Home

By Makhala Huggins, Meghan Price & Molly O' Reilly

“Home” illustrates what happens when the worlds of two misfits collide. Young viewers can learn a lot from watching Oh, a vibrant “Boov” from planet Smek, and Tip, an extremely strong-willed and courageous girl from Earth. The unlikely pair meet when the Boov take to Earth for safety from their enemy, the Gorg. Unfortunately, Oh accidentally discloses their new location to the Gorg, putting the Boov in jeopardy. This amplifies the Boov’s dislike for Oh and prompts them to go after him. While on the run from his own kind, Oh bumps into Tip, who was separated from her mother during the abduction. Oh promises to help Tip on her quest to reunite with her mom, and their journey together produces moments that are sure to stimulate the minds of young viewers.

Parents can take solace in knowing that “Home” delivers impactful lessons and demonstrations that can benefit their children. Perhaps the biggest lesson that can be taken from this film is the fact that it’s okay to be yourself despite what others might think. Both Oh and Tip are portrayed as characters that struggle with fitting in within their communities, but through their new found friendship, they learn that being unique is okay, and although it may not seem like it at first, there are other people in this world that will appreciate your uniqueness. Another important lesson

revealed toward the end of Oh and Tip’s journey is that everyone makes mistakes, and they should be taken as an opportunity to learn and grow as a person. These lessons are important for growing children to embrace because as we get older, we all inevitably face moments of feeling like we don’t fit in or fearing that we’ll be looked down upon based on the mistakes we make. Exposing and explaining these concepts to your child early can better prepare them for similar situations in the future.
Besides the overall lessons showcased in this film, there are also scenes that can promote learning moments for children. Children can strengthen their sense of emotional understanding by watching “Home”. Within this film, there are several scenes that showcase the use of emotion. One of

the first examples introduced was the fact that Boov change color when they feel a specific emotion. In one scene, Captain Smek was explaining to the rest of the Boov that they were going to be moving to Earth. This excited Oh in particular, and as he jumped with joy, his skin turned orange. However, while he was celebrating, the Boov standing next to him became annoyed by his happiness, and as Oh accidentally bumped into her, she turned red. This aspect of the movie can help younger children in particular identify specific emotions, and can help them understand the context or the reason why those particular emotions are being displayed, which can then be translated  and used in their own lives.
Parents should be aware that despite many positive learning opportunities, “Home” includes scenes that can elicit negative emotions and fear reactions from children as well. For example, further into the movie, Tip flashes back to the moment when she is separated from her mom. This scene could be more detrimental toward older children age seven and up, since this age range tends to process media more conceptually, meaning that they are more concerned with realistic harm and threats that can actually happen in real life. If a child who processed conceptually sees this scene, they will probably begin to think about the chance of being separated from their parent, which will induce negative emotions and fear.

There are also various scenes that display violence that can negatively impact a young viewer. One scene that can induce significant fear in young viewers is the scene where Oh is perceived to be crushed by the Gorg’s ship when it couldn’t slow down in time. In addition to this, there were several moments where characters were in situations where they could’ve been harmed or killed, but they all turned out to be alright. The unrealistic outcomes of characters put in harm’s way can be misleading. Children younger than seven have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy, so scenes like these can cause them to become desensitized and to believe that if the characters they’re watching are indestructible, they can be too.

Processing media can be very complicated for children, especially in more complex forms like children’s movies like “Home”, so it is critical for adults utilize the concept of parental mediation. While “Home” can teach young children important lessons about how to think about and cope with their emotions, it is important to recognize that the film aims to appeal to children and young people of other ages as well, and it can always be beneficial for parental mediators to co-view and clarify important issues regarding plot sequencing, violence, and fear in children’s films.

