sugar and spice and totally unrealistic Ideals... that's what disney princesses are made of23/10/2019 I’m a mother of girls. Two fabulous, complicated, complex, wonderful and interesting girls. My joy at having little people to whom I can really, honestly relate as they grow is immeasurable… but this has been met by equal levels of worry about supporting their self-belief and self-esteem as I raise them in a world saturated by media that feeds them unhealthy, unkind and unsustainable messages. Much of pop culture is fabulous fun (I’ve only just begun to investigate the world of online learning communities which connect people to every kind of popular interest you could imagine!), and yet I remain skeptical of the popular messages that are fed to our girls across any number of media platforms - common themes being that the ‘prettier’ and sexier they are, the better. These messages pervade television, magazines (what are they?!), gaming and social media. I wrote recently about selfie culture and whether it’s harmful, and in the process was drawn to an article I remember reading earlier this year about the extremes of editing that some young people went to before considering their photos ‘social media ready’. The pressure on young women to look a certain way is significant - and starts early. As I went through the photos from that article using the slide feature to see the ‘before' and ‘after’ of their images, I was struck by how almost cartoonish their edited images appeared. Large eyes, small chins, lots of makeup, very… Disney. Yes, the multi-billion dollar marketing industry that is ‘Disney Princesses’ is a giant in the arena of popular culture. And not everyone is happy with the message they send. Despite getting a better rap in recent years due to the more feminist-friendly princesses to have graced our screens in Frozen (sort of), Brave and Moana, the latent popularity of old-school favourites like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid means that these hyper-feminine and stereotyped characters continue to exert significant influence. While studies have struggled to lay the blame for poor-self esteem squarely at the feet of our Disney princesses (hey, childhood is complicated and longitudinal studies which can isolate the measure of a single influence are hard to come by!), theories of gender development do suggest that one of the ways in which we learn about gender roles and society’s expectations is through modelling. Without time to go into the details of gender stereotypes here, I’m going to stick to body image. Disney has a habit of exaggerating the more feminine traits of its female characters (and masculine of its male) to give us doe-eyed, made-up, long-lashed, small-chinned, (sound familiar?) young women who incidentally always seem to get the guy in the end. The beauty-ideal is established early. And while we can't point the finger singularly at Cinderella, we do know that girls' body confidence is affected by images they see in the media, and that even though they may know that these images are unrealistic or unattainable, they still experience dissatisfaction with their own bodies by comparison. When my eldest daughter started showing interest in movies I was resolute. No Disney! Ha! Fat chance. Trying to avoid Disney is like hoping you won’t see sunlight when you step outside in the morning… it’s everywhere. And these guys are good. All three billion's worth of them. My tree-climbing, dirt-finding, fun-loving six year old has hundreds of wonderful books on her shelves, and I’ll be honest and say that a little part of me dies inside each time she chooses Cinderella as her favourite. Because it doesn’t stop there. This fabulous kid also bats her eyelashes at the camera and tells me she loves Cinderella because she’s so ‘pretty’. Ugh. “What else do you like about her?” I ask through gritted teeth with my fingers crossed behind my back… “Uhm, she has blonde hair”… “And?”… “And she’s kind”. At least we got a personality trait. But hey, here’s some good news. A study by (Coyne, Linder, Rasmussen, Nelson & Birkbeck (2016) found that while watching Disney films might reinforce gender-stereotypical behaviour in girls, it can actually work to increase more stereotypically feminine behaviour in boys and this might work towards dampening hyper-masculinity and encouraging a more androgynous self-view, and this can be beneficial for boys' development. Hooray!
In conclusion... Me to my six year old daughter: “No you can’t watch Cinderella (again)”. Also me to my four year old son: “Hey, have you seen this great movie about a princess?!”
0 Comments
I recently watched a group of teenagers at the beach spend close to two hours taking photos of themselves. The coached each other, changed positions, changed angles, and checked and re-checked the results all in their quest for the perfect selfie. Initially, I just felt sad that these kids weren’t ‘enjoying’ a beautiful day at the beach, then I started to feel anxious about the online world my children would soon be entering, and eventually, I got to thinking about selfie culture in general, and what it really means.
