The Last World

When we initially started watching Mickey Mouse in class this week, my first thoughts were, excuse me people, this is Mickey Mouse and it’s watched by kids and its just for kids' entertainment. It surely cannot be harmful. Then it slowly began to dawn on me that Disney could and indeed seemed to have the power to, cultivate prejudices in those who watched its films.
The interpretation to the films that the 8 and 9 year olds had is what caught my attention. The one about the woman with a young son who heard young black people playing and laughing in the park and immediately thought of the hyenas he had seen in a Disney film drove the point home more than most.
Then we have the CEO of Disney saying that his company did not care for much, except making money! But when you have such immense power to influence a virtual generation, you also do have a responsibility to make sure that such power is not used to perpetuate prejudices and belittle other races—the Chihuahua case of Latinos being a poignant example.
I am grateful for this class, one that allowed the 15 of us to confront our deepest prejudices and learn from many different perspectives. I had not fully appreciated, before getting into this class, about the deep-seated racial issues that underlined Hurricane Katrina, the issues of white privilege, the presentation of other races in seemingly innocuous Disney films, the criticisms of rap music and the portrayal of women in the media.
Thanks for Grand Torino. It is a great movie and had it not been for the brilliance of Crash, I am sure this movie would have landed an Oscar.
And thanks for the opportunity to meet Dean Evans, the man who showed many of us that anything was possible, that it is never too late to follow up on your dreams
So, where do we go from here? How do we help break down decades of racism, classism, sexism, tribalism and many other isms that challenge our world? In the words of the great Martin Luther King Jnr., why can’t we all just get along?
Perhaps we can only get along if we have the opportunity that this class provided, to analyze the problem arrears, to listen to alternative perspectives, to disagree respectfully, to agree to disagree respectfully to realize that other people might be black, white, Africa, Mexican, gay, transsexual, Christian, Muslim—whatever—but that does not define or diminish their humanity.
This class on race, gender and the media is one that is playing, in its own small way, a role of giving people a platform to confront issues that are uncomfortable to them in a dignified and thoughtful manner.
Sometimes passions did rise, as you would expect from such a class, an occasional spark did fly, but that was in a contained manner. It allowed all of us to examine ourselves deeper and I think we came out better persons from this experience. Catch you on Twitter, people!