As I am blogging, iCarly is playing in the background, and I can't help but thinking how said it is that this show is successful. No I am not going to bore and confuse people with terrible references to the show, because that would be a waste of everyones time, and would involve me looking in the direction of the screen.
What I am going to talk about is Family Channel and Disney's purposeful cultivation of a celebrity culture for children. Would children any interest in reading about these actors in their Tiger Beat and BOP magazines if the seed hadn't been planted, overwatered and stamped into the ground with steel-toed boots by Disney? No way. When I was a kid, I had no interest in meeting the people who played the Power Rangers.
Not to mention that the marketing doesn't even add up. You can create perfectly sellable merchandise without creating cults around 12 year olds. And marketing them as role models. No 12 year old is a role model, they're only half baked peoplet. If you've already screwed your life beyond repair at twelve- watching iCarly sure as hell isn't going to get you back on your feet.
Then, the child who has been thrust into fame gets to be 16, does one thing that everyone else in the world did, like flipped off the paparazzi or smoked salvia, and suddenly it's like the world caved in. People would have never known what they were up to before but because they're forced to be in the public eye, Disney has to drop them from the label else tarnish their image and the young hopeful falls backward into an abyss of hasbeen-ery and drug abuse. They're losing success stories faster than they can make them.
This is such a good point. I never wanted to meet the people that acted in shows when I grew up...and now it's all about the image of the Disney star. It's as if the shows and movies serve to publicize the brand of the Disney star instead of having shows, characters, and art stand on their own to attract fans. So many great points here. Great post!
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