Are selfies simply a bit of harmless fun? Or the physical expression of an increasingly image focused society? Or are they in fact a dangerous obsession which threatens our children’s mental health? Selfie-taking is without a doubt, not only a polarising issue, but one which serves to clearly delineate the young from the old. Or does it? Are selfies an exclusive expression of youth culture, or have some older generations found themselves drawn in? Do you happily plaster pictures of yourself all over social media? Do you take the odd picture, albeit reluctantly, but secretly enjoy the level of control you have over the process? Or have you never ever flipped a phone screen and pointed it at your own face? Chances are, if you don’t belong in the first category, you’re either somewhat bemused, entirely befuddled or genuinely worried about the ‘selfie culture’ which has infiltrated our lives. So what is it about this trend which unsettles us? Is it just different from what we’re used to? Or legitimately concerning?
I wrote recently about pop culture, the evolution of language and the tensions this process sometimes produces for older generations. Similarly, do we react to selfie culture simply because it’s new, different and we don’t understand it? Just as I reacted at the beach watching the perfect selfie quest in action? And are we more confronted by young women taking charge of the expression of their public identity in this way than we are of young men?
Discussions about selfies usually find their way to questions of narcissism - after all, surely you must be utterly self-absorbed and self-promoting to engage in this type of behaviour… right? Well, despite the fact that research does suggest a correlation between taking and posting selfies and narcissism, especially in young men, it is also clear that this behaviour is not confined to the truly narcissistic. Indeed, young men and women tend to take and post selfies for a range of reasons connected to developing their own identity, connecting themselves to social groups, and seeking admiration and approval. And even though we know that the selfie trend has found its place among adults too, this behaviour definitely declines with age.
So is it even a problem then? If everyone does it? Unfortunately, research also indicates that taking and viewing selfies is not without potential pitfalls for our self esteem and general satisfaction with our lives. Specifically, viewing others’ selfies and by nature comparing ourselves to them is linked with lower self esteem and unhappiness, and these outcomes appear to be exaggerated if our desire for popularity is high. Is this because lonely people spend more time on social media? Or because social media makes us lonely? It’s not clear. The good news however is that these outcomes are actually reversed when we consider the effects of viewing ‘groupies’ which tend to make us feel happier and more included. So maybe social media isn’t the devil after all.
Enter - the sexy selfie. It’s here that the differences in the way that our girls and boys both take selfies and are viewed for their behaviour that more noticeable differences appear. We know that young women are more likely to edit their photos: altering their appearance, and cropping and filtering their images (take a look at these amazing sliding images of teens’ pre and post edited photographs). We also know that objectified images are often met with more positive responses on social media which leads to… more objectified images. Throw into that mix a healthy dose of media saturated with sexualised images and a good splash of adolescent anxiety and it’s easy to see why parents may be concerned about the impact that selfies might be having on their kids. Our girls in particular are being expected to walk a fragile line between the construction, ownership and presentation of themselves and a society which sends them contradictory messages. Validation of sexiness all around them, but not in the photos they share of themselves.
So… to selfie or not to selfie? We can agree I think that for the time being at least, selfies are here to stay. The product of an image obsessed society? Seems so. Just for the narcissists? As brilliantly self-serving as selfies can be, no, not just for them. Harmful? Definitely not all the time, but potentially, yes. So selfie at will (with a dash of perspective and a little bit of caution).
"Slang Sticker Pack" by Keith Vlahakis is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
I'll confess that I’m one of those people who twitches when I hear words used in the ‘wrong’ way… but perhaps I’m coming around (if my use of inverted commas is anything to go by). We know that language evolves (Erard, 2017) and that we don’t speak or write the way that we once did (see my earlier blog post about why we should still study Shakespeare!). So why do we resist this change? Why do I react when I hear a kid call something ‘lit’ when they mean excellent, knowing full well that this definition will one day weasel its way into the dictionary? (It already has).
Over time, these words slowly make their way into mainstream vocabulary (thus losing their evasive pleasure!), and eventually their new meanings are officially recognised (just in time for young people to abandon them as decidedly un-cool). So why do young people use words in ways they weren’t meant for? Or make up new words entirely?
It seems the almost singular purpose of each generation to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. The language we use is a critical component of our identity and indeed one of the clearest ways in which we both establish and signal the social groups to which we belong. Thus, the language of young people both separates and includes - distinguishing them from older generations and marking their inclusion in particular social groups. If you’ve ever overheard a group of kids and genuinely marvelled at the fact that they’re speaking the same language as you - you’re officially old.
