The students of the Oregon Think Tank (OTT) invite the campus community to attend the Community Conversations Event:
Growing Up Disney: Cultural Constructions of Identity, Race & Gender in Children’s Fantasy (CMI Event)
Tuesday, October 26, 7:00-8:30PM
Living Learning Center Performance Hall
Aladdin, Pocahontas, the Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Hercules, Mulan.
This panel discussion will examine how the globally consumed animated films of Disney construct cultural identities of race and gender. Popular and academic debates about racist, sexist, homophobic, and culturally bigoted characterizations, dialogue, and plots have accompanied the release of several Disney films. For example, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee successfully lobbied Disney to alter the lyrics in the opening song for the film Aladdin, which originally included the following:
Oh, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where they cut off your ear
If they don’t’ like your face
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home
We are honored to host the following speakers:
**Dr. Janet Wasko, Knight Chair in Communication Research, School of Journalism & Communication is a leading scholar in the political economy of communication and the Disney Company. She is the author of Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy and Dazzled by Disney: The Global Disney Audience Project; and has instructed the popular course, “Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy.”
Professor Wasko’s research, “examines the processes by which the Disney company – one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world – manufactures the fantasies which enthrall millions. She analyses the historical expansion of the Disney empire, examines the content of Disney’s classic films, cartoons and TV programs and shows how they are produced, considering how some of the same techniques have been applied to the Disney theme parks. She also discusses the reception of Disney products by different kinds of audiences. By looking at the Disney phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, she provides a fresh and comprehensive account of one of the most significant media and cultural institutions of our time.”—Book Description.
**Heather Montes Ireland is a graduate instructor in Women Studies at Oregon State University in the School of Language, Culture and Society and a graduate student in Women & Ethnic Studies. The 2010-11 Judy Mann DiStefano Scholarship recipient for Outstanding Women Studies student, Montes Ireland is working on a thesis using transnational feminist perspectives to examine economic injustice against women of color. She has taught courses at OSU including “Global Women,” “LGBTQ Representations in Pop Culture,” and “Disney: Gender, Race & Empire.”
Community Conversations are produced by the Oregon Think Tank and the Oregon Brain Trust, student academic groups of University Housing, Residence Life, in collaboration with the Robert D. Clark Honors College, Undergraduate Studies, the Oregon Humanities Center, and the UO Libraries.
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