Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us-Linda Christensen

1. "Our society's culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream"

• This quote almost kind of sums up all of the readings we've had so far. Johnson, Delpit, everyone seems to agree that there is an overwhelming culture of power in America that very subtly instructs people on 'the way things should be'.

1. "Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most influential genre "read." young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mother's or father's lap."

• Christensen argues that even embedded within children's books, movies, and cartoons are many messages promoting the culture of power, and looking down upon everyone else. She also believes that these types of 'subliminal messaging' have the greatest effect, because young children have no filter yet, they are not skeptical of what they take in, especially when their parents are allowing these forms of media. They often lack the skills to separate and distinguish between knowledge, fact, fiction, deception. At such a young age, children are very moldable; everything they are exposed to is absorbed into their brains and helps to shape who they are and who they become.

1. "I don't want students to believe that change can be bought at the mall, nor do I want them thinking that the pinnacle of a woman's life is an "I do" that supposedly leads them to a "happily ever after.""

• The ideas that are portrayed through children's movies and shows and books can often give children a false sense of reality. Nobody's life is like a fairytale, and aiming for the perfection that is shown is movies is an unrealistic goal that leads to disappointment. Christensen wants children to know the truth.