Seduced and Abandoned: The Perils of Nostalgia and the Commercialization of Childhood by Susan Linn

I’m not surprised that American Girl dolls are about to be sold a la Webkins with keys to a virtual world—the brand’s fate was sealed when it was sold to Mattel. But the news made me sad.  It’s yet another corporate message to children that their imaginative world—their own creative play—isn’t good enough.  Back in the day, I was rather fond of the dolls. This was before the factory moved to China, before the television shows, the movies, and the designer stores featuring $25 facials for little plastic faces. Okay, I’m a sucker for dolls, but I come by it honestly.  My mother was a sucker for them, too.

My mom died in 1993, when my daughter was four.  Before her death, she purchased Kirsten Larson (the one of Swedish ancestry who gets to wear candles in her hair), to be given to Sasha when she turned six.  Caveat:  Yes, the dolls were expensive, but they were well-made representations of pre-adolescent girls.  They were sturdy enough to last for years and not sexualized in any way. On subsequent birthdays and holidays, my daughter received an outfit or two for her doll from friends and family.  We never bought the books, which seemed formulaic.  We certainly never bought the (very pricey) furniture advertised in the catalogue. My daughter enjoyed playing with Kirsten until she gave up dolls altogether, and I stopped thinking about the brand as she approached adolescence.

Fast forward to the present, and a new, beloved, little girl. “I’d like to buy Marley a really great doll,” I say to my daughter-in-law.  “Terrific,” she says, “But, please, please don’t buy one from American Girl.” “Really?” I say, a bit taken aback. “Well, they’re the ones with that store out at the mall, aren’t they?” she says.  “I don’t want to get her started on all of that stuff,” she explains patiently.  Despite having written a whole book on commercialization and children—to say nothing of directing the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood—I am crestfallen.

So here’s just one of many flaws in the “just say ‘no’” theory of combating the commercialization of childhood:  Our relationship to the things we purchase for children is complicated.  Our childhood loves and longings influence our choices and, for grandparents, the pleasures and pains of raising our own children go into the mix as well. So when we have a deeply positive past experience with a brand connected with our own childhood, or our children’s, we are resistant to thinking critically about the ways that it has changed.  Research shows that brand loyal customers are less likely to notice price hikes, for instance, in the brands to which they are attached. 

We’re resistant to grappling with other changes as well.  Fathers who played with Transformers as kids don’t want to know that the films are too violent for their children. Adults who spent hours of their childhood building structures with Legos are willing to forgive the kits, the fast food promotions, and even the video games.  Marketers, working with psychologists, understand the power of nostalgia to drive sales.  Believe me, I understand it too.    

In a society that sets virtually no limits on how corporations target children, and when ubiquitous screens make it easier than ever to immerse kids in marketing, it’s a challenge even for motivated adults to limit commercialism in children’s lives.  I finally  managed to find a doll my granddaughter loved that came free of movies, websites, TV shows and branded stores—but it took me a long time and a lot of effort.  It turns out that the American Girl brand I remembered so fondly pretty much wiped out the reasonably-well-crafted-non-sexualized-18-inch-doll market. Read more!

Scooby-Doo Salad? No Thanks. by Susan Linn, Ed.D.

I happen to know a five-year-old fan of SpongeBob SquarePants who told her father, in no uncertain terms, that SpongeBob mac and cheese tastes better than any other macaroni and cheese.  It turns out she was right—sort of. A recent study from the Rudd Center at Yale found that characters like Scooby-Doo and Dora the Explorer actually influence how children experience the taste of junk food, as well as their choice for a snack. The study provides more evidence that marketing can trump children’s senses.  Last year, researchers at Stanford found that children believed that food wrapped in McDonalds packaging tastes better than food wrapped in plain wrappers.

What interests me most about the Rudd Center study, however, is that it found no statistically significant evidence that media characters have an impact on how children experience the taste of carrots.  That’s important news for policy makers.  It’s the fashion in some nutrition circles to advocate for using media characters to market healthy or “healthier” food to children, but that has never made sense to me.  It’s not good for children to get in the habit of choosing food—any kind of food—based on which character is on the package.

Meanwhile, market research suggests that parents are not swarming to buy branded produce.  A 2008 survey found that half of parents said that cartoon characters  on packaging would not affect whether or not they buy produce—and almost 30 percent said that they “probably” or “definitely” would not buy character branded fruits and vegetables. The same survey showed that while sales of branded produce increased when the products were first introduced, sales declined as much as 67 percent over the course of a year.

Taken together, these studies suggest that branding bananas and other produce will not have a serious impact on children’s diets.  Based on the results of their study, the Rudd Center researchers suggest that rather than ramping up the use of licensed characters to market healthy foods, we need to restrict the use of these characters to market low-nutrient, high-energy foods.  Christina Roberta, the study’s lead author, writes, “Given that 13% of marketing expenditures targeting youths are spent on character licensing and other forms of cross-promotion, our findings suggest that the use of licensed characters on junk food packaging should be restricted.”

