Just reply to each forum post
Post one:
Nowadays, most children are allowed to use the Internet, watch TV for a while, have access to social networks at an early age. These factors contribute to the absorption of a huge amount of information, which causes different emotions in kids’ minds. As I have learned from the textbook, European Americans from North America tend to influence others that shows their independent nature. However, we have to remember that such domination and advertisement affect society in both positive and negative ways. Looking at the first picture “Make impossible possible” makes children feel enthusiastic and excited, which without doubt should be felt by every kid in this world. I am feeling so proud for children who are inventive and persistent, who look for smart ideas to do things. For example, when their toy is broken, they don’t cry right at once, but search the way to fix it. Moreover, I really enjoy watching such messages on the Internet Web as the second picture “Carrots – the orange power food”, and I wish we could have more similar impact on the young generation. I think, after this message, children would feel happiness and satisfaction. Who of kids doesn’t want to have a superpower and be strong? Even if they don’t understand properly what means “immune system”, the picture of a smiling boy, a bunny and a word “power” encourage children to make healthy food choices.
On the other hand, some messages from the surrounding world make kids feel negative emotions. For instance, picture 3 “Diet Coke with Taylor Swift” forces children to think that coke is healthy and what is more, they would have a chance to win a $2,500 gift card. Such a message makes them feel astonished and surprised but in an absolutely negative way. A lot of parents teach their kids to drink fewer soft drinks and substitute them for pure water. But after watching these pictures, little kids would become angry, start crying and throwing tantrums to get their way. Finally, a bunch of cartoons shown on TV teach children some unacceptable things, for instance, as this scene at a picture 4 from “Sponge Bob”. Children would feel very mad and nervous, which shouldn’t be felt at all. Eventually, an emotion of anger and madness can lead to violence that is harmful and should be avoided at any cost. If we don’t explain to our kids how to deal with anger, they will struggle with problems and become frustrated beyond their control.
POst 2
Children’s minds are easily influenced by interpersonal relations. The parental emotions observed by children such as facial expressions or physical expressions can be almost passed down to the child. Facial expressions are often traits children absorb. Emotions such as surprise, sadness, anger, and happiness displayed by parents accumulate in children. Parents that have a hard time communicating their feelings can also bleed into the children because they look to their parents for understanding of emotions.
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In children’s books, movies, cartoons, and billboards, animated figures are often used to portray a certain feeling or emotion. Often when promoting products or themes authors will use happy characters to register in the readers brain that they are happy, which often leads to better outcomes in the ratings of a product. For example, when a child sees a photo of another child looking happy to eat veggies, they are more likely to try the veggie than if they were simply asked to.
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Children’s books and movies/shows use this theory to convey feelings especially when choosing weather, location, color schemes, and background music. Most often, bright colors are used to associate happy emotions, and dark emotions to convey sadness. As used in the Inside Out movie from Disney, Joy is Yellow and bright blue, sadness is rainy and blue, anger is red, and disgust is green, (The saying, “Are you feeling okay, you look green”, often said when someone looks sick to the stomach, indicating disgust.). The interpretation of emotions by what the child hears and sees can contribute to their understanding of an emotion.
Some emotions such as anger and sadness are often ignored by the female character. Similarly, male characters are often depicted as strong, angry, powerful, slightly joyful, and sometimes emotionless. This can impact the child’s expression of emotions and cause confusion for a child if they try to abide by these standards.This can institute gender specific suppression of emotional expression, linked to the gender specific emotions portrayed in early development.
POSt 3
Emotions help us to express ourselves to others and convey our thoughts and feelings. Emotions can also motivate future behavioral patterns and social behavioral patterns. With this being said, emotions are fragile and constantly changing, especially based on the given environment. Within familial relationships, mass media, the internet, movies, billboards, storybooks, environments, and so much more, emotions can be reflected in these forms in a way that can skew our perceptions and altar the overall message that should be taken from such forms.
Some great examples to show how emotions should and should not be perceived by youth and adolescence is in older Disney movies. Looking at The Little Mermaid, the villain here is Ursula. If any plus size child were to see her and what her character represents, they may take away that being “bigger” is wrong and bad. On the other hand, Ariel and her sisters are slimmer, beautiful, and the protagonist. So seen by a slimmer person, they will think this is the way they need to look and behave and a “bigger” person may feel jealous and embarrassed by their body size and the lookalike tie to the villain, Ursula. Another notion to Disney is that the company typically based villains on minority groups and disliked visual attributes of society. In Aladdin, Jafar has a bigger nose, darker skin, and typical features of someone of an Arab ethnicity. Here, children who look like Jafar may feel that they are being misrepresented due to his character being the villain and disrespecting the Arab culture in a comically demeaning way.
As for an example of reflecting good emotions in a positive and humane way, the Barbie movie from 2023 is fantastic. This movie not only shaped how emotions can be reflected as a human and a woman in society, but how a male can respond and interact in a way that is appropriate and respectful in return. Throughout the movie, Barbie struggles with self identity and fitting in to be a “perfect Barbie”, but in the end, she realizes that our mistakes are what makes us perfect and that it’s okay to show vulnerability. On the flip side, Ken also doesn’t know his identity without Barbie beside him, so once she comes to terms with herself, he gains trust in his own identity and self confidence.
Throughout the media and internet with movies, shows, advertisements, and more, society has come a long way in representing emotions in a healthy manner. Especially with the addition of the new Inside Out movie, there is more clarity being gained on how we can trust out emotions to represent us in a that makes sense.
