Online Presentation

 

Violence Towards Children of Minorities in Media and Literature (from the 1900s onwards)

 

Unfortunately, racism and violence has been a part of our history since we, as human beings, decided that the color of our skin defines who we are as a person, instead of what we do or who we are.  But what most people aren't aware of is that racial violence is not just something that you see on the news or in history books or cartoons portraying our history, it is in fact a large portion of what the younger generations are subjected to on a daily basis.  By this I mean, racism is not only alive but it is thriving in our children's media and literature and we are so accustomed to seeing it that we are not only not phased by what we see but we tend to find the violence humorous.  

 

 

My Thesis: 

By looking through our history of literature and media, media including but not limited to films, caricatures and propaganda, from the 1900s and forwards, we can see that even though our society has evolved over time, our view on violence towards the children of minorities has not changed and is more often than not found humorous.

 

 

The White Standard in Modern Media

 

When you think of a Disney Princess, who did you think of?  

 

 

What do the majority of these princesses have in common?  

 

 

Even though they have racially diverse backgrounds, to a young child, they are conditioned to see two colors; white and black or 'other'.   And even though Merida is Scottish, Belle is French, Ariel from the warm waters of the Atlantic and Anna and Elsa are from the Denmark area - or so says one blog, a young child will not see them as anything other than white.  

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

But how is this violent? 'Especially towards children?  

 

Though it can be argued that Pocahontas and Jasmine are technically from a minority, they are still more often then not classified as white due to how light their skin tone is.  With that mindset in mind, Tiana in the Disney movie 'Princess and  the Frog' is the first 'colored' princess.  In the article "Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princess" by Dorothy Hurley, the author expresses her frustration over how 'white' Disney is and how this fact negatively impacts children of minorities because it makes them feel less than beautiful. 

 

 

 

Now to Princess and the Frog

 

 

                                                                        

For those of you who haven't seen Disney's version, the synopsis of the movie is as follows: 

     A waitress, Tiana, is desperate to fulfill her dreams of owning and operating a restaurant by the river, one that she and her father used to always talk about before he died fighting in the war.  With her heart and mind set on this, she works hard and never socializes or has any real fun.  That is, until she is at a wealthy friend's party and meets prince Naveen from Maldonia, who has been turned into a frog due to his butler's greed and anger towards his insensitivity and callousness towards him, the local voodoo man saw his opportunity and took it.   Once Tiana kisses the prince in hopes of transforming him back into a person, she is the one who is transformed instead.  Which leads them on a journey to break the spell, and along the way both the prince and Tiana learn to become better versions of themselves. 

 

So - typical Disney movie right?  Magic and music, talking animals and bugs abound.  Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

 

The thing is,  Tiana is the first African American Disney Princess and yet for the majority of the movie she is represented as a frog.  The violence towards children and their self body image is this: in no other version of this story has the princess been the one to physically transform into something less than human.   It can be argued that this is violence of the body, because not only is she forced into a different physical state against her will, she is then naked and more often than not the movie shows her hourglass figure, as a frog, and gives the audience a full frontal view of her.  In no other Disney film has a female been turned into a creature and then had full frontal views of body.  Even in the Lion King and Tarzan, the female animals/characters were: covered in fur, given side shots and if they were seen face to camera, their arms or foliage or something covered any 'taboo' areas.  

                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

With that being said we now turn our attention to Pocahontas II - Journey to a new world.  

                                                                   

 

 

 

Synopsis:  

Pocahontas, daughter of chief Powhatan, travels to England with John Rolfe to speak to the king in hopes of establishing peace and respect among the two powerful nations.  But, in order to be taken seriously, Pocahontas is forced to change her outward appearance so she appears less 'savage' and more like a 'proper' modern lady.  Which means she is forced into a corset, drowning in thick / multiple layers of skirts and her hair is piled so high atop her head and adorned with strings of pearls and jewels.  Society makes her something / someone other than herself.  

 

How is this violent towards children of minorities? And how does this relate to our society?  

