After reading “Are Disney Movies Good for Your Kids?” by Henry A. Giroux, I now see Disney movies in a new light. As the article and our class discussion point out, Disney productions are teaching machines; by watching these films children learn “roles, values, and ideals” (Giroux 53). Disney tries to portray itself as a model of civic responsibility by providing scholarships, internships, and educational programs for disadvantaged students (Giroux 54). The article criticizes some of the messages that are transmitted to children via Disney movies. Both the article and our classroom discussion made me think of another well known American company recently criticized for its portrayal of women to the American public-namely Polo Ralph Lauren Polo Corporation.
Ralph Lauren is busy projecting a very clean cut and wholesome image, as is Disney; after all, the Ralph Lauren Polo Company was chosen as the official outfitter of the 2010 Olympics. In fact, the world of Ralph Lauren can be seen as a kind of Disney production for adults. Ralph Lauren products offer consumers the chance to buy into a fantasy world in which aristocratic looking men and women wear stylish clothing. Just like Disney, the company is concerned with having an image of civic responsibility and charitable behavior. The Ralph Lauren website offers a Haiti Relief T-shirt for sale, advertising that one hundred percent of the proceeds from buying this t-shirt will be donated to Haiti Relief. Also, just as Disney, Ralph Lauren is unwittingly reinforcing negative values in its viewing public. Ralph Lauren’s transmission of negative cultural values consists of fostering unrealistic expectations in women through its advertisements, specifically by digitally altering models’ photographs and making the models unnaturally thin. This is damaging to people’s self image because research has shown that images of models do impact people’s self esteem.
On October 10th, 2009, Ralph Lauren Corporation apologized for digitally retouching an already thin model’s waist to make her head look larger than her waist and for reinforcing a distorted body image in young girls. The apology came after the ad caused a public outcry against the company. Critics of Ralph Lauren’s advertising included blogs, such as Dr. Eye Candy, and documentary filmmaker Darryl Roberts (America the Beautiful) called for a boycott against Ralph Lauren products. They threatened to pick three of Lauren’s biggest stores and boycott them by taking young girls with eating disorders to the stores to explain to shoppers how Lauren’s advertising affected them. Digitally altered photograph, like that of Polo model Filippa Hamilton, are felt to have a damaging influence by contributing to the development of eating disorders in young girls with negative self-images. Ironically, after the public apology, Ralph Lauren fired model Filippa Hamilton, the model in the digitally altered ad.
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2009/12/14/retouched_models_because_real_is_never_good_enough.php
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