The Agenda in Children’s TV and Movies
Filed Under: Freedom & Politics, Parenting
This is a guest post from PHAT Daddy. He is an active member of the local Toastmasters club and recently gave this speech.
Fish are friends, not food. Fish are friends, not food. What movie is that from?
Yes, Finding Nemo. A very good movie. Dory, the fish played by Ellen DeGeneris, preaches throughout the film that fish are friends, not food. I remember feeling very disappointed that Disney had to use Finding Nemo to indoctrinate our kids into a political agenda. Never mind that fish is the one of the healthiest foods for a child’s brain development.
Then a few months ago, I noticed something on the Noggin channel - we like Jack’s Big Music Show, which teaches kids about music and being in a band. Just before the show, Noggin played a short cartoon with two stick figures. They were both holding flower pots. One of the stick figures had two flowers in his pot. The other stick figure had none - and he is sad. So the first stick figure gives one of his flowers to the other and then both are happy. Now - is this meant to teach kids that sharing is good? Or is it meant to teach kids that those blessed with more should give to others, that it’s their responsibility to provide for those who are less fortunate?
I’m not here to debate whether the first stick figure SHOULD give one of his flowers to the other. Maybe he should. Maybe that’s a fine message to teach kids. My point this evening is that they are trying to teach kids something with this cartoon. Messages and values are being pushed in every movie and every TV show, and we need to pay attention to what’s being pushed. Everything in the media today is driven by someone’s agenda, the goal isn’t just profit anymore and it’s becoming even more blatant and overt than ever.
Did anybody see the movie Spy Kids? Well in Spy Kids 3, Ricardo Montalban (from Fantasy Island) used to be a spy. Now his grandchildren are the spy kids and he has to make sure they know the secret for conquering the bad guys. He tells them the secret, “Just remember: your family isn’t your parents and grandparents, everyone is your family!” Really? You mean everyone in the world? Like one big…commune?
I think a lot of people in Cuba and Korea might have something to say about. But that’s what some people are teaching our kids right now.
Last week I was on hold with Disney cruise lines for 46 minutes and they were playing music from a movie I haven’t seen but it caught my attention when I heard the kids’ voices say in between verses: “I dream of learning a language… and no borders…” You mean I can’t rent a room to a boarder? Oh, they mean ski areas shouldn’t allow snowboarders? No, that’s not what Disney is pushing. Shouldn’t kids be able to watch a movie without being lured into a political ideology?
It really isn’t a new concept. 20 years ago on the Superfriends - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman all working together to stop crime - there was an episode called the Incredible Space Circus: Aliens are capturing animals from earth and forcing them to participate in a circus. It’s up to the Superfriends to stop them. After our heroes rescue the animals, they take the final five minutes of the show to explain to these good natured but ill-informed aliens that it’s not right to put animals in a circus. After all, animals are people too! At the time, I thought I was watching Superman and Batman fight the bad guys. It wasn’t until years later when I realized I was just being indoctrinated into the animal rights movement.
Of course, this isn’t about animal rights or vegetarianism. I’m not talking about the merits of capitalism vs. socialism or whether one is the problem with America today and the other is the grand solution for eternal peace. What I need everyone here to understand is that there is intent, there is an agenda behind almost everything we’re exposed to on TV, there is an agenda behind everything in the newspaper, in magazines, in the movies and on the Web. Nothing just gets into the news. Nothing just gets written into a TV show. Someone has to put it there and it gets put there for a reason.
Think about it. If you were going to put up $100 million to make a movie, wouldn’t you use that to change public opinion in whatever way you want - on a worldwide scale?
Why not? You could do a lot of good. Make the world a better place. Or you could just try to convince everyone that fish are your friends, not your food.
PHAT = Parenting, Homeschooling And Technology. That about sums up my life at the moment. 
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Dave | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
Hi just popped by from Michele’s.
Pearl | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
Yes, every communication shows a bias. Teaching kids to look for the bias and teaching them logic and how to sort out propaganda and subtext was done in primary and secondary school when I was going. It’s a lesson worth teaching.
Trixie | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
Hi PHAT Daddy! I’ve noticed some of the same agendas as you in movies/books/programs of all types (mostly because so many of them are in direct contrast to my own). Altruism is a big value pushed in lots of “feel-good” kid flicks. And don’t get me started on that award-winning Rainbow Fish.
Perhaps I’m missing your point, though… what exactly is it? Seems to me kind of obvious that any art (kids’ movies and TV shows included) necessarily has to convey *some* set of values. In the hierarchy of philosophy, values (ethics) preceeds politics and aesthetics. Ideas about politics and art grow out of the ethics one develops. It’s why I’ve always considered the idea of “values-free” education so absurd. To determine what’s important to learn (not to mention when, where, and how) presupposes certain value judgments.
Similarly, there is no values-free art. It’s not possible (nor do I see why it would be desireable) for programming directed at kids to be values-free. I think our job as parents is to seek out art for our kids that is consonant with our own values (or to discuss with them afterwards aspects of other art with which we disagree — after all, I can and have enjoyed movies, novels, and TV shows that sometimes push values with which I vehemently disagree). For the most part, I liked the values “pushed” in Disney’s “The Incredibles”, for example, and have gladly shared that with my children. I have never brought Rainbow Fish into our home, however, and recently sold another book (Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg) that we were given as a gift because I found it to hold no redeeeming ethical value. But like our culture at large, most kids’ art seems to be a mixed bag, and a great springboard for discussing ethics with our children.
COD | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
The way to combat this is obviously to consume mass quantities of media
That way, the “fish are not food” messages get balanced out by Dash Incredible telling us that “if everybody is special, then nobody is.”
Crystal | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
So would you prefer that cartoons teach NOTHING as opposed to SOMETHING???
Kismet | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
Visiting via Michele today.
I’ll be back.
~K!
PHAT Daddy | Apr 22, 2006 | Reply
Crystal - I’d prefer that people become more aware about the messages that are being conveyed and the values that are being instilled via movies, books, TV shows, etc. If one is oblivious to the fact that there *are* messages then it would be quite a challenge to consider whether the messages have any merit.
But since we’re learning all the time from everything we encounter, it would be difficult for any show or book to teach nothing.
Trixie - I’ve found that what is glaringly obvious to some of us (that there are messages and values conveyed by movies and the like) is not so obvious to everyone. Feedback following my speech supported this.
The point:
What I need everyone here to understand is that there is intent, there is an agenda behind almost everything we’re exposed to on TV, there is an agenda behind everything in the newspaper, in magazines, in the movies and on the Web. Nothing just gets into the news. Nothing just gets written into a TV show. Someone has to put it there and it gets put there for a reason.
Julie @ Everyday Mommy | Apr 23, 2006 | Reply
P-Daddy, you are SO right on the money, right on the mark, bullseye! I wish that everyone would open their eyes to this subtle assault on the family. I’ve described this agenda many times, and I’ve used another movie to illustrate it.
If you’ve seen “The Shawshank Redemption” you know that the main character, Andy Dufresne, uses a small rock hammer to ever so slowly pick, pick, pick his way out of his prison walls. It takes him 19 years to do it, but he just keeps picking away. Eventually he crawls his way to freedom. That was his intention. Pick, pick, pick.
Karen | Apr 25, 2006 | Reply
Preach it, Brother!
Yes, as some have said, there isn’t any values-free programming. But how about being honest about the values you are promoting? How about coming out and admitting that Disney is pushing a liberal agenda so that parents can make the informed and appropriate decision as to whether that’s an agenda they want their kids exposed to or not?
Well said, PhatDaddy.