Kari Fuchs Fuchs 1
Prof D. Micer
English 102.006
April 29, 2011
Toys Becoming the Teachers
Most little kids make toys their lives. They take care of them and play with them all the time. Some can even be called their best friends when it comes time to play pretend. As time has progressed, it seems that toys have too, only they are becoming a little too advanced for the children that they are intended for. I’ve taken a walk down the Barbie isle and was shocked to see the transformations. With comparing the dolls from my childhood and those today, she is thinner, wears more ‘sexy’ makeup, and she is wearing skimpier clothing. I feel as though these toys are way too inappropriate and suggestive for young girls to be playing with. These are not the only toys out there that have changed, but as you can see, the toy industry might be taking a turn for the worst. I know that some children look up to their toys and they are meant to teach them something by playing with them. Giroux, a professor of education and cultural studies, wrote a very lengthy article in which he analyzed children’s culture and the Disney animated films. In the very first paragraph he went into his discussion of his decision he made to let his children watch the Disney films. He went on to say that he found that these movies were more than just entertainment for children, but they also acted as a “teaching machine” (Giroux 568-569). In a way, Giroux said that these toys and other elements were acting as role models and were sometimes offering a good lesson to children and other times a bad one. In today’s society, not only do movies act as these so called “teaching machines,” but toys also are playing their necessary part. Toys are
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very important to children and they are acting like “teaching machines”, they are teaching children new things like how to act, dress, and some give kids ideas of what to be when they grow up, and these toys are overall just being interacted with in a machinelike way.
When I was younger, I remember having boxes filled with Barbies and all their accessories. My sister and I would set up homes and play with them for hours. Based on what we saw on television and in real life, we made our families and homes. Growing up in a split up household, geared us to make some families that were single parents and divorced families. Not that the toys made us make these types of families, we were just using them to somewhat play out our lives. I’m sure that many children use various toys to play out what is happening in their lives. These toys can also be used to cope with what they may be going through. Maybe they are bullied at school and they know that their toys won’t talk back and they can tell them anything, just the way a kid could use a pet. I believe that my sister and I were able to use these toys as a way to cope with issues that we were facing at a young age and they taught us about making families somewhat and getting a glimpse on the adult world. Back then these toys were more conservative and gave off a better image, seeing as the clothes covered more, and even though Barbie was always thin, she didn’t wear the flashy clothes and over the top makeup. I recently found a picture that compared just the body figures of the Barbie from the 90s and the present day one. Before Barbie almost had a swimmer-like body figure; very little in the waste and very top heavy. Today’s Barbie has more of a model like body type in the fact that she has curves and is less busty and her body
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flows better. Boys also had toy dolls even though they probably don’t want to admit it. The G.I. Joes were their boys dolls and they were buff guys with guns and were based off of military men. Were these toys trying to say that the ideal man had to be muscular, carry weapons, and be in the military to be attractive to women? The same could be asked about the Barbies and the fact that they were on the verge of anorexic and were almost ‘perfect’. It seems like these toys, while they may have been fun to play with, were giving children unrealistic things to be when they grew up. Some children may grow up and be in the military so the G.I. Joe seems more realistic, but not every girl is going to grow up to be model-like like Barbie. This may not have been the intentions of all the inventers of toys, but some had to be somewhat influenced by media and trends that are going on in the society. They want the kids of today to grow up to be them, and I guess the toy industry thinks we need skinny blondes and muscular men carrying guns to populate the world. These toys did not only act as role models for appearance, but also for everyday life.
I remember as kid, always playing house with friends and having the play kitchens and the little houses that we kept in our backyards. We were able to play for hours, and with the observations that we made of our parents, were able to recreate what we saw. These toys were very helpful in teaching many children some of the aspects of growing up. Other toys, such as play lawn mowers, vacuums, and toys of that sort got children to somewhat see what it was like to do what their parents did. These were among some of the best toys that could represent “teaching machines.” They were able to teach the children so much, and were not used to teach them wrong.
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There were also, usually, very little negative aspects to any of them. Not that I’m that old, but the toys have been around for a while so they can’t really be that awful is parents continue to buy them for their kids. Giroux’s article is able to relate to this negative aspect also, in the way that he reviews the films. He critiques many of the well-known classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, and Lion King, and points out some of the negative aspects of the movies. When he analyzes the movie Pocahontas, he points out Disney’s main flaw. He says, “Rather than a young adolescent, Pocahontas is made over historically to resemble a shapely, contemporary, high-fashion supermodel. Bright, courageous, literate, and politically progressive, she is a far cry from the traditional negative stereotypes of Native Americans portrayed in Hollywood films.” Does Disney feel that if they make her more like how she should be, it will take away from the movie? This is not how she was, so it’s almost like the point that Disney is getting across is that everyone in the past was beautiful and had no flaws. Many of the films are having some form of negative aspect to them and are teaching history in a way that they think will attract viewers, not what is historically correct. Giroux made an impact to the readers in the way that he pointed out the flaws that are occurring in almost all Disney films anymore.
Giroux was not ashamed of anything that he had to say about the Disney movies that so many people have come to love. He pointed out many things that the typical person would look right over and gives no thought to. He is very right to say that these films act as “teaching machines” though. They helped to introduce kids to new cultures and allow them to let their imaginations race. Some of the culture’s traditions may have
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been stretched in some of the films, but there is usually, always a little fiction to a children’s film. Since the first Disney movie produced, toys have also been produced to go along with them. Children that see these movies usually want to get their hands on the merchandise and recreate the movies in their own way or just have a new way of remembering them. These toys can then be incorporated into their regular play time and used to help teach them more new things. Giroux says, “the mass media, especially the world of Hollywood films, constructs a dreamlike world of security, coherence, and childhood innocence in which kids find a place to situate themselves in their emotional lives” (Giroux 569). These toys can also do the same thing and hold the same significance. Toys really play such a huge role in the development of children and really need the recognition that they deserve.
While all toys may not be perfect, they still provide an opportunity for a child to learn. Learn to not want to be the bad girl/guy based on what they’ve seen in films and to have goals. Toys will always have their place and will always be there to teach a child something. Infants have toys that teach them their shapes, alphabet, numbers, and other little things older people may have forgotten that they learned from just simple toys. What would really help a child that young learn, who is not going to want to look at flash cards or read a book? It’s hard to even imagine all of the times that toys have played such an important role in teaching millions of kids. Giroux’s article may have been mainly focused on the films that act as teaching machines, but now I have given myself a better understanding of how toys are too great teaching machines.
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Works Cited
Giroux, Henry A. Children’s Culture and Disney’s Animated Films. From Inquiry to
Academic Writing. Pages 567-592. Leasa Burton, Stephen A. Scipione.
Bedford/St. Martins. 2008.
