Playing with America's Doll

Playing with America's Doll PDF Author: Emilie Zaslow
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566493
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This critical account of the American Girl brand explores what its books and dolls communicate to girls about femininity, racial identity, ethnicity, and what it means to be an American. Emilie Zaslow begins by tracing the development of American Girl and situates the company’s growth and popularity in a social history of girl power media culture. She then weaves analyses of the collection’s narrative and material representations with qualitative research on mothers and girls. Examining the dolls with both a critical eye and a fan’s curiosity, Zaslow raises questions about the values espoused by this iconic American brand.

Playing with America's Doll

Playing with America's Doll PDF Author: Emilie Zaslow
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566493
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
This critical account of the American Girl brand explores what its books and dolls communicate to girls about femininity, racial identity, ethnicity, and what it means to be an American. Emilie Zaslow begins by tracing the development of American Girl and situates the company’s growth and popularity in a social history of girl power media culture. She then weaves analyses of the collection’s narrative and material representations with qualitative research on mothers and girls. Examining the dolls with both a critical eye and a fan’s curiosity, Zaslow raises questions about the values espoused by this iconic American brand.

Feminism, Inc.

Feminism, Inc. PDF Author: E. Zaslow
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230101534
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Drawing on extensive research with a diverse group of seventy teen girls, Zaslow offers a critical account of the girl power moment in which feminism and femininity are shrink-wrapped together in one market-friendly package. With a focus on pop-music and television, Zaslow skillfully explores the negotiative processes of teen girls as they make sense of girl power's new cultural narratives of femininity as well as its failure to offer strategies for real social change. Written in highly accessible language, this book charts new territory as it offers a rich account of the ways in which teen girls understand style, sexuality, motherhood, and feminism in girl power media culture, and how their desires, social experiences, and imaginings of the future are shaped in their relationship with a neoliberal girl power discourse.

Storybook Worlds Made Real

Storybook Worlds Made Real PDF Author: Kathy Merlock Jackson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147664585X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Memorable children's narratives immerse readers in imaginary worlds that bring them into the story. Some of these places have been constructed in the real world--like Pinocchio's Tuscany or Anne of Green Gables' Prince Edward Island--where visitors relive their favorite childhood tales. Theme parks like Walt Disney World and Harry Potter World use technology to engineer enchanting environments that reconnect visitors with beloved fictional settings and characters in new ways. This collection of new essays explores the imagined places we loved as kids, with a focus on the meaning of setting and its power to shape the way we view the world.

The Marketing of Children’s Toys

The Marketing of Children’s Toys PDF Author: Rebecca C. Hains
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030628817
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book offers rich critical perspectives on the marketing of a variety of toys, brands, and product categories. Topics include marketing undertaken by specific children’s toy brands such as American Girl, Barbie, Disney, GoldieBlox, Fisher-Price, and LEGO, and marketing trends characterizing broader toy categories such as on-trend grotesque toys; toy firearms; minimalist toys; toyetics; toys meant to offer diverse representation; STEM toys; and unboxing videos. Toy marketing warrants a sustained scholarly critique because of toys’ cultural significance and their roles in children’s lives, as well as the industry’s economic importance. Discourses surrounding toys—including who certain toys are meant for and what various toys and brands can signify about their owners’ identities—have implications for our understandings of adults’ expectations of children and of broader societal norms into which children are being socialized.

Playing with History

Playing with History PDF Author: Molly Rosner
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197882209X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Since the advent of the American toy industry, children’s cultural products have attempted to teach and sell ideas of American identity. By examining cultural products geared towards teaching children American history, Playing With History highlights the changes and constancies in depictions of the American story and ideals of citizenship over the last one hundred years. This book examines political and ideological messages sold to children throughout the twentieth century, tracing the messages conveyed by racist toy banks, early governmental interventions meant to protect the toy industry, influences and pressures surrounding Cold War stories of the western frontier, the fractures visible in the American story at a mid-century history themed amusement park. The study culminates in a look at the successes and limitations of the American Girl Company empire.

