Garza 1 Amber Garza Media Communication 3-35-2013

Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood Essay

The United States is the land of the free, the brave, and consumerism. For years now consumerism has been the trademark of the American way of life and now that society has embraced it so fully, it seems that even children are being born and raised with the got to have it mindset. Consumerism may be a leading role in the American economy now many people are asking when will enough be enough? The film, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood takes a closer look at marketing pushed towards children and the future childhood and consumerism. My overall reaction to the film is predominantly positive. I realized how entirely unaware I am to the marketing industry and how much children are exploited by marketers and advertisers. After seeing this film, I feel as though even I was personally taken advantage of by advertisers in my early youth. I also realized how this epidemic of making consuming kids started in my own generation. Therefore, after seeing this film I began to think about my future, as well as the futures of many of my peers, and wonder what my generation will grow up and adopt as spending habits. Now that many persons from my generation are starting to create there own families and reproduce, I am starting to become worried about how negatively the future generations will be affected by the quickly growing consumer culture. I appreciate how this film brings attention to such an important, yet overlooked issue. As Enola Aird stated in the film, This is a lot more than about selling products and services. If we care about nourishing the human spirit, if we care about human relationships, then we've got to care about this issue (Consuming

Garza 2 Kids). This issue, of children being exploited and wrongly targeted by marketers and advertisers, is no joke; consumerism is what the United States is reliant upon to continue. After seeing this film, I am now starting to question how much longer we, as a population, can support this outrageous consumer culture that we have all created and bought into. I realized how, humanity itself is putting itself at risk for the chance to buy more, get more, and use more all thanks to this film. The purpose of this film is to take an in depth look at marketing pushed towards children, to shed light on how marketers are doing this, and why marketers are becoming increasing wealthy off child marketing. Furthermore this film is intended to make people aware of the commercialization of childhood and the implications that may result from that. Personally, I believe the filmmakers successfully communicated their message through this film. The filmmakers used Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to appeal to the audience. I felt, as though, the filmmakers themselves are creditable sources and by featuring speakers who were educated and held impressive positions helped further their credibility. At times, I felt that the filmmakers used a bit of scare tactics to lure the viewer into paying attention and highlight specific topics. These along with many other emotional appeals were present in the film and a good use of Pathos. Finally, the filmmakers used Logos well by presenting information in a way that the common person could understand and relate to. I believe that is was a great decision to break the film into sections because this made the film more of an outline that was easy to follow. Overall, I believe the filmmakers were successful in communicating their message to me as a viewer.

Garza 3 The rise in new technological advances like the Internet, iPods, cell phones, and 24 hour childrens TV programming have made children more available and therefore more vulnerable to commercial messages in many different ways. According to a recent Nielson Company study, Pre-schoolers, aged 2-5 spend 32.5 hours a week in front of the television (Shapley). That is just on TV alone, when the Internet, iPods, and cell phones are factored into that, pre-school aged children are vulnerable to huge amounts of commercial messages. Many argue that it is a parents right to protect their child from commercial messages, yet it is virtually impossible to monitor every moment of a childs time spent using technology. Marketers continue to make advertisements more creative, in particular making games and shows just to advertise a product. New technologies have made it easier to reach the younger generation than ever before. Branding beloved childrens characters serve the interests of marketers by impacting the things that children love most. In the film, this was referred to as a touch stone, which means that these things are constants in the lives of children and children grow to love these things and rely on them to always be there. By doing this marketers are guaranteeing their character a long product life. This process is cruel because children are being taken advantage of and are unable to determine what is reality. Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, and a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School, agrees with this statement in an interview. Linn says, "Children are not just adults in teeny tiny bodies. They don't have the same impulse control as adults, and they have a harder time separating reality from hype. Very young children can't differentiate between a commercial and a program. And even older children are more susceptible to persuasion" (Marketing to Kids: Toy Sellers' Bonanza or Danger

