Kid’s Popular Culture: The Selling of Childhood
Michael Brody M.D.

Stanley an obese 11 year old boy presented to a child psychiatrist for poor school performance and lack of social skills. Stanley the oldest of 3 children spent his days and evenings sitting on his bedroom floor, surrounded by WWF action figures watching cartoons on his TV or playing video games screaming for his mom to bring him yet another snack.

School time and friends now occupy only a minor portion of a child’s day. Electronic sounds and images invade our homes, as kids spend 4-5 hours a day using media. A celebrity driven popular culture (culture that has mass appeal, and serves to divert from the seriousness of a child’s life) surrounds our children and influences not only the family budget but how they behave. Kid’s adopt Allen Iverson’s shoes and his attitude, as well as Britney Spears’ Pepsi and her bare sexy midriff.

Popular Culture for children is basically about mass merchandising. Child consumerism was born in the Industrial Revolution as materials used to make toys, such as rubber and sheet metal became cheaper. Children also became less regarded as extra farm hands and more valued as special family members. Chain and department stores, such as Woolworth and Macy’s started selling toys after the Civil War. When Christmas was made a legal holiday in the late 1800s and toy giving was linked to Santa’s “Naughty and Nice” list, parents had a justification for the excess of toy giving and the children’s market exploded.

The “Funnies” and then radio began real mass marketing to kids. Buster Brown, The Lone Ranger and my own favorite Captain Midnight, sold not only newspapers but Ovaltine, Kix and Cheerios.

Howdy Doody, the first successful TV program for kids began hawking large numbers of Mounds candy bars and Pol Parrot shoes, in the early fifties. Buffalo Bob educated toy makers like Mattel and Hasbro that Xmas can be year round. Barbie became a permanent commercial fixture on kid’s TV. Barbie is still the number one toy in the world and while not the sole cause of young girls’ unhealthy preoccupation with thinness, Barbie has her influence.

Disney entered the kid’s market in 1928 with a rodent and soon had his own kingdom. An innovator and artist who used new technology, music and color in his cartoons, he also focused on plot and character. Disney’s great genius was to convert the horror (amputations of feet in Cinderella) of Grimm’s Fairy tales to his own “Disneyfied” more acceptable versions. His greatest projects, Disneyland and Disneyworld, are monuments to American Popular Culture as millions flock to Anaheim and Orlando each year. Michael Eisner, the present ruler of the Magic Kingdom, in the early 80's began a vast vertical and horizontal expansion of the company that now includes cruise ships, “educational software,” Miramax Film, cable networks (ESPN, Lifetime, E, A&E) and ABC. With parks now in Tokyo and Paris the symbol of a world wearing mouse’s ears is no longer one man’s childish vision.

George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars and its many “prequels,” is another major contributor to the popular culture economy, as he employed Joseph Campbell’s mythical concepts to forge a fantastic universe of Death Stars and Jedi Knights. But nothing is more impressive than Lucasfilm which licenses all Star Wars characters. George Lucas states that he is “a toy maker not a film producer,” as licensing is definitely more powerful than even the Force and certainly brings in more money.

Strawberry Shortcake and her “berry” nice friends in the seventies demonstrated the possibilities of creating toys first than programming to promote the toys. The seventies was also represented by Jim Henson’s Muppets, Masters of the Universe and Hot Wheels. Teen movies and MTV came into their own as did the promotion of teen fashions, videos and CDs. Teen Soap operas linked adolescent materialism to one’s identity in the nineties as Beverly Hills 90210 outlasted My So Called Life, as Scream and American Pie II live on.

Billions of dollars, numerous children’s cable networks and the WWF make kid’s media big business, primarily advertising fast food and toys. Even PBS, which originally held the preschool niche with quality programming like Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, has succumbed to the cash and hype with the horrendous Teletubbies. marketed to 12 month olds. New shows like Nickelondeon’s Spongebob, updated versions of The Power Rangers and the pervasive but violent Anime cartoons from Japan produce a constant demand for new licensed products (videos, films and toys). This popular culture impacts on a child’s inner life, that has become little more than a passive receptacle of a very shallow consumerism. The world of childhood is now filled with violent narratives lacking in imagination, fattening snacks, crudeness and non playing scripted story telling.