Nickelodeon's Big Green Help

Nickelodeon is currently in the midst of a public service campaign called The Big Green Help. The purpose of this series of PSAs is to encourage young people to act responsibly by recycling and precycling and minimizing their energy and resource use:

"at home, at school, at the mall".

(Sound of brakes screeching in the background) Huh? At home - good. At school - great. At the MALL?

I am unclear as to how young people are supposed to exhibit their growing sense of environmental stewardship at a location that is expressly purposed to get them to buy stuff they probably don't need. By eating at the food court, dining on feedlot-bred hamburgers that were raised on denuded rain forest and shipped halfway across the globe, served on single-use plates/cups/forks/napkins? By purchasing clothing made of chemical-laden fabrics, likely sewn by underpaid young women, perhaps working in a sweatshop, that was again shipped halfway across the globe, each garment in it's own individual plastic wrapping? By asking their parents to drive them to the mall to "hang out" with their friends - because for all the talk about biking or walking instead of driving, I live in New Jersey, the mall capital of the world, and I have yet to see a mall that is within walking distance of a residential area, never mind in a location that is safe to walk to (though public transportation is sometimes an option)?

I realize that the idea of minimizing consumption in the current economic climate is controversial. For everyone who buys less, someone who works in manufacturing, retail, transportation, or related industries is at risk of losing her job. However, I refuse to accept that we are unable to come up with a new, sustainable paradigm that does not rely on stripping resources and filling our planet with trash in order to put food on tables and roofs over heads. Especially when we are talking to the young, who are the future and who are creative and intelligent, we should be encouraging them to find a new way rather than expecting them to continue in the old.

Spaceship Earth?

Here's another one from our recent trip to Disney:

The Spaceship Earth ride at EPCOT was recently re-done, and my daughter really enjoyed riding it because of the surprise at the end (I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't done it yet, but it's pretty cool). They also changed much of the narration and some of the exhibits, though most of the beginning of the ride remained unchanged in terms of the animatronics. The ride tells the story of the development of human culture, language and communication, from cave paintings in prehistoric times to the development of the Phoenician alphabet, to papyrus and the Roman empire. Then it goes on to talk about the Dark Ages, when Rome was invaded and many libraries, schools, and other cultural centers were burned and fell to ruin.

History isn't really my thing, but so far I can buy most of that.

Then the narrator says something to the effect (I don't remember the exact words) that we thought all was lost, but lo and behold, Jewish and Muslim scholars in the Middle East also had knowledge, and libraries, and schools where ideas were being explored and recorded! Boy, were we in luck!

My question would be, who are WE?

This seems to be an extraordinarily Eurocentric interpretation of history. In fact, that one scene was the last mention of the development of communication and ideas outside of Europe, and then we went back to European monks toiling away copying texts in their dimly-lit monasteries, the Gutenberg printing press, the Renaissance, and so forth. Yet, even from my high school and college knowledge (biased and superficial as it may be), I know that we owe much of our current knowledge about many things, including astrology, mathematics and medicine, not to mention philosophy, to Middle Eastern and Asian scholars. To assume that the listener is of European descent, while barely even acknowledging non-European contributions to culture and knowledge - to blatantly claim that Europe is THE center of culture and knowledge - seems....well, racist, maybe?

I like to think that the old narrative wasn't as bad, but more likely, it took me years of visiting Disney and riding Spaceship Earth to even notice the bias. It made me think of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael and his definition of culture as the story we tell ourselves about the way things are, and how we barely even notice the story.

A Small World After All

We recently returned from our annual visit to Walt Disney World in Florida. Yes, the universal capital of consumerism and marketing to youth is where my family goes to relax. No flaming necessary - I am well aware of the irony. Some things are just too hard to give up, I guess. For now, anyway.


The more I examine the ideas of Humane Parenting, though, the more I notice things I never noticed before. Take the ride It's a Small World, for example. Nothing could be more innocent, right? You would think so. You enter and take a slow-moving boat ride, and look at adorable singing dolls. First you go through Europe, with all the Dutch girls and their geese, the lilting Leprechauns, the Buckingham guards, the can-can dancers and the gondola drivers. Then come the sari draped women in front of the Taj Mahal, traditional Thai dancers and Chinese kite fliers. Then, Africa. A couple of men wielding spears and wearing loin cloths, a nod to Cleopatra sailing the Nile, and lots and lots of safari animals.

Wait a minute. Africa is the most populous continent on this planet. At least a thousand languages are spoken there, according to the most conservative estimates. Who knows how many distinct cultures and tribes can be found there. The oldest human fossils are found there. Human civilization was born there, for crying out loud. And the most they could come up with was a few smiling elephants, a couple of lions and zebra, and a gaggle of spear-chuckers?

Holy racist, Batman!

Disney isn't as much fun as it used to be.