 

 

 

Tangled

The movie Tangled is about a teenaged girl’s journey to freedom. The audience follows Rapunzel on her adventure to breaking free from being locked away her whole life in a tower by Mother Gothel, who kidnapped her at a young age, to preserve her magical powers from her long hair. The film does a good job at exemplifying several developmental differences in children, such as perceptual to conceptual processing. The film demonstrates this concept at several points throughout the movie, specifically through the scene where Rapunzel is cleaning, reading, painting

and singing to occupy her time. Preschool-aged children watching the film may have trouble getting past visual and audible features that stand out to them during this scene, because they have not yet developed the cognitive level that is needed to enjoy these perceptual features and follow the plot of the film simultaneously. This is referred to as perceptual boundedness, where young children use an overreliance of perceptual information at the expense of less obvious cues and information, in this case that may be crucial to following the plot (Strasburger). Older children watching this movie will be able to multitask and appreciate all of the animation and visuals that this scene has to offer, but will also be able to follow the storyline and pick up on messages in the scene.

Another concept that emerges in this scene is centration to decentration. Young children might focus on one object or feature from the scene that initially grabbed their attention, such as the broom Rapunzel is sweeping with or the book she picks up. The point of the scene is to demonstrate the various activities that Rapunzel’s day consists of, not to demonstrate one isolated object encompassed in the scene. Older children watching Tangled would have the cognitive ability to recognize this and consider the objects and activities she’s using as the overarching business of her day she uses to pass the time.

An example from another scene that does a great job illustrating the concept perceived appearance is when Rapunzel and Flynn stop by a pub and are greeted by frightening looking ruffians. It is understandable that the ruffians would frighten younger children because of their physical appearance. Older children would be able to break through their unpleasant exterior and get to know them as people with dreams much like Rapunzel. Younger children lack the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, (Strasburger). Their  understanding is based around the concept that, if it looks real and acts real, then it must have some basis within their reality. This understanding correlates with the concept magic window, reflecting the idea that young children naively assume that television provides a view of the real world, (Strasburger). It isn’t until children are of the age of five that they can start to differentiate between what is real and what is not.  

An example of empirical to hypothetical reasoning in the movie Tangled is when Rapunzel asks Mother Gothel if she could take her to see the floating lanterns for her eighteenth birthday. Mother Gothel sings, “mother knows best” as a way to explain to Rapunzel that there are bad people out in the world who will want to hurt her in order to obtain some of her magic hair. Even though she still wants to see the lanterns, she knows that she cannot make it alone if what her mother tells her is true. Younger children will only understand what Mother Gothel is saying at face value - they understand that she is concerned for Rapunzel’s safety. Because their cognitive abilities have not yet fully evolved, they are unable to see the truth behind what Mother Gothel is really saying. Older children would be able to take what she says to Rapunzel about keeping her safe from other people, and infer what she really means. “Adolescents become increasingly able to understand abstract concepts, use formal logic, and think hypothetically. Along with this abstract thinking comes an ability to engage in inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as conditional reasoning” (Strasburger, 28). As a result, they are able to deduce that there is an underlying truth to what Mother Gothel is telling Rapunzel.

Group 1 Frozen Movie

Post by: Maggie Wiatr, Hanna Salmonsen, Katelyn Nichisti

In the Disney movie Frozen, Queen Elsa accidentally uses her powers to freeze her kingdom. In doing so with the help of a few friends, her sister, Anna, finds a way to unfreeze it. Although this may seem like a typical child-friendly Disney movie, children’s developmental perspectives produce different reactions to the film. There are many scenes, as well as characters, than can affect the way children behave and act after viewing the movie. One example is when Anna and Prince Hans decide that they are going to get married after only one day of knowing each other. Once children watch this, they may think it is acceptable to marry someone right after they meet them due to the Social Learning Theory, which states that children learn by observing others (Farrar, 2016). Children do not have the cognitive ability to distinguish what is wrong and what is right so they will learn the standards of marriage through watching this movie.

