Disney Conspiracy!

I'm so grateful to you for posting this one. The idea that there might be subliminal messages--that is, messages that we take in without our being conscious we are--in Disney would seem outrageous. After all, most of us grew up watching these films and they always seemed innocent and precious. It suggests that there is a conspiracy to corrupt children when they are most vulnerable. I doubt there is much evidence of the kind of manipulation this video suggests there is. This does indeed fall into the category of dubious conspiracy theories: explanations of the world involving the control of the masses by a small but all powerful group. We become receptive to these theories for many of the same reasons we believe urban legends, our deep anxiety about certain topics. For a long time, however, I've been highly critical of how Disney films explicitly (without any secret psychological trickery) advertise sexist and racist concepts and behaviors. In fact, I find some of these films to be so offensive to my sensibilities that I have refused to show them to my son; my little thumbsucker wasn't going to be exposed to that crap! The films I refused to show him included The Little Mermaid and The Jungle Book. Perhaps we will do an analysis of a Disney film in this class. What do you think of that?