 

Unfortunately - this represents the typical mindset of our society.  By that I mean, people have to fit  a mold, and if they deviate from what is considered normal and right, either by dress or act, then they can be considered deviant and thus shunned from society.  Granted in today's society we no longer wear layers of skirts and hair so high you're top heavy - instead Uggs, leggings and makeup are key, the same can be said for sports jargon, jerseys and jeans or camo clothes, all depending on where you live.  

 

The violence is this: in the movie Pocahontas  arrives in England and is immediately considered a spectacle and as something to watch, like one would view an animal in a zoo, and when Pocahontas speaks out against animal cruelty in the royal court, and is thrown in prison.  This shows our children, especially those from a minority, that blending in is key to social acceptance and speaking out, even if what you are speaking against is something morally and ethnically  wrong, you could wind up in prison.  

 

From Disney we now look towards children's literature.  

 

Violence in Literature 

 

 

                                                          

 

In the children’s novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis, the story is narrated by a young African American boy named Kenny Watson.  Kenny and his family live in Flint Michigan, where segregation is present but normal, and the animosity between the two races.  But due to his older brother Byron’s rebellious actions, their parents have decided that the best way to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all is to visit their mother’s hometown in Birmingham Alabama, where Byron will spend his summer with their very strict Grandmother Sands.  The narrator is able to illuminate how different the racial standards were between Michigan and Alabama, and how dangerous the ‘white standard’ was to all those who were not white, for they were treated with hatred and violence.  

 

Civil Rights movement and the violence aside, one thing that seemed to stick out to me was the fact that Byron's family dealt with his arson and vandalism stages, but when he decided to chemically treat his hair, that was when they decided enough was enough and decided to uproot the family and travel to Birmingham.  

 

During my search for articles for my annotated bibliography, I came across an article that allowed me to understand why this was such an awful thing for Byron to do.  The article was titled; "Black Women and Identity: What's hair got to do with it?" by Cheryl Thompson.  And the author said that most African American children, young girls especially, hate their hair because its so unlike their white counterparts.  Though their skin is an obvious give away to the fact that they are 'different' than their peers, their hair, they feel, is what makes them 'other'.  And this is why so many African Americans dye and chemically treat their hair to relax it, so that it is no longer tight and curly but straight and smooth.  

 

Think about that for a moment.  You, a young child, already feel alienated because of the color your skin, end up hating your physical features so much because they make you different, that you would go and chemically change your hair in order to fit in a little more, to be a little less like your true self.  

 

In Christopher Paul Curtis' novel, he expresses not only the physical and social violence of the time, but also the violence an African American child felt within themselves.  They were being subjected to hatred at every turn, simply because  they wanted the same rights as their Caucasian counterpart, and in hopes of being subjected a little less to that outward violence, they would essentially subject it upon themselves instead.  

 

 

Propaganda and Advertisements of the early 1900s

 

Before the Great Depression in the 1920s, America's economy was booming.  Vehicle industries were thriving and the stock market was booming, and with the growing marketplace came more competition for companies large and small.   And one such company was Elliot's White Veneer - a paint and varnish company that decided the best way to advertise to the public was with this:

 

 

9

Not only is this disturbing, it was also apparently a rather effective advertisement and until the stock market crash, this company prospered.  

 

I decided to do a pole on this advertisement to see how people responded to this advertisement, the pole was conducted from Richlands to Mercer and it was completely anonymous, and 83 people out of 127 who were willing to do the pole admitted to initially finding this advertisement humorous.  That means 65% thought that seeing two young, African American boys painting themselves white (it could be said that they are mutilating themselves) for an advertisement - and roughly a decade has passed and the general population, upon initial contact, saw no harm in the advertisement and went so far as to say it was funny.  

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

By looking through our history of literature and media, media including but not limited to films, caricatures and propaganda, from the 1900s and forwards, we can see that even though our society has evolved over time, our view on violence towards the children of minorities has not changed and is more often than not found humorous.