Cultural Studies of LEGO

Cultural Studies of LEGO PDF Author: Rebecca C. Hains
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030326640
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This collection examines LEGO from an array of critical and cultural studies approaches, foregrounding the world-renowned brand's ideological power and influence. Given LEGO’s status as the world’s largest toy manufacturer and a transnational multimedia conglomerate, Cultural Studies of Lego: More Than Just Bricks considers LEGO media's cultural messages; creativity with and within LEGO artifacts; and diversity within the franchise, including gender and race representation. The chapters’ in-depth analyses of topics including LEGO films, marketing tactics, play sets, novelizations, and fans offer compelling insights relevant to those interested in the LEGO brand and broader trends in the children’s popular culture market alike.

Hollywood or History?

Hollywood or History? PDF Author: Sarah J. Kaka
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1648027938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
The rationale for the present text, Hollywood or History? An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Teach About Inequality and Inequity Throughout History stems from two main things. First and foremost is the fact that the reviews of the first two volumes in the Hollywood or History? series have been overwhelmingly positive, especially as it pertains to the application of the strategy for practitioners. Classroom utility and teacher practice have continued to be the primary objectives in developing the Hollywood or History? strategy. The second thing is that this most recent volume in the series takes it in a new direction--rather than focusing on eras in history, it focuses on the themes of inequity and inequality throughout history, and how teachers can utilize the Hollywood or History? strategy to tackle some of the more complicated content throughout history that many teachers tend to shy away from. There is a firm belief that students’ connection to film, along with teachers’ ability to use film in an effective manner, will help alleviate some of the challenges of teaching challenging topics such as inequity and inequality in terms of gender, race, socioeconomic status, and so much more. The book provides 30 secondary lesson plans (grades 6-12) that address nine different topics centered around inequity and inequality throughout history, many of which connect students to the world we are living in today. The intended audience for the book are teachers who teach social studies at the 6th-12th grade level both in the United States and other countries. An additional audience will be college and university social studies/history methods professors in the United States and worldwide.

The '80s Resurrected

The '80s Resurrected PDF Author: Randy Laist
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476686513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The 1980s is remembered as a time of big hair, synthetic music, and microwave cookery. It is also remembered as the heyday of conservative politics, socioeconomic inequality, and moral panics. It is dichotomously remembered as either a nostalgic age of innocence or a regressive moral wasteland, depending on who you ask, and when. But, most of all, it is remembered. In retro fashion trends, in '80s-based film and television narratives, and through countless rebooted movies, video games, superheroes, and even political slogans imploring us to Make America Great Again (Again). More than merely a historical period, "the '80s" has grown into a contested myth, ever-evolving through the critical and expressive lens of popular culture. This book explores the many shapes the '80s mythos has taken across a diverse array of media. Essays examine television series such as Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and POSE, films such as Dallas Buyers Club, Summer of '84, and Chocolate Babies, as well as video games, pop music, and toys. Collectively, these essays explore how representations of the 1980s influence the way we think about our past, our present, and our future.

Elena, Princesa of the Periphery

Elena, Princesa of the Periphery PDF Author: Diana Leon-Boys
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197883019X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
In the summer of 2016, Disney introduced its first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Princesa of the Periphery explores this Disney property using multiple case studies to understand its approach to girlhood and Latinidad. Following the circuit of culture model, author Diana Leon-Boys teases out moments of complex negotiations by Disney, producers, and audiences as they navigate Elena’s circulation. Case studies highlight how a flexible Latinidad is deployed through corporate materials, social media pages, theme park experiences, and the television series to create a princess who is both marginal to Disney’s normative vision of princesshood and central to Disney’s claims of diversification. This multi-layered analysis of Disney’s mediated Latina girlhood interrogates the complex relationship between the U.S.’s largest ethnic minority and a global conglomerate that stands in for the U.S. on the global stage.

Fashioning Politics and Protests

Fashioning Politics and Protests PDF Author: Emily L. Newman
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031162277
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Through meticulous examinations, this book analyzes how women update their identities and articulate their feelings through clothing and art in protests, politics in the United States in the 20th century. Topics explored include the suffragists and their impact on contemporary art, the significance of the red dress in both The Handmaid’s Tale and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, the impact of the Miss America protests, the rising popularity of the pantsuit for women, the recent dominance of the pussyhat, and the way that feminist slogans are disseminated on t-shirts. Movements discussed include craftivism, hashtag culture, feminism, the CROWN act, Pantsuit Nation, socially-committed stores, and more. Interdisciplinary and intersectional at its core, addressing numerous areas, including fashion, sociology, visual culture, art history, feminism, and popular culture; Fashioning Politics and Protests uncovers how women continue to use visual means, explored via their clothing, to change the world.