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Chapter 7
Instructor’s Manual
This chapter covers:
The role of film and television entertainment in exposing children to standard language
ideology
A discussion of Jewish and Arab stereotypes in Disney’s The Three Little Pigs and
Aladdin respectively
The strategies Disney employs to decide on character accents in movies that take place in
other countries and how Disney situates its movies in time and space
A description of the methodology and results of a study of full-length animated Disney
films that explores how accents are used in ways that help socialize children to
stereotypes and prejudice.
Sample answers to the questions from the text and the website
From the textbook
1. Compile a list of Disney characters who speak English with a clear Anglo-New York City area
accent. What do these characters have in common? Look at sociocultural characteristics,
personality traits, motivations, style, and role in the plot. How do your findings support or
contradict the idea that stereotype does not have to be overtly negative to be limiting and
prejudicial?
2. Murnane (2007) proposes that Disney films can be used in the classroom to teach
multiculturalism (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whc/5.1/murnane.html). Choose
one of the Disney animated films and outline a middle school lesson plan that would accomplish
such a goal. Be sure to include some aspect of language use and accent manipulation. Be sure to
cite the sources of your information.
3. Read “Demonizing in Children’s Television Cartoons and Disney Animated Films,” a short
quantitative study of the concept of evil in Disney films (Fouts et al. 2006). How do the findings
of this paper contradict or support the data and conclusions drawn in this chapter?
4. Consider the way you and others talk about Disney. Do you hear phrases such as “allowances
have to be made for the times,” or “that's the way things were,” or “everybody felt that way,” or
“come on, it's supposed to be funny”? Where do such reactions originate, and are they meant to
move discussion forward, or to shut down discourse and critical analysis? For close readings of
examples of this kind of reasoning, see especially Hill (2008).
Sample answer: I have heard people make excuses for the racism in Disney films by either
accepting it because the film was made in the past when overt racism was more acceptable or
From the website
Audio
1. Listen to the variety of accents mentioned in Chapter 7. Reflect on the stereotypes that connect
to these accents. Why do you think these accents are used the way they are in animated Disney
films? For example, why would French accents be used for sexy chambermaids, chefs and
waiters? Why do the heroes speak Standard American English? Why do so many sidekicks speak
AAVE or urban varieties of English rather than *SAE?
1. Based on the reporting in this clip and what you have learned in Chapter 7, in what ways has
Disney’s representation of African Americans changed? In what ways has Disney’s approach
remained the same?
2. What do you think about Disney’s decision to have a Brazilian prince instead of an African
American prince in this movie?
Suggested activities and discussion questions
1. Have your students extend the author’s research to more recent Disney films or to other
animated films or television shows for children. What trends do your students see in other
animated movies and shows? In what ways do their findings support or contradict the material
presented in this chapter? What messages are children getting about language variation from
these animated films and shows?
2. Ask your students to reflect on the covert messages children get from animated films about
people who speak certain language varieties. What can parents of young children do to combat
these messages?
3. Find out which of your students watched Disney animated films when growing up. For those
who did, which films were their favorites? Did they ever notice any stereotypes or the
connections between linguistic variation and social stereotypes in the films when they were kids?
If they did notice, what did they think at the time? If they did not notice, why do they think they
didn’t, and what might that tell them about their budding language ideologies as children?
