Cartoons: Entrainment for children or hidden messages

In this post I'm going to talk about subliminal messages in the cartoons. Recently, I found out that almost everything that surrounds us contains some hidden messages. Brand's logos, movies, advertisements, etc. all of these contains hidden messages, we also call it subliminal messages. But just a few weeks ago my friend told me about subliminal messages in the cartoons and I decided to make some research; by the end of the day I was shocked to figure out that when I watch cartoons I don't notice such obvious things. 

The word subliminal literally means "below the liminal", or beneath perception. That's slightly misleading, because for subliminal messages to work, they must be perceived at some level, and so a better definition might be “below the threshold of consciousness”. Subliminal messaging therefore refers to the act of sending messages directly to the subconscious mind.


Most of the Disney's cartoons consist of the subliminal messages and in almost all of Disney's cartoons or movies we can find a word "SEX" which is hidden somewhere in between the scenes. Now i wonder if this is the word that all children should know when they watch "entertaining" cartoons? Or may be this word helps children to understand the main point of the cartoon? Of course, Disney claimed that it was not created on purpose and they didn't want to insult someone. They removed the scenes where audience has noticed these messages but by removing one scene which contained the subliminal message they were adding another one where no one could notice it.

But let's forget about word "SEX", what about the images or scenes that are not appropriate for children in the cartoons. I found a lot of scenes in Disney cartoons that were kind of funny and at the same time insulting. My favorite Disney cartoon was The Little Mermaid. Now when I saw the scene, where the priest seems to be a little too happy to be at Eric's and Ursula's wedding and gets an erection, I realized that this wasn't the movie that I used to enjoy watching over and over again. In addition, have you ever seen the 1st cover of The Little Mermaid? I guess you did, but you've never noticed an interesting part of kingdom and I hope that cover was drawn by a disgruntled artist.

If you think that Walt Disney is the only studio that promotes subliminal messages, then you are wrong. Let's take as an example Nickelodeon. Oh, I loved it when I was a kid; however, now when I realize what I was watching, I understand that I should not show this cartoons to my young sister. I guess many of us love Spongebob Squarepants, now let's take a look at what does Patrick, Spongebob's friend, do at one of the scenes that I can perfectly remember in one of the episodes.

Unfortunately, these examples that I demonstrated are just a few among other million that exist. My advice is to pay attention on what your younger siblings, children and nieces/nephews watch, because this type of messages affect their mind and this may lead to a undesirable circumstances.

Product placement in the movies

First of all we need to know what does it mean the term product placement. Product placement is an adveritising techniques used by companies to subtly promote their products through a non-traditional advertising technique, usually through apperances in film, television, or other media. The media company and a product manufacturer should come to an agreement and of course a product manufacturer should pay for a product placement so that the media company will be interested in this deal. 


Every time when I watch movies I notice something that most of my friends don't. In almost every movie we can see different types of brands that can be noticed, if you watch a movie carefully. You think that it is the part of the movie and it means nothing; however, the professional advertisers with the colleboration of the media company involve these brands so that it would not be very obvious in the movie, but at the same time it can be noticed by audience.

Recently, one of the most famous technological firms, Apple, won 2010 award for the Overall Product Placement. You can see Apple in almost all the top movies of US, and in my point of view it is quite impossible not to notice that.

One of the worst product placement was in Wall Street: Money never sleeps, from a blatant Heineken plug to a surfeit of Dunkin' Donuts cups, each overt placement was outdone in the film's final moments, when Stone inserts a match-cut from an IWC watch face o a birthday cake

In conclusion, as we all know media has huge influence on us, and movies are part of media; so by placing the advertisements in movies the audience may think "I should buy the same product as this famous actor in this movie, because if a celebrity uses this product so it is really good". Most of the time the product placement works because we as an audience get influenced by it.

From Baku (Azerbaijan) to Sharjah (UAE)

Baku (Azerbaijan)

I've been living in Baku (Azerbaijan) for 16 years; however, my dad is Palestinian and my mom is Osetin, Russian and Azerbaijani. We don't have a lot of traditions in our family, may be that is why till now I don't know where I belong. Azerbaijan is where east meets west. People in Azerbaijan are open-minded but at the same time they know the value of family, religion, and traditions. I used to have a lot of friends there, basically I was enjoying my life there because I've always had people who would be able to support me at any time. When I came to Sharjah I had a cultural shock. People in Sharjah are different from people in Baku; more traditions, more prohibitions, more people who LOVE to stereotype. The first 1.5 yr for me was the most difficult time during my entire life. However, after my 3d semester at AUS I got used to this culture, because I learned some traditions of Gulf countries. Now, I really like UAE and I enjoy my time here. I think it is a really good experience for me and it will help me in my future.


THE BEST MEMORY (Baku)