conspiracy project
There are messages in everything that falls within the category of social media. From books and newspapers to cartoons and movies, all forms of media contain a purpose, mainly to get the audience to believe a certain way. While some messages may be very obvious, such as a food commercial advertising a new hamburger, other messages may not be as clear. What does this result in? Subliminal messages. According to an online dictionary, Dictionary.com, subliminal is defined as “existing or operating below the threshold; being or employing stimuli insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation but often being or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or behavior of the individual” (Dictionary.com). In other words, subliminal is an attempt to convey subtle messages into the subconscious mind. Some studies theorize that subliminal images are used in advertising as a means of increasing product sales. For example, pictures of the ice on a Coca-cola vending machine forman abstract sexual illustration of a female body lying down (Klimov). While the use of subliminal messages in advertising are understandable from a business perspective, selling products may not be the only purpose of subliminal messages. Placing subliminal messages in children’s cartoons, for instance, must be an act of another motivation, since children themselves are not able to buy products on their own. There are multiple Walt Disney animations, as well as other well known cartoons, from which critics have claimed to pick out a few naughty things. This leads parents, and other audiences, to believe that Walt Disney and other animation producers are indirectly (subliminally) communicating sexual and inappropriate ideas to their children. One of the most profoundly discussed examples of subliminal messages at work can be found in The Lion King. In this Disney movie, released in 1994, there is a scene in which Simba is on top of a cliff and thuds himself on a bed of