How Western popular culture infiltrated children's minds

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The summer season has come - the time when our children need light and beautiful clothes. What child does not like something bright and original, perhaps T-shirts with large drawings, inscriptions? Surprisingly, among all the variety of assortment presented on the Russian markets, it is now very difficult to find T-shirts with texts in Russian and with Russian content!

The very insignificant issue of buying a painted T-shirt, upon closer examination, reveals a large layer of problems: the dominance of foreign T-shirts, goods, music, TV programs and the displacement of everything Russian. And the most important thing is the displacement of Russian symbolism and meaning from the life of the Russians themselves!

Today, in the overwhelming majority of Russian markets, we see only one foreign one. Santa Claus is substituted for Santa Claus, Russian kvass - Coca-Cola, pies - hamburgers, curdled milk - yogurt and so on. Our children even have Skeletons now! You can easily find a T-shirt with large inscriptions SEX and LOVE on the chest - and this is for girls 7-10 years old! Why would they do this ?!

Even on Russian goods that are successfully produced in the Russian Federation, manufacturers place brands and labels (again, non-Russian words!), Gravitating towards foreign analogies.

The dominance of foreign culture is noticeable with the naked eye in all spheres of domestic social life. On the shelves of music stores, instead of classics, in which Russian-speaking composers are especially strong, a huge place is occupied by works of foreign "pop" or "metal", the content of which is not only obscure to the Russian listener, but often much worse in quality than normal Russian songs.

Unfortunately, it is young people and children, who are the main consumers of popular music, and, moreover, possessing an intellect that is more susceptible to outside influences, who forever absorb foreign musical culture, which can be not only good, but also bad.

But, of course, the biggest negative impact on Russian children is provided by such mass communication as television. Streams of cartoons and programs pour out onto millions of audiences, in which literally at every step - violence and money, ideas of the cult of strength and wealth. Let us recall a variety of films - everywhere - the same thing: from the well-known "Tom and Jerry", in which children are certainly, with the help of a behind-the-scenes audience, made to laugh at how the heroes constantly intrigue each other and mutter each other with improvised objects, to "Scrooge McDuck", the main positive character of which is a duck, similar to Uncle Sam, and his main merit is the accumulation and multiplication of a pile of gold, which he carefully keeps in the basement.

Note that in real life even one of the blows inflicted on Jerry Tom or vice versa, for example, with a spatula on the head, threatens with serious injury and other serious consequences, and the cult of the "golden calf" (Uncle Scrooge) leads to the division of people into "rich" (worthy) and the poor (unworthy) and to the cult of indifferent consumerism. Meanwhile, pliant children's minds in Russia are daily exposed to these destructive influences.

Where are the beautiful Russian fairy tales, which, instead of individualism, the right of the strong, self-interest, preached conciliarity, justice, selflessness, kindness? They are too often supplanted by colorful finished products from the West. But this is not ours, but the fairy tales "Morozko", "Ivan Tsarevich", "Marya the artisan", "Ruslan and Lyudmila" and many, many others, affecting and developing the most subtle and at the same time determining the entire future way of life, the strings of the Russian soul a child is in no way comparable to some "The Addams Family" or "The Simpsons", which orient children to social and marketing clichés and superficial social behavior as programmed consumers, whose search for meaning is replaced by the perception of "blood" or porn.

“Alas, now a cult of violence is being spread on television in society - children, even in cartoons (mostly American ones),“face”all kinds of monsters, imitate bandits from all kinds of“brigades”. They develop a kind of immunity to the suffering of others, they become ruthless,”M. Sibiryakov, a TV viewer, expresses his opinion about what is happening.

TV viewer A. Bogatyrev conducted a whole study, the results of which he shared in the article "How children are brainwashed." “American cartoon (in the language of children - a cartoon), only in appearance seems to be a very harmless handicraft … But if you look closely at it, you immediately begin to notice here and there the“protruding ears”of the“American way of life”.

In his opinion, “the Russian people, having perceived such hidden propaganda precisely that in their gut (without fully realizing everything), simply forbid their children to watch them. They perceive these cartoons as "very evil and do not teach good" … - They do not watch these films for the reason that they are accustomed to the Soviet system - they will not show bad things to children "on TV"!.. Oddly enough, they are subject to this delusion not only people of the older generation, but also very young people - those who already know and feel well the depravity and meanness of modern media.

The rule is the indifferent attitude of parents to what their child is watching. Only after that do these parents have very unpleasant discoveries like: “Why is my child growing up so cruel and mean? We didn't teach him that!.. Yes, YOU didn't! Taught cartoons."

He goes on to list a few hidden moments he discovered in Western cartoons such as Woody & Friends, Sailor Moon, Pokemon:

"What catches the eye immediately is the often savage brutality of the cartoon characters towards each other and, portrayed as heroic, the OPENLY ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR of the cartoon characters."

“In these cartoons, it is shown as NORMAL behavior of an individual seeking satisfaction with his purely personal aspirations. As a rule, the aspirations for sole leadership and superiority over others. First of all - to the superiority of the POWER!"

“That is, we can safely say that this cartoon is frankly teaching. Teaches competitive behavior. Achieving superiority over others and superiority in ANY WAY AND IN ANY KIND. Even the most idiotic."

“The heroes of the cartoon action get hit on the head by falling anvils, absolutely deadly blows with various objects, but, for some reason, they always jump up, after the blows suffered, as if nothing had happened. In this regard, in America, cases of animal killing by young children have become more frequent. These children beat their pets with all their might with hammers, pieces of iron and other heavy objects, and then they are very surprised why their beloved kitty, flattened into a bloody paste, does not jump up after such treatment and does not run joyfully to have fun further."

“There are a lot of such hidden ideas implied by the whole action of the cartoon. And not only the Idea of the Great Freebie with the associated idea of eternal entertainment. As implied in those cartoons, almost all the basic (antisocial from the point of view of a healthy culture) principles of the American way of life are present.

In this sense, these cartoons act SUGGESTIVELY - that is, they inspire ideas, bypassing consciousness. Such suggestion is always very effective.

The trouble is that it can be very difficult to find fault with such cartoons in terms of suggestive influence. As a rule, ANY CARTOON, made by a representative of some very specific culture, carries a number of such ideas, positions and stereotypes inherent in his culture. The trouble with American cartoons is that they carry openly misanthropic ideas: "Push the falling one", "Whoever" fell "was" eaten "," All people are bastards "and others.

Then Bogatyrev expresses considerations about who benefits from it: “… Companies are VERY INTERESTED in creating a strong cult around this or that cartoon. The higher the rating of the cartoon, the noisier and more widespread the cult around the series, the more profits will be made by companies selling paraphernalia and toys associated with these cartoons.”

And he concludes: “Keep your children away from such TV shows! It is better to try not to show them cartoons of Western origin at all”, paying attention to the fundamental differences between such products from domestic ones. “Pay attention to the main feature of our, Soviet cartoons - almost all of them are built on the plot of the interaction of an individual and a collective, an individual and society. Moreover, such relationships, when the collective and society are NOT a hostile environment for the individual, as in American cartoons, but the environment of life."

“There is NEVER a group hero in these western cartoons. There is never a collective. All relationships between people (or cartoon characters, if these characters are not people) are usually competitive. Occasionally, as something optional, friendly.

Always these cartoons show the behavior and lifestyle of an inveterate individualist. Moreover, he lives in a hostile social environment. Unlike the Russian social environment, a competitive civil society cannot but be hostile to any of its members."

Popular culture as a tool for managing society

The impact of pop on a mass audience

With which cartoon did capitalism and the market come to Russia?