here in the United States we have rights and one of those important rights is Freedom of Speech which is the first Amendment. It enables us to express our opinions about anything including if it is against the government. Other nations though do not have that as anybody that tries to speak out against a regime or government is immediately killed or is sent a waning. Personally I think we take our rights here in the US for granted because we are probably so used to it, but we have to remember that in other nations people don't have this, and they are persecuted for their beliefs and their opinions.

   During one of the class days we went over something that was very controversial in which the instructor put up a photo of caskets of dead soldiers that have died in the War on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was very controversial as the class was pretty much divided on weather to show it or not. When the war fist started in 2003, President George W. Bush passed a law that banned all photos of the dead from the war to be shown in the media. It was not until President Barack Obama was sworned in office 2009 as he decided to change this. Overall my personal view was that I think photos such as that should remain private and not be shown out of respect to the victims families. Now I understand what other people think in that this photo showed Patriotism, and the sacrifice that these brave men and women have done for us and this is the least that we could do for them. I still think that we need to show privacy and let the Victim's families heel during this difficult time for them. I think privacy is a big issue in media as to where to you draw the point especially during the time of war. A photo can mean a thousand words and many people might interpret it differently. I still think that people deserve their privacy especially soldiers that put their lives on the line for us every single day.

   The last thing that i will talk about will be National Security and the media. One of the major things that we talked about was the New York Times vs the Pentagon papers. This whole story came about when there was a leak from the government and the New York time were able to access critical information about the Vietnam War. The United Sates government of course did not want want them to publish the papers and took them to court. Unfortunately for the government they lost and the papers were published drawing amid protest and anger from the American people. I personally think that the papers should have been released because people have the right to know. The government however defines it as "clear and present danger", however though I don't think they can lie to the American people especially about a war that took the lives of 58,000 Americans. What the Pentagon Papers did was damage the reputation of the government even more, as they did not have a huge approval rating at the time because of all the protests that were being held all over the country against the war. After the war was over the government blamed the media for the US not winning because it was giving away key information to the public that the government did not want them to know. I personally think that the media did the right thing in publishing the papers because people have the right to know especially during a time of war. In 2003 the US sent embedded journalist in which they traveled with a unit and reported what was happening. Obviously since the Vietnam War many restriction have been placed on the media as to what they can report and not report.