The Boob Tube

“Jasmine was in a forbidden relationship with Aladdin. Snow White lived alone with 7 men. Pinnochio was a liar. Robin Hood was a thief. Tarzan walked without clothes on. A stranger kissed Sleeping Beauty and she married him. Cinderella lied and sneaked out to attend a party. These are the stories our parents raised us with and then they complain that our generation is messed up.”

Bollywood appeals to the 13 year old girl in us all; with its corny dialogue, unoriginal plots (although, there are some incredibly break-out-of-the-box films that pop up once in a while), add in a little bit of new-agey, overly westernized for-your-own-good smut, 6 or 7 love songs, a scene where the couple dances in the rain, one where they run towards each other through a field and when you can’t take the buildup any longer they culminate into …wait for it…an intense hug.   And there you’ve got a naïve, overly emotional, dans la lune, hopeless romantic brown chick’s dream. Let’s not get into what this does to the brown boy psyche…

But I’m not really interested in talking about Bolllywood. I still love Aamir Khan and the ground he walks on, and if I have the 2 or 3 hours I will probably never say no to a cute RomCom (watch Break Ke Baad – it satisfied my need for lighthearted humour and decent acting. The couple is great together and I promise you will fall for the two of them instantly!), but onto something else.

I’ve always been intrigued about how television and movies teach us about morality; how they dictate certain mores and help us understand the consequences of deviating. One such example would be shows like Maury and Jerry Springer. My grandmother watches these! I used to groan whenever someone mentioned either name because I thought these men were scum, exploiting people, stretching truths, glorifying teenage promiscuity etc etc... I just despised the shows. But then one day I was having a conversation with a friend and we decided to look at it from a different angle. We concluded that we do in fact need shows like these. Look hard - the audience “boo”s and “claps” at the appropriate moment. These shows accentuate the difference between acceptable and not acceptable, deviant and responsible. We Boo at the mother who left her kid, the deadbeat father who won’t claim his four children. We watch in disbelief as a family is torn apart, we “aww” and cry when a mother cannot pinpoint who her child’s father is ….yet again... These shows reinforce some of society’s values. Now, I still won’t watch them, and if I had the choice I’d have them taken off the air. But I will admit they do a service of sorts, speaking solely from a sociological perspective of course!

Now onto a different kind of entertainment - Disney. Disney teaches kids many things, it reinforces first and foremost the idea of justice – Good always wins over Evil. But something interesting I’ve been noticing is that it teaches us that it’s not always the pretty boy, the handsome prince, the wealthy man who gets the girl. Disney shows us that the underdog gets the girl – giving men everywhere renewed hope that they, too can succeed in the pursuit of pretty women. Kind of like a lot of other kids entertainment, right? Just think about Mario, he was a plumber and he got the Princess!

Disney also happens to be one of the most antifeminist producers of children’s entertainment ever! Girls in pretty dresses prancing around, their sole purpose in life is to ‘catch a man’. The Patriarchal motifs are uncanny! But I won’t go into it, check out the pictures below. Yes, juvenile and obviously not a true critique, but you have to admit, they do just about sum up Disney Princess movies.
(Now Mulan on the other hand, that’s what I call a Disney role-model!)