Moreover, the actual characters of Anna and Elsa have an affect on children's health behaviors. The Sociocultural Theory says that the ideal woman should be thin, which brings social, personal, and professional success (Farrar, 2016). Both female characters in this film are portrayed as beautiful and thin so most girls are going to start to want to look this way. This movie also affects children's perspectives on gender roles because between the ages of two and seven, children are most likely to make the largest developments in what they perceive gender roles (Farrar, 2016). Anna is obsessed with her new fiance Hans and he is all she talks about. Therefore, when female viewers hear this, they might think that all they should care about is finding love.

Frozen also poses issues in regards to limitations in processing media content because there are major shifts and differences in cognitive processing from younger to older children (Farrar, 2016). When we first meet Elsa, she shows her ability to produce snow in a magic way from her hands. This schema is difficult to interpret for a younger child because they haven’t increased their domain-specific knowledge (Farrar, 2016). In other words, a young child’s perceived appearance to reality is lacking, which therefore creates a fuzzy separation between what is real and what is not (Farrar, 2016).

When Anna and Elsa sing the infamous song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, a young child’s lack of temporal sequencing inhibits their overall understanding. The child can hear the song and know that it’s occurring but isn’t cognitively developed enough to understand that Anna has been asking Elsa to build a snowman for many years during their childhood.

Because information processing is a very demanding task for a child, they must increase their amount of mental effort (AIME), which in turn, can lead to less understanding and more confusion (Farrar, 2016).  During the song “Let It Go,” Elsa manages to build an entire ice castle that seems larger than life.  Because this animation is so unrealistic, kids on the younger side are unable to fully process what is happening because their world is very perceptual and physical (Farrar, 2016).

As children get older, the things that they find fearful change and adapt to their maturity level (Farrar, 2016). The guardian snow monster of Elsa’s ice castle can pose fear reactions in young children because he looks scary to the eye.  For a child anywhere from 2-7 years old, visual images, whether realistic or fantastic are the most troublesome content (Farrar, 2016).  

There are various examples of violence in the movie that provoke reactions for a child audience. There are other effects of media violence such as levels of aggression that can have a heightened impact on the viewer. The priming effect suggests that mere images of something violent can prime aggressive thoughts (Farrar, 2016).  Research also suggests that violence on television plays an important role in the aggression of children. In the movie, we begin to see a large portrayal of violence when Hanz and his men go to kill Elsa so he can rule Arandale. The men fire countless arrows at her and she fights back by creating ice shields. This violent behavior might be fearful for younger children, but might prime aggressive thoughts for older children watching. According to the cognitive neoassociationist theory, viewing aggression disinhibits the viewer’s controls on aggressive behavior. By viewing Hans and his men fire arrows and act aggressively, it could potentially disinhibit the viewer’s controls on aggressive behavior in their own lives. In addition to effects of media violence, fear is certainly a common emotional reaction that children and young viewers experience. Research shows that up to a third of kids between 7-12 report being frightened by media in the past year (Farrar, 2016). With that being said, most adults can readily recall something that frightened them as a kid, so these fearful events might leave a lasting impact. Although there are developmental differences associated with fear reactions in the media, children from the ages of 7-12 years old are the most scared of realistic threats that can happen, especially to the child (Farrar, 2016). In the beginning of the movie, Ana and Elsa hug their parents goodbye before they go away on a trip, expecting to see them again in just two weeks. However, a great and powerful storm hits and they are both killed. This would be extremely nerve wracking to watch as a child between the ages of 7-12 because it is fairly realistic and most people can not even imagine the pain and suffering associated with losing a parent at such a young age.

            There are several instances of emotional events displayed in the movie Frozen. For example, Elsa and Anna are sad because they haven’t seen each other in so many years. Little kids might not understand that the reason why they are sad is because so much time has passed. On the other hand, an older child can comprehend that the sisters are separated because Elsa is afraid that she might hurt Anna from her magic. Young kids might not understand that Elsa actually wants to see and play with Anna. They only see that Anna is upset and don’t understand that Elsa would play with her if she could – they might only think that Else is choosing not to play with her sister.

