17
COMMERCIALIZING CHILDREN’S CULTURE
MARGARET MOODY: I think that commercialization is probably the most appalling thing
about the Disney movies. Some of the movies even if I don't like the whole show, very
often I think the show is overly produced, at least it is interesting and there's something I
like children to learn from the movie. But I see no reason why I have to go to Toys-R-Us
and buy t-shirts that have the movies advertised on it, why they have to have a back-pack
that says Lion King. It offends me that I am doing Disney’s advertisement and paying for
the privilege.
DIANE LEVIN: Disney and Disney products and movies, this having a big influence on
children's play. It's part of the whole move in media, to market toys to children through
movies, TV shows, video games. The problem with marketing to children, and having
toys that are highly realistic replicas of what children have seen on the screen, is that in
many ways it affects how they play.
MARISA PERALTA: Play is natural for children, comes natural. And through play,
children get to know themselves, get to know the world around them, it's their chance to
explore, to create their own means of exploring the world. They develop imagination,
language, skills, social skills. If you tell the child how to play, you are depriving the child of
what's maybe necessary for that child's development.
DIANE LEVIN: When children see a movie, and then try to replicate the script, and there
are toys that help them do that--a whole line of toys that are exact replicas of what they've
seen on the screen, the message they're getting is: kids when you play, you're supposed
to play the movie and here are toys to help you do it. And because children focus on the
salient, dramatic, the toy keeps them focused on that narrow plot. When I hear lot of my
research has had, been teachers describing play all over the world looking exactly the
same. And it can stay the same and fixated, and not evolve and change. When that
happens, children learn the lessons they see in the media much more than they
otherwise would when their play is just a replica of what they've seen on the screen.
MARISA PERALTA: As a teacher, I get to see the impact magnified. It is very clear when
you are going to school and there's a movie about to be released. And slowly but surely,
all children start coming in with all the products that are advertising this movie.
DIANE LEVIN: The marketing to children is not just done through the ads that they see,
it's also the program itself, or the movie itself. The whole production is used to as a way to
sell products, where it reached a new peak in a movie like Hercules.
The urns with Hercules symbols, and mugs, and sneakers and it's a total anachronism in
that it doesn't relate to the times of Hercules at all but it’s showing children shopping and
getting all the products and all the excitement of getting the products so it kind of makes
this kind of seamless marketing between the show and the ad, totally undistinguishable
for children.