Disney Offers Parents Refunds on Baby Einstein Videos
Disney Offers Refunds on Baby Einstein Videos
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s ongoing campaign to stop the false and deceptive marketing of baby videos has had an important success. We’ve persuaded the Walt Disney Company to offer a full refund to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein DVD in the last five years. The refund is only available for a limited time, so please help us spread the word now.
Read more atwww.commercialfreechildhood.org.
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood writes:
One of best articles on the Baby Einstein refunds features CCFC’s Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige. Nancy draws on her vast knowledge of child development to explain why mimicking baby videos isn’t the same as learning for infants and offers tips for entertaining and educating young children without a screen. http://commercialfreechildhood.org//news/2009/12/noesinteins.html.
Speaking of CCFC and Baby Einstein: In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Maxwell King-director of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media-calls on Disney to engage in an honest debate about the role of media in children’s lives, rather than attacking the messenger. http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20091222_Is_Baby_Einstein_so_smart_.html.
Last month we told you about The Possibility Shop, Disney’s first branded online series designed to promote Clorox. Sara Grimes, one of our favorite bloggers, watched the first episode and writes in “The Possibility to Clean and Buy Stuff Shop” that there are significant reasons for concern:
First, there’s the blatant and clearly over-reaching commercialization, which surely pushes (I would say exceeds) the limits of existing regulations around advertising to kids. But second, and no less disturbing, are the archaic gender discourses that arise from a craft show, most likely targeted to girls and already explicitly targeted to women (“moms”), that is not only sponsored by cleaning products but “commonly” features cleaning as a key theme of the show itself. Read more here: http://gamineexpedition.blogspot.com/2009/12/possibility-to-clean-and-buy-stuff-shop.html