Hercules- Group 8

Released in the summer of 1997, Hercules was the 35th animated feature film in Walt Disney’s Animated Classics series. And like many of the Disney animated films that came before and after it, this film presents a lot of content that may be troublesome and quite consequential for child viewers.

First, there are a lot of scenes and characters from Hercules that may induce fear reactions in child viewers, however different aged children may experience different reactions. The most troublesome content for two to seven-year-olds are visual images that are naturally scary in physical depiction. For example, Hydra, a gigantic snake-like monster, who who keeps growing heads, might scare this age group because it is vicious and grotesque. The most troublesome content for older children, aged 7- to 12-years, are more realistic threats and dangers than can happen to them. The film’s depiction of the Underworld, where the souls of the characters in the film go when they die, might be particularly scary to older children who are aware of death and have questions about this topic. There are quite a few scary scenes and characters that may be troublesome to children where parental intervention is crucial.

In addition to this, “Hercules” contains violent content that may have lasting effects on children. Hercules saves a damsel in distress, Meg, by having a violent fight with Nessus, where he punches him multiple times and uses his superhuman strength to violently hurt him. Phil is another violent character who uses physical aggression when a townsperson doubts Hercules. Content in the film is consistent with findings that perpetrators, such as Hercules, are more likely to be depicted as attractive and punished less often. Also according to the social cognitive theory, children will likely model his behavior because of this. Violent media exposure is an indicator of aggression in young children, so it is important to consider this when allowing children to view the film.

Aside from the obvious implications this film can have on a child’s fear reactions and violent behavior, another possible consequence of viewing Hercules is the reinforcement of gender stereotypes. When we watched this film, the first negative aspect that we recognized was the stereotypical depictions of many of the male and female characters, but specifically, Hercules and Meg. Hercules is depicted as an extremely muscular, handsome and heroic figure who seemingly doesn’t have any flaws, while Meg is depicted as an impossibly thin, broken-hearted damsel in distress whom Hercules must sweep off her feet. Both of these depictions play into the stereotype that all men must be physically strong and be leaders, while all women must be physically delicate, but beautiful. According to the text, most children become conscious of their own gender by age two and begin to form media-specific scripts regarding what a “male” and “female” are supposed to look like. If a young child were to view this film it is likely that their perceptual boundedness, or their over reliance on perceptual information such as auditory and visual features, would cause them to believe the inaccurate depictions on-screen.

A young child’s developing cognitive-processing skills not only affects their construction of “male” and “female” appearance, but also has potential to affect their self-perception. Illustrated characters, like Hercules and Meg, can raise awareness in a child’s mind that they look different themselves, which can be problematic. A young child, unable to understand Hercules’ and Meg's’ physical appearances are realistically impossible,while simultaneously absorbing the great value external appearance is given on screen, could end up viewing themselves negatively. Any internalization of an “ideal” representation, especially one that can never really be obtained, has massive potential to lower self-worth and stimulate frustration, as well as other negative emotions, towards one’s personal appearance. If a child does walk away from a viewing of Hercules with such instilled notions, it can lead to serious health-related attitude and possibly harmful behavioral changes, such as diet and fitness related changes.

Aladdin

Many Disney films, such as the 1992 animated film Aladdin, are usually assumed unambiguously beneficial and appropriate for children of all ages. This is simply because of the recognition and trust that Disney has built for their brand. The movie follows the orphaned thief Aladdin on a series of adventures to fulfill his heart’s desire- marriage to Princess Jasmine. His journey of self-discovery and adventure happens simultaneously with an intertwined plotline for the ambitions of power-hungry Jafar, the advisor to the Sultan, Jasmine’s father. While Aladdin is considered an acceptable movie for all ages, its exposure to children under the age of seven should be actively mediated by parents or adult figures due to the perpetration of inaccurate gender stereotypes, a distorted moral system, and frightening images.