"The Answer is Blowing in the Wind"by decuni is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
So where does that leave us? Do we brace ourselves in frustration against the evolution of language as we know it? Or do we bend with the winds of change and accept the inevitable? And why do we find this so hard? Perhaps the difficulty lies in feeling that something of ours is being lost and we have no control over it. Or perhaps in the ‘degredation’ of language we see echoes of the ways in which society is simply not ‘what it once was’. Is our opposition really just a yearning for the past and for a time when we were younger and more relevant?
Maybe this isn’t a thing at all, and you’re reading along wondering what on earth I’m so bothered about. Is it an English teacher thing? Perhaps you’re totes (agh!) comfortable with words like ‘extra’, ‘snatched' and ‘hunty’ (I had to look them up too). One thing is for sure though - even if you’re absolutely fine with all this - don’t ever cross the invisible line. We can’t see it, but I assure you that this line exists. There’s no better way to ensure that a word you’ve learned vanishes from your teen’s/student’s vocabulary as quickly as it arrived, than to try and start using it yourself. You may even understand how to use it in context (hats off to some of these parents who have an impressive handle on their kids’ vocabulary!), but never, ever go there. There’s no surer way to signal your age than to appropriate teen-speak. And if as part of your endeavours you're referring to websites for “new slang terms to memorise if you want to stay cool”… then trust me, you’re not - and that's ok!
Every now and again, someone secures their 15 seconds of fame by claiming that Shakespeare is no longer relevant and should be abolished from the curriculum. Debate is heated and passionate and eventually we settle back to smooth our ruffled feathers and the Bard quietly retains his place. So I ask instead - why are we asking this question? I’ll happily state clearly and simply that I believe Shakespeare to have a legitimate and unshakeable claim to a place on every English literature curriculum. Should every child in every school study Shakespeare? Of course not. Is the canon of western literature unreasonably dominated by white men? Clearly. Are there myriad other authors who are worthy of our time? Without question. But would the study of English literature be complete without Shakespeare? I say no. I say we’re asking the wrong question here. Which is not to say that it’s not good and right to question what we teach and why we teach it. The endurance of Shakespeare however speaks to his relevance across time and place and this endurance surely goes some way towards cementing his cultural significance. It is here however, that much of the debate swirls. Is Shakespeare just a vestige of the upper classes who should not be foisted on to hapless school students? I don’t think so. Our students are not hapless and yet I feel that often this argument stems from underestimating their abilities. And yet this is also where the question of Shakespeare’s relevance on the curriculum comes from - is he out of date? The cultural status of Shakespeare has not been constant, and is likely to continue to change. Where his plays were once performed for the masses, then published in expensive editions afforded only by the rich, he now finds himself the basis of Disney films, as well as being performed by the faithful in theatres throughout the world as well as being adapted for any number of new contexts and mediums. Shakespeare’s plays have retained their literary clout whilst finding their way consistently into the realms of popular culture. That so often today we see people flocking to affordable seasonal outdoor productions of Shakespeare is telling of the ongoing relevance of, and interest in, his works. Enthusiasm is key. Shakespeare is not a puzzle to be solved for its own sake. The writing is challenging, yes, but worth it! We tend not to shy away from the mental challenge of a complicated mathematical puzzle, and yet to unlock Shakespeare is not an end in itself, but a means to accessing the linguistic delights that he has to offer as a master of his craft. I remember as a student, the sense of accomplishment that came from slowly progressing from being the one confused when others chuckled during a reading of Romeo and Juliet (wasn’t it just a play about love and death?!), to genuinely appreciating not only the humour, but the masterful way in which Shakespeare plays with language in order to create it. In an era where our language is so easily reduced to a minimum of fuss and effort and we will happily communicate in emojis instead of words, surely there is something to be gained from seeing language used in beautiful (if complicated) and ultimately profound ways which shed light on the human experience. For me, the beauty of great literature has always been the ways in which it is actually able to illuminate my own experience of the world - providing clarity to pictures until then blurred by the limits of my own linguistic skill. If language has the ability to shape our understandings of the world, then surely we are remiss not to seek out our most skilled practitioners. Is Shakespeare the only writer we should study? Of course not. Is he one of the very best? Without doubt. In the same way we marvel at elite athletes who demonstrate the extreme capabilities of the human body, so too should we find a sense of continued admiration and appreciation for the flexing of literary muscle. |
About meI'm a teacher, student and advocate for better education through ongoing questioning, thinking and learning.
|