dialog about media

dialog about media
literature and media studies
Georgie Landy

Pam (babysitter)
Lisa (child)

Pam: Did you have fun at day camp today Lisa?
Lisa: We watched a movie!
Pam: (holding Lisa's hand walking home from day camp) What movie did you watch?
Lisa: Aladdin!
Pam: (with excitement) Oh wow Aladdin! Thats my favorite cartoon movie. Did you like it?
Lisa: Yeah, i like Jasmine she's the prettiest one in the whole movie. She has a tiger and is a princess. Aladdin is a stealer and turns into a prince and he marries Jasmine and becomes king of the desert land!
Lisa: (sounding surprised) He's a thief? (she then tries to remember parts of the movie.) OH yes, thats right, at the beginning of the movie he has no money and steals food for himself.
Lisa: (Interrupting) the bad guys try to get him and put him in jail. They were gona' cut off his arm! My counselor told me they really do that in the desert. They cut off your arm if you steal.
Pam: who is they?
Lisa: The bad guys, the ones with the dark faces.
Pam: (shocked at what is coming out of Lisa's mouth, tries to find the right words to describe the dangers of orientalism.) You know Lisa, just because you see something in a movie or here something from another person doesn't mean its true. Aladdin is a movie, and sometimes movies can be false and they use stereotypes...
Lisa: Huh?
Pam: Just because they bad guys in Aladdin had darker skin, doesn't mean that the darker your skin is, the worse of a person you are. Sometimes movies make people with dark skin, or people who look different form you and i, a bad guy in the movies. You know what happens then Lisa? (lisa shakes her head) Then those people in real life get offended and hurt but the way they make them look in movies. Sometimes movies even make girls like you and i look stupid compared to a man, or a boy.
Lisa: Yeah, sometimes girls on tv do silly things that boys don't do.
Pam: And sometimes women in magazines look very beautiful, but thats not how little girls should try to look like. Because the truth is, the women they put on magazine covers are sometimes very unhealthy and young girls like you should eat good healthy meals so you can grow up to be strong! (Pam and Lisa both ran the rest of the block home and turned on the tv. Lisa dint quite understand what Pam was saying but the two of them munched on potato chips watching cartoons and laughing.)