Blog Post 28 Feb.

Culture

When reflecting upon culture and what influences it, I came up with several factors that can lead to shaping the way we act and react to things culturally. I began to think of the role parents and the family have on the cultural upbringing of a youth. Then I started thinking on the great effect television and media in general has on ‘molding the minds of the masses’.

The things one sees and hears the most often are usually the things one holds to be true or expected from life. Many of these things are used in films and other forms of media as part of the storyline or to make a plot more believable. As the thinking of the masses changes, so does media, and as media begins to emphasize certain things as important, so do people. This shows us the circular relationship the population has with media. This very relationship can be observed in the Disney movies. An example of a work which showcases certain themes in culture and in social norms for the time at which it was produced is Disney’s rendering of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

This movie, a first in the world of animation (Being the first feature length animation), was very interesting to look at based on cultural influence/perceived interpretation. Doing some personal research I have found some very strongly opinionated dealings with this work and most of them had to do with its cultural effect.

One such response to the film was in describing the characters as a metaphor for cocaine and its symptoms. ““Walt Disney had been a cocaine addict. He insisted that ‘Snow White was (symbolizing) cocaine, and the seven dwarves were the symptoms of various stages of cocaine addiction: Grumpy, Sleepy, Grouchy [sic], Dopey, Sneezy, Happy and so fourth’” (Klimov, 2007). The same theory is also explored on http://filmguide.wikia.com :“…Snow is cocaine, which causes exhaustion (Sleepy), mood swings (Happy, Grumpy), allergies (Sneezy) and alteration of personality (Bashful, Dopey) eventually resulting in a trip to the doctor (Doc)”.

Another two seemed to attack each other, but had the same message overall in mind. From a somewhat feminist perspective, one comment was “that Walt Disney has created household names of heroines in his films, but in so doing, is encouraging passivity and inaction from female viewers who are influenced by the pretty-but-dumb characters. […]The three Disney films based on other fairy tales (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) all star an innocent, beautiful girl who is victimized by a jealous, evil villainess. Disney encourages the image of a perfect housewife in his heroines. They all exhibit patience, obedience, passivity, diligence, silence, and beauty. To become a heroine for Disney, one must have all those qualities. To mute the heroine inside oneself, one must simply don dirty rags […] In Snow White, it is her beauty that eventually leads to her success. It is because of her face that the prince falls in love with her and frees her from sleeping death with love’s first kiss. Heroines […] do not develop throughout the story because they start out perfect, without defects. All they need is their beauty and passivity to succeed.

The other reaction considering these same factors, a white nationalist critic, explains:

“Snow White is a selfless, sweet, maternal homemaker. She displays all of the peasant virtues. The message of Grimm's fairy tale as well as Walt Disney's movie is that the cheerful labor that goes into making a home and raising babies is the true royal quality, and it is that quality which ultimately merits the love of a handsome prince. […]

In this modern age, our daughters have become so skilled at manipulating mom and dad into maid and butler service that they never wash dishes or do the laundry. The cohesion of the family dinner has given way to our fractured schedules and the isolation of the microwaved TV dinner. Parents leave the piles of dirty clothing which we find strewn all over our daughters' bedroom floors in hopes that they might someday clean up their own mess, but they never do. For some strange reason, the boys seem to do a slightly better job of picking up after themselves. […]
The basic building blocks of civilization celebrated in Snow White are melting away before our eyes.

Under the current cultural regime, only those with the most powerful instincts will be able to make the sacrifices necessary to form stable relationships and to raise children. As the gentle restraints and pressures of civilized norms crumble, huge numbers will succumb to their own self absorption, their lack of behavioral restraint, and their disdain for labor. They will leave no traces of their presence on this earth in the next generation.

Snow White lives to make life bright, cheerful and clean for all those around her, no matter what circumstances she may be placed in by others. She is the model of the female role you will see in re-runs of the 1950's family television series like The Donna Reed Show, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father Knows Best. It is the behavior which so infuriated the inner party critics of our culture, most famously Susan Sonntag who railed against the suburbs in the early 1960s as "Christian breeding grounds."
The modern hatred of all that Snow White represents shows up clearly in the 2004 remake of "The Stepford Wives." And it is this hatred which commands our unwavering allegiance to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

These responses highlight some of the things Disney princess movies may value most. The cultural effect this has is to emphasis those roles of the traditional housewife. That is to say, that she should be meek, quiet, a good cleaner, provider of meals, and that her personal appearance is very important.





Sources:

Klimov, Blagoy. There! Did you see it?; Care! They do see you...Subliminal messages in advertisement, moving-making and cartoons in a 'not so-innocent world'. Profit driven or 'dark' conspiracy? Munich RePEc Personal Archive. 07 Nov. 2007. Central European University-Budapest. 10 Mar. 2009 http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4257/1/MPRA_paper_4257.pdf .

Stone, Kay. "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us." The Journal of American Folklore 88.347 (1975): 42-50.

http://www.whitenationalism.com/cwar/snowwht.htm