PROMOTIONAL BOOK
Looking at a television screen does not magically remove a child's energy from within him. A highly active child will remain inactive while watching TV because that is what the medium requires. In order to receive stimulation from the television, the child must be passive, and accept the predetermined flow rate of all the images. Both mind and body are passive (called an alpha state) allowing the child to concentrate on the vast array of bright moving pictures. Here is an account of a mother who does not allow her children to watch Disney films: To most of the people my age, it seems, this is a complete heretical stance. Everyone pities Maura, whose crazy, crazy mother doesn’t want her to watch Disney movies. I have yet to find anyone whom responds with “Oh, thank god, my kid isn’t allowed to watch them, either.” Though—surely someone else is bothered by this, right?) Here’s the thing, though: I really, really hate Disney movies. Almost across the board, the Disney movies (at least those with people in them—I admit
and powerful will want you for his bride. Note that I didn’t say his partner, or even his wife. No, he’ll want you for his bride, his beautiful trophy, nothing more. Usually when I try to explain this to most people, they immediately demand to know if I have seen Mulan. Yes, I have. And no, Maura hasn’t. For those of you who’ve not read the actual original poem upon which the movie was based, the whole point of the poem is that no one knew if she was a man or a woman, and it didn’t even matter because in war we are all affected. Her comrades didn’t know that she was a woman until after the war was won, when she returned home clad as a woman. When all this happens, it is pointed out again that it doesn’t matter that she’s a woman, and that it’s society, not nature, that separates the two sexes. So Disney’s interpretation of this —one in which she is outed as a woman early on, one in which it’s a plot point that she is a woman, leaves me cold. Mulan starts out promisingly: she’s not great at the
that I’ve seen very few of their animal-based animated films) hold up marriage, usually to someone completely inappropriate, as the holy grail. I remind you that these are the films being marketed to children, and that the overwhelming message in the end is this: Be pretty and kind and good, and maybe someone who is wealthy
feminine arts, and she runs off to join the army in her father’s place. And, okay, she’s made to look a fool in the early military training, but she soon proves herself and is as good and as strong as any of the men. That’s pretty awesome. And then she falls in love with her commanding officer, Shang. Okay. It happens sometimes.
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TYPOGRAPHY III
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