Teaching Children how to

Discriminate

7

(What we learn from the Big Bad Wolf)^1

We are faced first-off with indexical facts, facts of

observed/experienced social practices, the systematicity of which is

our central problem: are they systematic? If so, how?

Silverstein (1992: 322)

“Poor little guy! He just makes mistakes. He doesn’t know any better.

I’ll just have to be patient and teach him the right way to do things,”

said Mickey.

Disney Inc., “Mickey Mouse and The Boy Thursday” (1948)

Storytellers, Inc.

This chapter is about the ways children are systematically exposed to a
standard language ideology by means of linguistic stereotypes in film or
television entertainment.
Stories are more than entertainment, of course. Stories are in fact
essential to the species and “second in necessity apparently after
nourishment and before love and shelter” (Price 1978: xiii). As all human
beings dream, we also all think and structure our understanding of the
world in terms of narrative. A child takes in his or her family and
community’s stories and begins to experiment with storytelling at a young
age. This process is crucial to socialization; thus, it is fair to say that
storytellers have a crucial role to play in the lives of children.
Since the early twentieth century, the broadcast media have steadily
increased in importance as agents of socialization. While we tend to think
of Disney as a magical kingdom (mostly because Disney has convinced us
this is so), in fact it is first and foremost a large and complex corporation.