Disney’s Subliminal Messages

Cute little animated cartoon characters, or skanks with a message?

For years and years alot of us have heard about subliminal messages in cartoons and animations. So what are subliminal messages and how do they work?

Subliminal messages in movies and television take two forms. The first and most controversial is a few frames added to a movie or television show that contain a message. The second type of subliminal message is the inclusion of an object in the movie set which can contain a message that is theoretically interpreted by the subconscious.

A movie in the theater is projected at 24 frames per second. This rate of projection insures that the film is interpreted as “flicker less” by the human brain. The human eye and brain can not interpret action that occurs at less than 1/30th of a second. The projection rate insures that the human neural system can interpret the action on the screen without being jumpy or starting and stopping.

Subliminal messages can be a few frames of message that are inserted into a scene in the movie. While there is some debate as to whether subliminal messages truly are effective, they are inserted into many movies as either a product promotion or an attempt to heighten the sensation that is created in the scene.

In theory, while the eye can not visually see the few frames of subliminal message edited into the movie the subconscious receives the message and responds to the message. When an object is inserted into the scene, the eye may be following the action of the scene while the subconscious responds to the object and this response is transmitted to the conscious. link

In recent times, most of the uncovering of subliminal messages are found in Disney movies. And surprisingly enough, most of them are of sexual content. Which makes it even worse since these are usually made for children. I was expecting to find alot of different subliminal messages. Reading Ansam’s post about an Alladin song which included the line “Where they cut off your ear, if they don’t like your face… It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home”, i thought when i did the research i would find subliminal messages on the same level. Politics, war and present day crisis’s was not to be found, so far at least. Aladdin’s song was a portrayal of Arabs as barbaric and uncivilised by the above quote. Yet, if you google subliminal messages in Disney, you will find the same 6 parts from the same movies. I was surprised, some debatable to me, but the fact that site after site, and blog after blog all mention the same messages has to have some truth in it. You can find the link here if you dont mind seeing and listening to some sexual content in animated movies.