Learning with Disney: Children's Animation and the Politics of Innocence.

This article reconsiders the concept of innocence in relation to animated films for children, focusing particularly on Disney but additionally drawing on examples from other traditions. The author argues that the notion of innocence within these films is potentially double-edged, encompassing both actively transformative and more vulnerable, passive properties. Children's animation is not simply culturally conservative, however, but also rehearses other possibilities, often in a playful form. The article suggests that what children learn from Disney and other animated films is shaped in complex ways by responses to the quality of innocence with which such films are so often imbued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]