youth
media
"secret education"
"others"
happily ever after
stereotypes

Christensen argues that the "secret education" found in media "instructs young people to accept the world as it is portrayed in these social blueprints".

One way Christensen shows that youth is influenced so strongly by the media is by how she points out questions to pay attention to while watching a certain cartoon. Look at the race, size, role each certain character plays and what you get out of it are all things she had students concerntrate on when watching. It is very shocking and disturbing for me to go back and think about these movies I use to love as a kid ans still love, or loved I should saqy now, and see how it has brainwashed me. I have always wanted the fairytale. The happily ever after. But the older I get and the more I analyze, which I have been told i analyze everything way too much, the more I realize and except it doesn't have to turn out that way. I don't have to be saved by prince charming on his white horse. I don't need a partner to make me feel like a queen. But little kids watching these films and shows or reading their books don't know to think any differently. They let the writers do the thinking and they just soak it all up. Unless they are some of the select few that have someone to sit down with them afterwards and talk about it. Not necessarily why it is bad or wrong, but why it doesn't have to be like that.
"It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find that our self-images have been formed by others," was wrote by one of Christensen's students. That is what the media does to us though. And very unfortunitly we get sucked in. Why does skinny have to mean prettier? Why are name brands so popular? Why can't anyone just be themselves?! It is very frustrating to me that so many people in this world are that shallow or self contious that they need name brand clothes and a size zero waste to fit in or be "cool". And it is so sickening to me that I do, as much as i hate to admit it, get sucked into the media frenzy a bit. They make it so hard not to! I like having nice things. I dont' need them but I enjoy it. But why do I enjoy it? Because media leads me to believe it is a form of happiness?
It is kind of a coincodence that this article came up. My family dinner table is very vocal. You never know what topics are going to come up. But it just so happens that the night I read this, at dinner we talked about racism and how we don't understand why it ever existed. That then led to roles children play in the classroom towards one another. How effective one child can be towards another just by the way they treat eachother is intence. Kids remember those things, just like they remember what they see and hear on tv. It is just very unfortunite that kids can't learn the right lessons from what they observe. Or better yet, why the right lessons aren't showed in these movies and shows and books that are meant for children.