One of the most frightening sequences for kids is the initial appearance of the Genie. Genie is a large blue magical creature that is capable of granting wishes and taking on any appearance. Voiced by Robin Williams, he has an unorthodox appearance. He takes on a shape that is significantly larger than the main characters, and is accompanied by loud music and flashy visuals. Scenes such as this scare young children, and parents should treat their kid’s exposure to it with caution. Young kids will focus on the scary aspects, ignoring Genie’s helpful and funny demeanor.

Aladdin, the main character, is a thief who is ultimately rewarded for stealing bread and lying about who he is to everyone in the palace.  Jafar is an ‘evil’ character who tries to kill Aladdin after catching him in his lie, and is punished. Children are prone to copycat behavior- imitating actions or behaviors that they see in movies. As children under the approximate of seven are so young, they fail to realize any underlying moral reasons. They simply see the ‘good’ character being rewarded for misbehavior, and the ‘evil’ character punished. Active mediation by the parent, or viewing the film and talking about it with their child, can help explain this difference to the child. For example, Aladdin steals bread in the beginning of the film because he is hungry but that does not make it acceptable. While older children will recognize this, parents will have to explain why to a young child.

Imitation of what they see on a screen is an issue for gender stereotype portrayals as well. By making Jasmine a damsel in distress, always needing to be rescued by Aladdin, women are shown as weak and helpless. This is especially evident when Jafar traps helpless Jasmine in an hourglass, requiring Aladdin to save her. Gender role expectations are formed when children are very young. Unless corrected by parents, or adults, during the viewing of the film, the portrayals will lower a girl’s self-esteem and self-worth. Despite these issues for a young child’s understanding, Aladdin is a highly recommended animated film for children, as long as young children’s exposure and understanding is supplemented by parents.

The Lion King

By: Sarah Inglis, Laura Mallozzi, and Victoria Tsang

Have you seen that viral video with the three year old girl reacting to Mufasa dying in The Lion King? Her father filmed her crying at the scene all of us, who know and love The Lion King, can easily remember. That little girl’s reaction is unusual for a child her age, as younger children (ages 2-7) are not as easily aware of situational context surrounding emotional on screen portrayals. Facial expressions and basic emotions are more easily recognizable, whereas older children (ages 8+) would see Mufasa being killed, and Simba’s sadness after and develop a sense of fear because they know the situation could happen in their own lives. The display of emotions in the Disney film, The Lion King, have the potential to be great lessons for children, but for them to fully understand the underlying messages of these portrayals, the assistance and co-viewing by a parent or guardian would be beneficial.

The Lion King has many underlying themes of fear written into the plot of the movie and can potentially be very frightening for younger children to watch, much more so than for older, more developed children.  The main villain of the movie, Scar, and his ward of henchmen, the hyenas, are involved in many fear-provoking scenes throughout the movie such as the scene where they perform the song “Be Prepared” singing about how they are going to kill Mufasa and the hyenas swing around skeletons of dead animals in their mouths and then fire bursts up from the ground, adding to the scariness of the number.

 Also near the end of the movie the hyenas and Scar take over the Pride Lands and create a dark, dismal looking world that can also induce fear in children.  For the youngest children (2-7 year olds) the visual images from these scenes of the monstrous, grotesque, vicious characters will be the scariest to them.  For slightly older children (13 and up) the threat of realistic physical harm would be the most frightening (Cantor, 1998).

In addition to fear, The Lion King has both violence and bullying, things that wouldn’t be expected to happen in a G rated Disney movie. The cartoon violence is moderate, varying from pushing and shoving from Nala and Simba, to Mufasa being trampled in a  wildebeest stampede in front of his son. The bullying also occurs in small doses. Simba is taunted by Scar for his father’s death, leading him to run away in fear from the Pride Lands. In real life, running away does not solve problems, and neither does using aggression and violence to get what you want. But in The Lion King, it is portrayed as a good thing, and without running away, Simba wouldn’t have grown into the strong, courageous lion he is at the end of the movie. These ideas are misleading towards children, and may encourage the wrong ideas about how to get a situation to go their way. Reactions are also gendered, with boys being more receptive to the violence in the movie, and girls being more receptive to social aggression. Allowing these two concepts to be prevalent in a movie for children can be harmful, since they are still growing up and trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong.

