Your Trusted Friends Analysis

These two articles, “Your Trusted Friends” by Eric Schlosser and “Complete Freedom of Movement,” by Henry Jenkins, are concerned with a modified approach to an old method of doing something, the former of which occurs in mass marketing and the latter of which in the psychological and social development of children. “Your Trusted Friends” expounds and contrasts the endeavors of sales tycoons Ray Kroc and Walt Disney, both of whom harnessed the potential of children as consumers with staggering success. Before these men, children were largely ignored by consumerists—afterwards, dozens of other corporations followed suit and advertising aimed towards children became a prevalent and controversial matter.
Schlosser acknowledges their charisma, and brilliance in marketing, but practically makes them out to be sordid, power- and money-hungry individuals. He inserts
several seemingly malicious quotes by Kroc, including one regarding his ruthlessness when it comes to his economic competitors. Schlosser states,” If they were drowning to death … I would put a hose in their mouth” (765). The author writes about how both corporations hired the best psychologists money can buy and had them figure out what children like. Everything in Disneyland was on sale, and all around the nation, McDonald’s Playplaces sprung up, accompanied by Happy Meals complemented with toys. Both corporations expressed patriotism, and Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald became icons worldwide. In the end, the two corporations came together in “perfect synergy,” forging an allegiance between two already wholly powerful, youth-oriented businesses. I fully support Schlosser’s purport in this article. I can’t recall how many Disney toys I’ve implored my mother to buy for me over the years, or how many times as a child I begged her to take me to McDonald’s, as much for the Furby’s as it was for the food. I found “Complete Freedom of Movement” to be incredibly interesting. In the article, the author discusses how an increasingly urban world is spilling out over the wild and unexplored lands, the green places. No longer do boys growing up in urban areas have any environments conducive to horseplay and imagination, save the designated, limiting playgrounds and fields. With the staggering growth of technology in recent decades, though, new environments conducive to exploration, open to playful aggression and wonderment—virtual environments. While some adults, namely mothers, feel video games are deleterious to children’s development, perhaps it’s only because they themselves are of an older, less technologically savvy generation. Of course virtual exploration doesn’t offer the same physical stimulation, but the author’s argument that it at least offers some sort of medium for the aggression and misogyny growing boys need to partake in to grow up independent seems plausible to me.
The article gradually leads into the role genders have in the play that normal children need to experience in order to mature socially. Girls were always watched closely, encouraged to learn how to carry out household chores, whereas boys’ outdoorsy and mischievous nature was generally given a blind eye. Now that our concrete world is restricting much of both genders simply by default, the need to explore, vent natural aggression and solve conflicts is being supplemented within virtual realms. But we’ve changed societally. Discrimination seems to have languished substantially; women are competing with men in careers and pursuits that were once dominated by men, and I agree with the author in that that’s the way it should be. Video games producers should do their best to create gender-neutral environments without creating pink and blue “border
work.” Personally, I feel producers are already taking successful steps towards this. Games such as “Skyrim” and “The Sims 3” allow you to play as either a male or female, and have typical or same-sex marriages. I often encounter female voices when playing first-person shooters such as “Call of Duty,” and some of them talk as much trash as many of the other men do. “NHL 12” allowed players to actually choose to play as females in normally all-male leagues, whereas none of the previous games in the series did. As our species grows socially, psychologically, technologically, and intellectually, I believe gender stereotypes, just as all other stereotypes, will eventually fade.
There was one similarity in both these articles that immediately jumped out at me: both of them deal with a new approach to an old method of doing things, although in my opinion, one is a change for the better, whereas the other was nothing but a financially driven tactic. One discusses how two tycoons developed a completely new strategy of making a profit by targeting entirely new demographic, nearly brainwashing children from birth. Schlosser states, “…companies now plan “cradle-to-grave” advertising strategies.” (766). By this he means an entire life. From birth to death. The other discusses alterations made in the way children follow their curiosity to interact with the world to make up for the inevitable loss of natural “play areas” caused by urban expansion, and the potential change for the better that can result if the driving minds of this change will guide the transition responsibly, without bias.