Could Disney’s magic save us from

Donald Trump?
Popular culture, Mass media, Power, and Social Learning Theory

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 A very “naïve”
question?

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Lalo Alcaraz (*)

 A discourse we are all familiar with:

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 Why do people stand by (and for) him?

 “For the first time since the rise of fascism,

culture matters more than prosperity to a great
many people. This president has nurtured a
version of identity in which you are not what you
do, or even what you earn and own, but what you
feel” (D´Ancona 2018)

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 Is there a counter-discourse?

 Hypothesis
 Donald Trump uses emotions and metaphors to promote a particular perspective on minorities. Children´s TV shows
and movies subvert such discourse by using the same elements as the president in order to advocate tolerance and
create alternative models.
 Context: 2016 – 2018

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 How does Trump´s speech work?
• Vicarious
Social
Learning
Theory
learning
(Bandura,
1975)
• Symbolic
modeling

Metaphors
(Johsen and • Pragmatic
Lakoff 2003,
Charteris- • Cognitive
Black 2004,

Emotions • Fear
(Ahmed 2013,
Wodak 2015, • Disgust
ISS Uniovi/UPAEP Altheide 06/04/2020
2006) • Hate
 Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1975)

Fixation/expression
• Indicants of reality: “a vast amount
of information about human values,
styles of thinking, and behavior
Symbolic modeling patterns” (Bandura 2001, 271) 
• Coherence “by comparing how well • Metaphors
thoughts match some indicant of
reality” (Bandura 2001, 269)
Observational/Vicarious
learning
• Through others
• Electronic acculturation (Bandura
2001)

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 How do SLT and Metaphors relate?

Retention
Imaginary Verbal process
(1/4)

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 Metaphors, language, and power

Pragmative
 “Incongruous linguistic representation that has the
underlying propose of influencing opinions and
perceptions by persuasion” (Charteris-Black 2004,
21
Cognitive
 “a shift in the conceptual system” (Charteris-
Black 2004, 21
 Origin context ---› Target concept
 Previously unnoticed similarity

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 Metaphorical speech

 “Center of rhetorical training (. . .) regarded as a socially powerful but also dangerous ‘trope’ or figure of
speech” (Mussolf 2011, 302)
 Uses linked to power:
 “War” language (Johsen and Lakoff 2003)
 Deshumanizing minorities: “places them “down to the ‘lower’ ranks of animals, plants, disease-engendering
organisms” (Mussolf 2011, 302)

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 • “Emotional capital” (Putman y Mumby 1992)
• Hierarchy of emotions ( Ahmed 2013, 22)
• Evaluation and feeling
• Helps to “control both the expression of and the
interpretation” (Putman and Mumby 1992, 473)
• Enhance the “loyalty, identification, and

Fear, Disgust, Love: The solidarity that bind a collectivity in a particular

way” (Putman y Mumby 1992, 473)

power of emotions.
• Attention + retention processes +
reinforcement /motivation processes (Bandura
2001)
• Meaningful
• Relatable

A relationship based on how the body reacts/feels? • Attraction

• Reward

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 A ‘fantastic’ alternative?

Use of emotions Metaphorical language

Black Panther Zootopia
Coco Marlon Bundo
Elena of Avalor
Stuck in the Middle

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 Black Panther: subverssion and modeling

 “The risk of being a ‘soft touch’ for the nation,

and for the national subject, is not only the risk of
becoming feminine, but also of becoming ‘less
white’, by allowing those who are recognized as
racially other to penetrate the surface of the body”
(Ahmed 2013, 3)

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 Coco, Elena, Stuck in the Middle

 ¿Nuevas latinidades?
 Reinterpretation of how the “reproduction of the
national ideal” works (Ahmed 2013, 194)
 “For me, being a latino is being a good person”
(Hernández 2018)

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 Back to basic´s: Zootopia

 Why animals?
 Aesoph fables: “are coherent with the major
orientational metaphors of the main-stream culture”
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 24)
 “Entertainment, fear and social control have helped
join the interests and narrative of popular culture
with an expansive social control industry” (Altheide
2006, 4)

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 “I came here to make the world a better place, but I
think I broke it – Don´t give yourself so much credit,
Hops. The world has always been broken”

Hops and Chief Bogo.

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 Marlon Bundo

 Anger, humor and revenge

 When we are preoccupied with the battle aspects,
we often lose sight of the cooperative aspects”
(Johsen and Lakoff 2003, 10)
 3 reasons to buy the book: quality, solidarity, and
“really piss him off” (Oliver 2018)

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 Conclusions

 Trump´s discourse:
 Vicarious learning + metaphors ---› Referents of reality fixated by emotions
 Alternatives:
 Cartoons: reappropiation, subvertion, new referents, revenge?
 Dangers:
 Trump is currently president
 How to speak ill of Disney (Mattelart and Dorfman 1971)
 Infantilization, overgeneralization, “feminization”?
 Multicultural love: Homogeneization of minorities (Ahmed)
 The great abscents

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 “Amor verdadero nos une por siempre, en el latido de mi
corazón”

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Gracias por su atención.