Wreck It Ralph

While not an outright scary movie, Wreck It Ralph could be troublesome to younger viewers. Younger viewers are more likely to be scared by grotesque mutations, such as that of King Candy even he turned into a half bug half man monster. Older children can realize that this is a cartoon and can separate it from reality, but younger kids don't have that separation. Watching the giant bugs devourer humans is another aspect of this movie that could be scary for younger viewers. However, these fears are nothing too traumatic and shouldn't cause long term fears. It's important to recognize the difference in fear responses among youth. While this movie may affect the youngest demographic of children, any kids age seven or older shouldn't have any problems viewing it. Wreck It Ralph also depicts scenes of cartoon violence. This is no surprise as a large portion of current television and movies has cartoon violence in it. Much of the violence is light hearted and humorous. For example when Calhoun, from Hero's Duty, and Felix were trapped in quicksand, she slapped him enough for the laughing Laffy Taffy to descend and save them. Also in this case there were no consequences to the violence because Felix could easily fix himself. While it doesn't seem like anything major, these depictions of violence could play a role in the greater problem of children learning scripts of how to act. With proper reinforcement of the realities of violence, the cartoon violence could be counteracted. Along with violence this movie did contain some bullying, however it also shows characters overcoming their bullies. Ralph thought he had to win a medal to prove he wasn't a bad guy. In the end it was his good nature that helped him, and his bullies realized he was actually a good guy. For those children struggling with bullies, this is a good story of someone overcoming.
Also, aside from bullying, another potential problem that can arise from watching "Wreck it Ralph" is understanding character development that takes place in the movie. "Wreck it Ralph" has some complex character growth that young children will have a hard time grasping. Ralph, is not content with his life and wants to change. Throughout the course of the movie, viewers see him struggle with his identity and how he learns to accept it. For children, this is a challenge to understand because they do not have the cognitive abilities such as empathy and emotional understanding to put their shoes in the characters perspective. The "Bad Guy Affirmation" plays a large role in the development of his character. As it is said in the beginning and the end, the audience should see how the producer wanted to teach everyone a lesson in how to accept themselves for who they are.
Throughout this quirky animated movie we see many emotional avenues and we can only imagine how children interpret these type of complex feelings. This type of diverse emotional atmosphere can be confusing for children and will often they will react differently to it. The main emotions in the movie are happiness and sadness which are the most basic of emotions and are understood by ages five and up. These emotions are the emotions that are the most common for young children and we them explicitly in the movie Wreck-it-Ralph. In the textbook Children, Adolescents and the Media it states that, “...content analysis revealed that children’s favorite programs often featured portrayals of empathy, altruism, and an exploration of feelings” (Palmer, 1988) The immediate empathy felt in the beginning for the main character Ralph is understood as the right feeling for a child and they connect to this character not as a villain, but as an underdog of sorts. This type of emotional development and lesson is so important because it is a necessary skill for children to possess empathy and understanding. A young child would not respond to this unrealistic character as much as they would a person in their life. To aid emotional understanding children five and above create schemas to understand emotion and place the characters in a box that will explain the emotional situation. In this movie the viewer is rooting for Ralph to become the hero while also feeling empathy for him and Vanellope who are the underdogs. The mood switches on Ralph when he destroys Vanellope’s racing car. Even though the viewer knows Ralph does this out of fear, we still have sadness for Vanellope and anger towards Ralph. We saw as a group how important emotions are to the movies children watch as it makes them equipped to deal with real life situations that entail emotional understanding.