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So far, it is difficult to feel surprised when the war in the culture erupts another American institution that was once apolitical: newspaper media, corporate councilor, football field playgrounds. But here’s the strange: what do you say about cartoons?
Rasmussen Reports has just released an eye opening survey revealing that 23% of Americans “says that it decided not to watch Disney’s movie last year because of politics.” The dissatisfaction with the mouse is widely decomposed along the partisan lines, and 65% of the Republicans and 29% of Democrats agreed that “fun from Disney Company Gora than they remember in the past.”
Like everything else in America, childhood became political.
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Provided, in the past there were examples of politically engaged cartoons, even from Disney’s well -respected library. In Disney’s short, “Der Fuehrer’s face”, Donald Duck struggled to maintain common sense as a Nazi Factory Worker. Millennium remembers the environmentally thoughtful “captain of the planet and Planeters”, the main Saturday morning cartoon blocks in the 1990s.
Disney was an important part of childhood for many Americans. Now it is politically toxic. (Roberto Machado Noah/Lightctics via Getty Images)
But these antecedents are prone to reflecting a broad national consensus on political and social issues. The thing that is new, a thing that has alienated nearly a quarter of Americans, is unprecedented Fixation of the use of children’s parties To embark on the most controversial political discussion of our moment.
This is a hangover from Mania of social justice from Biden years. At a cultural moment when silence was violence, it seemed naive to imagine that animation could remain neutral in cultural wars. Disney’s then Cej Bob Chapek learned this in a difficult way in March 2022, when his hesitation to condemn the controversial legislation in Florida led to an employee’s rebellion who forced him to an unpleasant turnaround.
The message was, if not actively using American families to improve the progressive program, you are on the wrong history.
Under the influence of this zeitgeist, Disney used its animated content as a platform to launch children into the political controversy of the adult world, covering sexuality, Slave reparationsand – in “Frzen 2”, a movie that is intended to attract girls in their phase of Princess – alienation of the country of native people. Just what every parent wants to talk about driving home from the theater!
The audience noticed, and Disney suffered a series of fumara at the box office, from Pixar’s weaker effect “Lightyear” 2022 to November 2023. “Wish”, which was to be the celebration of Disney’s centennial, but eventually lost around $ 131 million studio About $ 131 million, about $ 131 million. .
Feeling a market opportunity, some groups on the right began to offer counterbalance: a child’s party with conservative political spins. But such efforts further accelerate childhood politicization. If these trends are held, we may be headed to the future where toys shelves are not classified for boys and girls, but for conservatives and advancements.
Children deserve better than political indoctrination. First of all, they will not succeed. We train children for political battles that will be 20 at a time when they can contribute meaningfully.
But there is a deeper problem: in our children’s training to fight our battles, we make them instruments of the adult world. We subordinate their good to our good, which makes them a means for our goals.
“Lightyear” is a weaker effect at the box office. File: Screencap from Pixar trailer for “Lightyear” (2022) (Disney/Pixar)
We all want our children to grow up to be leaders: people of integrity with the inner strength to fight for the common good, even against the withdrawal of the crowd. But a child who did not practice and gained courage will not have a chance against the cultural wind as an adult, no matter how purely his political education.
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The foundation of leadership is virtue. Family fun should be focused not from the outside on the controversy of the day, but according to the development of the child. As Jrr Tolkien said remembered, children’s fun “like their clothes should allow growth.”
It’s time to re -invest in a child as an end in yourself. We saw this in schools with recent renaissance in classical education, where the Socrates method diverts the child’s focus to get the right answer to setting the right questions. What would a classic Renaissance look like in the world of children’s parties?
Children deserve better than political indoctrination. First of all, they will not succeed. We train children for political battles that will be 20 at a time when they can contribute meaningfully.
We need stories that follow the pattern of the great western tradition, the stories that lasted. We need stories that declare timeless, universal truths. Stories that depict the outside world that is full of beauty and the inner world that strives for goodness.
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Such stories provide children to understand the path of their own lives. Each of us is endowed with free will. Our lives are set between good and evil, and the drama of every human story is that we have to choose not only what we will do, but also who we will become.
The next generation of Americans will have to renew many institutions that make up a successful and united civil society. If we want to raise the children of today’s leaders tomorrow, we cannot afford to neglect that honorable institution of American childhood: an animated cartoon.
Christian McGuigan is a producer nominated for Emmy and co -founder of Sycamore Studios.
