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The Walt Disney Corporation

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The Walt Disney Corporation is a well-known entertainment industry that has been around since 1923. Disney has always been geared towards the production of popular culture for children and youth. Müller-Hartmann suggests that “the animated films with their cute animations and music are especially important…since they speak directly to the emotions and thus, the sub-conscious. [Animation] works its audience magic purely on a purely subconscious level” (401). According to Towbin et al., “children’s development is influenced by many factors, including parents, teachers, and peers. [The] accumulated experience [of media exposure] contributes to the cultivation of a child’s values, beliefs, dreams, and expectations, which shape the adult identity a child will carry and modify through his or her life” (20). Though the importance of friendship and helping others is strongly emphasizes in these films, racist imagery and sexist gender roles are present in many of the films such as Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, Alice In Wonderland, Dumbo, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan, Mulan and last but certainly not least, Frozen.
A majority of these films have plot lines that are formulaic in nature. There are many “recycled elements within Disney movies such as an endearing non-human sidekick, conveniently evil antagonists to surmount, and an inevitable happy resolution complete with romantic love waiting in the end”

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