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We should all join the resistance against Disney
(Andrew Gumbel, The Independent, 24 July 2002)
Of course, there is nothing unusual about being bombarded with child-oriented marketing these days. It's an integral part of global capitalism. . . . Disney first came up with the idea of marketing tie-ins to its animated films . . . experts in the field cheerfully talk about parents succumbing to "pester power" and "the nudge factor". Even though he does not know it, and even though we, his parents, do our best to stop it, our son is a part of the vast, intricate machinery of corporate sales and marketing that latches on to kids while they are still in nappies. . . . Rowan Williams, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, is right: the cultivation of children as consumers has taken on monstrous proportions. The super-abundance of movie tie-ins, Happy Meals and plastic toys not only fills children's lives with useless junk; thanks to cross-marketing, the system also ensures that one purchase inevitably becomes a stimulus to further consumption, creating an endlessly expanding circle of insatiable consumerist desire. . . . The losers in all this are the children, who are encouraged to lose sight of all values other than consumerism, and gravitate inexorably towards junk food that can only make them pliant, fat and stupid. Just look at the childhood obesity figures: they tell their own story. Resisting my son in the supermarket may make me feel like a killjoy, but it is the only way I know to keep the garbage at bay
Boycott Disney!

posted by LoZo 5:24 PM