Garza 4 Zone?). Marketers become rich by selling the idea of happiness to children. In more recent years, marketers have started to push more expensive, branded products to children. This is an issue because the majority of parents in society cannot afford these products, but also, children are beginning to become negatively affected psychologically, this is illustrated by the recent change in childrens attitudes towards money, status, and materialism. This ill treatment of children, by marketers, negatively affects psychological, social, and behavior aspects of children. When a child is finally old enough to think critically and have self-realization they are already programed to believe that they are not truly happy or cool because they do not have everything that marketers push. Children are growing up, being taught by marketers that their self-worth is measured by what material things they have or do not have, rather than their personality. This then leads to things such as depression or low self-esteem if a child believes he or she is inadequate because they do not have it all. Along with adding to low self-esteem and depression, marketing schemes like The Girls Intelligence Agency exploits important relationships in childrens lives. This agency asks young girls to use their friends to gather research information for the company. The slumber party in a box is teaching a young girl that it is acceptable to partake in marketing schemes, because it is fun and they get a reward out of it. This is also exploiting the relationship parents have with one another as well as their children, by basically using people as pawn in a giant game. Juliet Schor, a sociologist at Boston College, explains It's not that kids who have a poor relationship with their parents buy more, but that the more they consume, the more the relationship goes downhill . . . as

Garza 5 [two value systems] come into conflict" (Meltz). By parents allowing there children become apart of marketing ploys, they risk exploiting their own relationships with their children. Marketers have become so good at engaging and recruiting children that sometimes parents are completely unaware to what is happening or that their child is even being marketed to. Marketers continue to sell their products down the age scale and young girls and boys are receiving many gendered messages, few which are positive. Gender stereotypes are commercialized in childrens media and toys, everywhere from the isles in toy stores to the toy that comes in kids meals at fast food restaurants. This impacts childrens play and how kids shape their identities and understanding of the world. This gender stereotyping of childrens media and toys teaches young girls that they are desirable if they look flawless and that their worth is determined by how boys view them. Young girl toys are also made for girls to be interactive with one another and spark conversation and cooperation. On the other hand, little boys toys are primarily focused on competition and heavily centered on violence and domination. Both, young girl and boy toys and media adhere to traditional gender roles and promote stereotyping. Many believe regulating marketing to children should be a job for the U.S. government and many wonder why the government has not taken an active role in protecting children from the commercial culture. The answer in the film for this was simple. The U.S. government has not become involved because they believe that marketing is a first amendment right. When the government did become involved, marketers and advertisers became enraged and battled the government to get laws lifted. This is why the U.S. government has remained silent about this issue.

Garza 6 Personally I believe this is a huge problem. I do not see a difference between this issue and child labor laws or laws mandating that children wear bike helmets or protecting children from the marketing of tobacco. I feel that this issue of targeting children and the extremes that some marketers have gone through to get inside the mind of a child just so they can better target them is wrong. A quote in the movie by Michael Brody really stood out to me; he said, These marketers are very similar to pedophiles. Okay? They are child experts. If you're going to be a pedophile, or a child marketer, you have to know about children and what children are going to want. I agree that there has been a line that has been crossed by marketers and protecting the innocence of children should be a top priority. I do agree that as a nation we place a lower priority on teaching our children how to thrive socially, intellectually, even spiritually, than on training them to consume. I believe this largely because of my own personal experiences growing up in a consumer driven world. Childhood for me was all about who had what, when, and how much. My own friends are victims of the I want to be rich when I grow up mentality. It is apparent that the structure of our society is rapidly changing and everyday people are bombarded with advertisements. I feel like now people are valued by what they have rather than the person that they are. I think that society is changing, and as great as the consumer culture has been for a while, people need to realize we can not go on living like this forever.

Garza 7

Bibliography
CONSUMING KIDS: The Commercialization of Childhood. Dir. Adriana Barbaro and Jeremy Earp. Media Education Foundation, 2008. DVD. Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. Media Education Foundation. Web. 25 Mar. 2013. "Marketing to Kids: Toy Sellers' Bonanza or Danger Zone?" Knowledge@Wharton. N.p., 05 Dec. 2012. Web. 26 Mar. 2013. Meltz, Barbara F. "Protecting Kids from Marketers' Clutches." Boston.com. N.p., 30 Sept. 2004. Web. 26 Mar. 2013. Shapley, Daniela. "Kids Spend Nearly 55 Hours a Week Watching TV, Texting, Playing Video Games..." The Daily Green. N.p., 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 26 Mar. 2013.