Disney Meets Davy

Ryan Hinds
June 6, 2013 Disney Meets Davy

In the wake of the Great Depression and World War Two, the country was still rebuilding and moral was on the rise. Television started becoming a major part of everyday life, as well as making an impact on viewers around the world. Using the great American hero Davy Crockett, Disney created an icon and created a franchise that would help in the economy.
Along with the coonskin cap, moccasins, and toy rifles, children everywhere wanted to become the great Davy Crockett. Children ran around reciting the “Ballad of Davy Crockett”, taking the role of Indians fighting Davy, and wanted everything to do with him. This soon caused an uproar with parents and teachers, saying the children would spend more time reciting the ballad then their ABC’s. This soon grasped the attention of politicians and critics everywhere. Some even sought to call Davy Crockett names and created slander. Disney was on the ropes with charges of anti-intellectualism. In the 1980’s Disney would revise their great American hero from drunken brawler into a New Age hero in tune with nature, peaceful, brave, and humorous in a sincere way; in turn, creating a new five piece series. Television would not be the same. From this our current social media started to form, depicting heroes as flawless people.
It seems today that most social media prevent the gaining of knowledge. Though it might induce wild imaginations, it inhibits the ability for children to go outside and create their own adventures. To often we see children playing indoors rather than out. More interested in cyber friends, rather than real friends. It produces the question, “how far has media really come other than the use of better technology?”