One thing is clear: we can’t rely on corporations to stop using characters on junk food packaging.  Such marketing is increasing, not decreasing—in spite of food industry pledges to responsibly address the childhood obesity epidemic. Instead of turning carrots into shills for Scooby-Doo, we should be helping children develop relationships with food that have to do with taste and nutrition, not celebrity.  Government restrictions on food companies’ use of characters in marketing to kids will afford parents more freedom to shape children’s healthy eating habits. Read more!

The Real Toy $tory by Susan Linn, Ed.D.

It’s old news that it is virtually impossible to find a movie for kids these days not selling them toys, clothing, food and accessories. But that doesn’t mean we should stop being outraged about it. Particularly egregious is when a film cloaks itself in positive messages while cynically undermining them by brand licensing, product placement and cross promotions.

So I’ll say this for the Disney/Pixar studios: The company does a fabulous job of making films that simultaneously promote and trash socially responsible causes—the former through creative content and the latter through marketing. It’s true that when Pixar execs partnered with British Petroleum to promote Wall-E, the critically acclaimed animated post-apocalyptic environmental fantasy, they couldn’t foresee that BP was going to cause the worst human made environmental disaster ever. But they surely knew, like the rest of us, that drilling for fossil fuels is not exactly a sustainable practice, and that promoting consumption in children by turning film characters into junk plastic toys is not good for the environment either.

And now there’s Toy Story 3—a sometimes poignant rendering of one boy’s transition into adulthood from the point of view of the toys he’s leaving behind. The film concludes with a lovely and pointed celebration of creative play. I get teary thinking about it. I really do. I got teary watching it, too. (Confession: I’m a sucker for “leaving childish things” behind stories. And, as a ventriloquist who has had a long relationship with talking duck, I can and do invest just about any inanimate object with life.) But the marketing of Toy Story 3 does more to stifle children’s imagination than the film does to promote it. Disney expects merchandising to bring in about $2.4 billion, more than any of its other films to date. A search for toys licensed by the Toy Story franchise brings up more than 300 items on ToysRus.com, most of which squelch exactly the kind of creative play the film celebrates. One business writer described the number of Toy Story 3 products at Target as “jaw dropping.”

In addition to the faithful Woody and the stupid-but-good-hearted Buzz Lightyear, new characters—and new potential for licensing—have been added in Toy Story 3. There’s a strawberry scented villainous bear named Lotso—whose mercantile manifestation is as an ursine “smart toy” a la Tickle Me Elmo, which can be had for $49.95. And in a blatant attempt to broaden the film’s appeal across genders—and to add completely gratuitous, sexualized double entendre to the dialogue—Barbie and Ken have been added to the cast and the licensing frenzy. Little girls, presumably unmoved by action, adventure, and Trixie, a rather appealing but boringly unsexualized cowgirl, can now rush out to buy the Disney Pixar Toy Story 3 Barbie Loves Buzz Lightyear Barbie fashion doll for $16.99—and other Toy Story 3 Barbies as well.

There are also the inevitable Lego Kits--the Lego Toy Story 3 Great Train Chase, or the Lego Disney Pixar Toy Story 3 Garbage Truck Getaway set. It’s well known that children play less creatively with media linked toys and with kits—but even more damaging are the Toy Story 3 video games for Nintendo, Sony PS3, Nintendo DS and X box. And of course, there’s the preschool educational media market: V-tech has the MobiGo Toy Story 3 Learning Software for children as young as three, and Leapfrog has learn-to-read digital story books. Never mind that screen media already occupies, on average, about 32 hours a week in the lives of two-to- five year olds at the expense of the kind of hands-on play that is so revered in the film.

It’s ironic that the real threat to toys like Woody, Buzz and the gang is not that the child who loved them grows up. It’s that, in real life, companies like Disney/Pixar have commercialized children’s leisure time to such an extent that a preschooler who might be the beneficiary of outgrown creative playthings is likely to have no idea what to do with them.


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Lechery, Misogyny, and Sadism...Oh My! Nickelodeon’s Internet Assault on Children by Susan Linn, Ed.D. & Josh Golin

Nickelodeon has been urging children to vote for their favorite games at Addicting Games.com, a gaming website that is part of its popular media empire for kids. Tomorrow morning, in a television special called the Addicting Games Showdown, Nickelodeon will announce which game was voted “Most Heart-Pounding,” “Most Superior Ninja” and “OMG! Cutest Animal.” It may sound like Addicting Games is just another innocuous game site for children, but that’s not the case.

