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Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

economist.com

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Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#31

Post by [deleted] »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #18
codemac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.

Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to l…

[deleted]

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#32

Post by [deleted] »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #18
codemac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.

Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to l…

[deleted]

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#33

Post by cjhveal »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #18
codemac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.

Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to l…

I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine. While our emotions certainly are complex and misunderstood, I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all these little people in their heads. It's a fun concept that takes some existing cultural trope and runs with it to tell a story. Everything is more complex that the limited linguistic labels that we slice the world into. But if we couldn't reduce that complexity into modular, independent pieces then how would we ever communicate?

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#34

Post by beedogs »

tunesmith wrote: post #7

FYI, the first part of the article spoils some minor things about the new star wars film, for those who haven't seen it. I bailed out of reading it after that.

If the name of a single character now counts as a spoiler, I don't think I want to live on this planet anymore.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#35

Post by rdtsc »

zekevermillion wrote: post #30

There was some magic to the 80s childhood movies -- Star Wars, ET, Last Starfighter, Goonies -- that I don't think can be bottled. Whatever stories hold that place for our kids, I don't think they will be the same movies that did it for us. There's just something about seeing Star Wars in the context of that time, and it's not the same as seeing it now.

Part of it was that other magic out there wasn't of the same quality. Now there are video games, phones, internet, it is not that movies are not as cool, but there is more stuff competing with it.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#36

Post by Wingman4l7 »

roywiggins wrote: post #29
Archio wrote: post #6

Reading this gives me a chill down my spine. There's something about a corporation controlling, optimizing, monetizing, and branding dominant components of a childhood that just doesn't seem right.

Apart from the monopolization, is it at all new? ex: Lego. Lego is not produced by artisan plasticsmiths down the street, they're a big company.

Well, before their patent expired, it seemed that they were less focused on getting exclusive trademark rights for movie-franchise-branded brick sets.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#37

Post by AndrewKemendo »

rayiner wrote: post #8
Archio wrote: post #6

Reading this gives me a chill down my spine. There's something about a corporation controlling, optimizing, monetizing, and branding dominant components of a childhood that just doesn't seem right.

If we weren't raising our kids to be such consumers--turning stupid shit like Star Wars into "cultural experiences"-- Disney wouldn't have any power. They can't own sticks and dirt.

You know the worst part? You can't even prevent it if you are raising your kids otherwise.

My 5 year old has never seen a Disney movie, yet she told me today that for her 6th birthday she wants a Cinderella shirt and an Elsa costume - both characters she has never actually seen on screen. Her friends at school all talk about it though and recount fantastic stories.

I hear from people saying that we will raise a kid who is out of the loop, so she won't be able to relate and will be an outcast if we don't keep her up to date with all the trends like her peers.

At a certain point as a parent, it's kind of like, it doesn't really matter what we do.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#38

Post by olewhalehunter »

cjhveal wrote: post #33
olewhalehunter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to l…

I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine. While our emotions certainly are complex and misunderstood, I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all these little people in their heads. It's a fun concept that takes som…

>I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine.

And yet the first thing to come to many children's minds when shown a clown fish or French cuisine is Nemo and Ratatouille.

> I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all these little people in their heads.

I've met people who think the movie helped them "understand themselves better" whether or not that is actually true.

>But if we couldn't reduce that complexity into modular, independent pieces then how would we ever communicate?

Not everyone wants to speak the same language, (or even be forced to hear you).

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#40

Post by AndrewKemendo »

zekevermillion wrote: post #30

There was some magic to the 80s childhood movies -- Star Wars, ET, Last Starfighter, Goonies -- that I don't think can be bottled. Whatever stories hold that place for our kids, I don't think they will be the same movies that did it for us. There's just something about seeing Star Wars in the context of that time, and it's not the same as seeing it now.

It's because you were (presumably) a kid back then - and everything was much more magical then because it was your whole world and imagination. Just like old people now state how much better the 50s were, because that's when they were children.

I pretty much discount anytime someone says "It was better when I was a kid."

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