Giroux Piece

Today, I found myself submersed in an article titled “How Disney Magic and the Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age” by Henry A. Giroux. In this article, Giroux discusses how marketers, specifically Disney, take advantage of the influence that children have in the purchases that are made by their parents. Giroux discusses how disgusting it is that these companies go as far as hiring psychologists to determine new ways to turn children into consumers and seduce them into buying their products. Now, Disney only took the brunt of Giroux’s criticism because he believes that, since Disney creates a wholesome image for themselves, they are especially disgusting. However, he does mention that Disney and every other company have the same exact goal in mind: profit. What many people forget about Disney is that they are a business, so of course their main goal will be to make a profit. I do believe that Disney occasionally takes things too far to make money. It really was disgusting when Disney attempted to make Washington University retract a study that proved that their Little Einstein DVD’s did not actually improve cognitive ability and attempted to discredit it. However, I also understand that Disney may have logic behind many of their practices that Giroux deems as questionable. Giroux attacks Disney for the use of its motto that “to be a successful company, ‘You have to start with the kids themselves,’” (Giroux 6). However, this motto is quite possibly less disgusting that Giroux makes it seem. Giroux illustrates Disney as money hungry and miserly; however, Giroux fails to recognize that a large profit generally signifies high customer satisfaction. Even if Disney is solely after profit, by starting with the kids themselves, Disney must be serving content customers or their products would not be selling well. Hiring child psychologists to help with advertisements and products is allowing Disney to distribute products that children want to buy. While profits increase, this is still simply a result of a better quality product and advertisement being created. In addition, I felt like there were points in Giroux’s argument where he was grasping at straws to demerit Disney. For example, when the Baby Einstein website cited a study where “’in a typical day, 68% of all children under two use screen media,’” (Giroux 8). Giroux interprets this statement as Disney telling parents to accept this into their culture. However, there are a multitude of reasons why this statistic could have been included on the website. The statistic could have been included to show the growing prevalence of technology in children’s lives in modern times. Giroux has no way of knowing exactly why this statistic was included on the webpage.

Just because I am defending Disney does not mean that I support their actions. I just want to call to attention that at the end of the day, Disney is still just a company like the others. While I agree with Giroux that turning children into consumers is not okay, I know that Disney and the other companies all need to make money to continue operation, and that high profit generally means high customer satisfaction. Many of Disney’s actions seem despicable from an outside point of view; however, just remember that there are two sides to every coin.