Staying+True+to+Disney

Summary

"Staying True To Disney: College Students' Resistance to Criticism of //The Little Mermaid"//

We all experience cognitive dissonance in one way or another quite often in life. But one way that may be most, mutually, common is when it comes to criticism of Disney movies. We grew up with these films and familiar characters. For a lot of people, Disney is instantly connected with their childhood, and their innocence, and for that idea to be messed with, contradicting our previous ideas, that is just not comfortable.

The article "Staying True To Disney: College Students' Resistance to Criticism of //The Little Mermaid"// explores this idea and creates a study around college students criticizing the beloved film. I thought this would be an interesting article to explore cognitive dissonance with, because it is something that most of us can relate to. This study comes from a professor at a public university in the East Coast who has a course, specifically, in Disney film criticism. The course compares and contrasts Disney films with the versions written by the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, which is what the films are based on.

The story in which The Little Mermaid was based upon is Andersen's book, The little Seamaid. His version is much darker than the Disney film. The ending is not happily ever after, in fact, the little seamaid never even gets the prince! Aside from reading the novel, the instructor even gave plenty of biographical information on the author, to his students, in an effort to make them really understand. For instance, "the mermaid's tortured and unanswered love toward the prince was a metaphor for Andersen's homo-erotic desire toward his "adopted brother" Edvard Collin". After the students had read Andersen's tale, and watched the Disney fairytale, they were asked to answer the following questions, "Had you read Andersen's tale before the class? How do you compare Andersen's tale with Disney's adaptation? Did your opinion of Disney's Little Mermaid change after reading Andersen's tale or discussing it in the context of the class?" The professor sampled 103 student writings to be analyzed.

What he found may come as a surprise to the analytical. The professor explained that students resist critiques of something they have loved since childhood, in this case, The Little Mermaid. People are motivated by a desire to keep their beliefs and opinions consistent with one another. In order to make this happen, people must realign their views in order to justify their reasoning and end mental conflict. The article gives us much insight into how students do this, with quotes and facts. Some students would justify by praising Disney, "After reading Andersen I realized how Disney edited the tale…he made it more enjoyable for both children and adults." Or they justify with a classic Disney ideology, "I like seeing how imagination can change a story drastically from the original and not take anything away from the tale." Or even by almost putting down the original, "hokey love stories are better than hokey Christian stories."

We see that, even though these students analyzed and compared these two works, to a point that they could obviously see Disney's faults and lack of interpreted reality, the opinions were still offset by positive views. People are going to defend what they know, until they feel justified. This is cognitive dissonance, and I know it is exactly what I do when it comes to Disney. Forever a devotee!

http://web4.uwindsor.ca/users/w/winter/Winters.nsf/0/321cd36660790563852570c3003b0f49/$FILE/media_Lit_mermaid.pdf