My Positive and Negative Photos of America

I choose this image as a positive image for a few reasons; one was that my first connection with America was through Disney. That is the primary reason why this image instantly means “America” to me and I think the same goes to a lot of people worldwide. Lots of people grew up watching Disney films (along with westerners, musicals, etc from Hollywood) and grew up on their values, songs and messages. Lots of people now compare love from wanting a fairytale romance to a Disney romance (notice how it goes from something international and old folk stories to a commercial American company "love"). Though aside from the childhood connections, the reason this image instantly means “America” to me is also because Walt Disney is one of the most widely known success stories of the American Dream. This image to me shows the hopeful and idealistic characteristics of the American nation and that blissful innocence (or perhaps blissful ignorance?) of childhoods/the inner child.

But there's the negative sides too. For me this image shows the commercialism of Disney (and America!) which is increasing as each year passes. The company now groups it's story characters together and by adding (some-what sexist) sugary pink backgrounds and sparkles to "lure" little girls (and their parents) who want to be princesses too. There's also ranges for pirate/boys, and whatever your age, you can get anything and everything with some sort of Disney character on it.