You Too Can Look Like Effie Trinket

Do you want to look like the mindless, frivolous, oppressive upper class of the fictional franchise The Hunger Games? Good news for you, Covergirl has recently announced their plans to enable young girls to look the part! If you have read the books or even seen the movie you should understand to a certain degree the deep irony of this. Imagine a new makeup kit fashioned after Romulans or how about a Nazi package? Yikes - and I am not even talking about Halloween costumes.

It isn't just live action films directed towards teenagers like The Hunger Games or Twilight that use marketing strategies that make me uneasy, but Disney also knows the leverage that comes to their sales department by helping young children identify with glitzy glamour and begin a lifetime of brand loyalty.

There is something wrong with marketing to children. Even more than just marketing, it is unethical to shape the values and self image of young people and can cause serious harm. Unfortunately the classroom is not exempt from all this.

Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy stated in one report: "School used to be a place where children were protected from the advertising and consumer messages that permeated their world—but not any more . . . A school setting delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the educational system." I don't think this applies to all Canadian and American schools, but examples such as supplying schools with technology in exchange for high company visibility and companies sponsoring school events does happen, and I think it is wrong.

What can a teacher do then, if their school or local corporations condone such targeting of kids?

The answer applies regardless of school environment. Due to the enormous impact of the Internet and mind-blowing rates of time children are exposed to media on a daily basis, we can't hide all the garbage from our children. However, we can teach our children how to critically consume the information that inundates their world. Said middle school teacher Caitlin Barry:

"We encourage them (students) to use Google Images and search YouTube to find compelling videos, but we haven't given them any tools to analyze all this media. In many cases, students have no idea how to be critical about what they consume.

Barry goes on to reference the foundational questions of media literacy (listed below): key elements we can push and discuss both in our classrooms and at home.

Who created this message? What creative techniques are used to attract my attention? How might different people understand this message differently? What values, lifestyles, and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message? Why is this message being sent?

After pondering the new Hunger Games makeup kit from Covergirl, imagine what a great educational opportunity a teacher or parent could have by running through these questions! 

We should also expand this process to teaching kids to be more critical about food consumption. In her TED talk, Anne Lappe explains important and frightening research about the food industry marketing to you children. Apparently, food marketers spend about 2 billion dollars per year just on marketing to minors. The little video below shares some of the same sentiment as Lappe's talk, including some dramatic music.

There are many things good people are trying to do to stop bizarre marketing schemes like the ones I have mentioned, but something every responsible adult can begin today is to learn and teach the basic questions of media literacy. We need our children to become thoughtful, responsible, and conscious adults - and that possibility looks quite bleak if the waves of marketing and information are consumed without thought or challenge.

Native American Cinema - An Interview With Colten Ashley

Colten Ashley: The Anonymous Director
Photo Credit Eric Pasternak

Recently, I sat down with my friend and fellow BYU film student Colten Ashley and asked him about some things concerning Native Americans and film. He has done quite a bit of thinking, writing, and producing on the subject. He is heading up a really neat project you must check out on Kickstarter. And you can also learn more about Colten at his YouTube channel.

With that said - enjoy the show!



Below are some supplemental clips that are related to the audio recording above.

How the West Was . . . Won?

Have you seen this film? If not, at least enjoy the epic trailer for it!

The first time I saw this film was in middle school. I remember thinking it was alright, but it was a little too long and there weren't as many battle scenes and stuff as a middle school kid would hope for. Our teacher mentioned that the girls showed too much cleavage sometimes, but that was about the extent of our discussion for the whole film (at least in my memory, which can't always be trusted). 

Couldn't we have discussed so much more? This trailer is dripping with subtleties (some of which aren't so subtle) that need to be called out, subjects that need to be addressed, and lessons that could be taught, all about the massive removal of whole nations of people. But we talked about cleavage.

What about films that are rarely shown in educational settings? Peter Pan was a favorite of mine when I was little, and I really enjoyed the ride at Disney Land. But watching this clip I am shocked with the treatment of Native American's by the filmmakers.

 

I don't know about you, but watching this makes me feel pretty sick - especially imagining what it might feel like to watch this sitting next to a member of a Native American tribe.

Many kids see films or scenes like this before they have even learned about the slaughtering of native peoples by Europeans and new settlers. Shouldn't we take a little more responsibility by at teaching young people to actively engage with and be critical of the "entertainment" set before them? I wonder if most kids are like I was and figure "Indians are a thing of the past". 

 

I love this film (Hidalgo, 2004), because it seems to be much more sympathetic to reality when it comes to Native Americans (but maybe not as much with Arabs). Like films such as Dances with wolves it tries to be more accurate, and to me it does so quite convincingly. Other films like Shanghai Noon and Maverick dabble in multiracial conversations that warrant a closer look, especially in their use of humor which is an innovative and interesting way to talk about race and media's portrayal of displaced peoples.

Disney's The Lone Ranger is the next large scaled Hollywood presentation featuring Native Americans. I first heard about it at a lunch in with the Utah Film Commission, and everyone was really stoked because it is being filmed in Utah (at least partially). Some are skeptical about Johnny Depp's role as Tonto and others acknowledge the strange decision to prolong racial profiling from the 30's. Either way, I think it is important to be aware of how Native Americans are portrayed in the media, by Disney or anybody. Does this mean I won't see the film? No, but it does mean I will be critically engaging with it.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I know I am not too happy when my church is inappropriately portrayed in popular culture. I can only imagine what it might be like for a member of a Native American Tribe to watch some of the things Hollywood continues to put out. 

What do you think? Am I being extreme? How has the media influenced your thinking about people or groups different than your own?