Adriana Barbaro and Jeremy Earp

Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood

Adriana Barbaro and Jeremy Earp work for the Media Education Foundation; Barbaro is the Director-Producer of Consuming Kids, and Earp is MEF’s Director of Production. MEF states that its mission is to produce and distribute “documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media.” Among its other documentary films are Beauty Mark: Body Image and the Race for Perfection; Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video; and Blood and Oil, which respectively analyze America’s obsession with thinness and physical perfection; music videos’ portrayals of girls and women; and war’s relationship to the oil industry.

Like these other films, Consuming Kids asks questions concerning a specific sociopolitical phenomenon (in this case, advertising that is aimed at children), inviting the audience to reconsider the significance of something they likely encounter on a daily basis. Although this video is actually the film’s trailer, it gives a clear idea of how a documentary goes about investigating and analyzing its topic; the trailer functions as an outline describing a more extensive analytical piece.

View transcript.

Source: mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=134