CCFC has been monitoring AddictingGames.com for several months. The site, which is just a click away from many of Nick’s popular websites for children, contains numerous sexualized and graphically violent games that aren’t—by any stretch of the imagination—suitable for kids.

That’s why Nick should add a few more categories to its award show:

Category: Most Horrifyingly Misogynistic Game
Nominee: Nancy Balls
Game Description: “You can try to keep women out of congress, but it's going to be really difficult. Take their shoes away and collect guns. That's how to be a MAN."

Category: Most Disturbingly Violent Game
Nominee: Torture Chamber III
Description: “The object of Torture Chamber is to cause as much pain as possible to your victim before he dies. Doing so awards pain points, and unlocks new forms of punishment."

Category: Creepiest Stalker Game
Nominee: Perry the Perv
Description: “Perry the sneak loves women. The only problem is that women don't love Perry. The fact that he's a peeper on a mission doesn't help either. So Perry decided, if you can't beat ‘em, try harder! Help Perry get an eyeful without getting a handful for being the world's best Serial Peaker!"(sic)

Nickelodeon cynically refuses to stop promoting Addicting Games to children, which is why CCFC members overwhelmingly chose the site as the winner of this year’s TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young children) Award for worst toy of the year.

In fact, until recently, Nick promoted—and linked to—AddictingGames.com from websites for preschoolers such as NickJr.com, and the Dora the Explorer website. Those links were removed only after more than 7,000 CCFC members wrote to Nick demanding their removal. But Addicting Games continues to be marketed on Nickelodeon websites popular with young children. That means kids who play online with SpongeBob are only a click away from games that celebrate stalking, torture, and debasing the current Speaker of the House of Representatives solely because she’s a woman.

Since we launched CCFC’s Addicting Games campaign, we’ve heard from a number of angry parents who believed that all of the games on the website were fine for children because they trusted Nickelodeon to provide only age-appropriate content. It’s not surprising that they were—and continue to be—misled. Nick promotes itself as a family-friendly company and promotes Addicting Games under the heading of “Nickelodeon Kids and Family Websites.” And now the company is using the power of its popular children’s television network to lure even more young children to a site that features “naughty” games, shooting games, and even games where the object is to torture animals.

While we find these and other games on AddictingGames.com appalling, we would, to paraphrase Voltaire, defend to the death the right of others to play them—provided those others are adults. Therefore, we recommend a simple solution. Viacom, Nickelodeon’s parent company, should move the adult gaming content to an adults-only website that is not promoted on, or linked from, any of Nickelodeon’s websites or media properties for children. Then the umbrella of “Nickelodeon Kids and Family Websites” would be comprised only of games that actually are for kids and families.

Doing so would acknowledge the obvious: Children are different than adults and deserve special protections on the Internet. No matter how lucrative gaming may be, Nick should not promote lechery and sadism just to keep young eyes glued to advertising supported-screens by providing content.

To urge Nickelodeon to stop promoting violent, sexualized and misogynistic games to children, please visit http://www.commercialexploitation.org/actions/nicknaughtygamesjune2010.html.
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Consuming Everything: CCFC and the Oil Spill by Susan Linn, Ed.D

I know I'm not alone in my inability to stop thinking about that oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes it's foremost in my thoughts, but often it's more in the background, like chronic anxiety, or some dull but persistent toothache. And, as we go about our daily work at CCFC, I'm thinking more than ever about sustainability and its links to our mission of reclaiming childhood from corporate marketers. We can't achieve a sustainable society without curbing consumption.

Lifetime consumer habits begin in childhood. That's one big reason why children are targeted so intensely with marketing and why it needs to stop. As Josh Golin and I wrote in a piece for the Huffington Post on Earth Day last year, "Marketing doesn't just sell children individual products. Its dominant message is that consumption is the path to happiness and self-fulfillment." Marketers sell consumption, not just as a lifestyle, but as the lifestyle. Limiting children's exposure to corporate marketing allows them the time and space to learn to take their pleasure in other people, nature, and their own creative play, rather than relying for satisfaction on the things that corporations sell. Children deserve a commercial-free childhood, and the earth deserves it as well.

So, while what may be the worst un-natural environmental disaster of all time unfolds, I am reminded that the commercialization of childhood affects so much more than families currently raising children. The primacy of marketplace values-and instilling those values into the next generation-imperils everyone. It's true that children benefit immediately and directly when we limit their exposure to commercial marketing. But the impact is so much broader. Allowing kids to grow up free from bombardment by marketing messages is our best chance to nurture adults who recognize the value of preserving, rather than exploiting, environmental riches-who define themselves more as stewards than consumers. By working for the rights of children to grow up-and the freedom for parents to raise them-without being undermined by commercialism, CCFC promotes a more sustainable world. Read more!