John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed, is a famous character in American History. In my opinion, he is a somewhat forgotten character. I do not recall learning about him very much in school, and only hearing occasional references to him, and watching the Disney cartoon as a child. Disney created a cartoon about the infamous Johnny Appleseed, and compared to Pollan's views of him, the Disney version is a lot more family oriented. The fact that it is a cartoon says something about what will be included and excluded. Disney created an artistic character version of Chapman. This is not surprising, considering that Disney is a company in the entertainment industry, and their target market is primarily for families with young children. Disney is a story telling company, which creates fantasies. With this in mind, it makes sense that their cartoon would omit controversial aspects of the legend of Johnny Apple Seed. The Disney version of John Chapman is much like the Bill Jones that Pollan meets in The Botany of Desire. It portrays him as a flawless American hero, who should be used as a role model for the country.
Pollan, on the other hand, is an author who is not concerned about if unsuitable content in his book will prevent young children from reading it, because his target audience is mainly adults. His view on John Chapman is more biographical or historical than Disney's. He is more focused on the facts, rather than just making a catchy story to sell. Pollan seems to want to look at the darker side of John Chapman, and points out the many things that shroud Chapman's story. He includes things such as the child bride and alcohol, which would never make it into a Disney cartoon. Pollan is out to set the story straight, and to show that John Chapman was just a regular person, who was in it for the money, and that he was not some hero of the frontier.
The Pollan version of John Chapman is much more believable, because Disney is more likely to not include incriminating facts about so-called role models, because there's a profit in it for them.
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2 comments:
You did a wonderful job of analyzing the differences between Disney and Pollan's stories. I really liked that you took in to account the Disney is an "entertainment industry." I also liked how you looked at Pollan's audience and how this affected his agenda.
I like how you focused on the audiences of both Disney and Pollan. I agree too as well that Disney is more "family-oriented" and filled with "fantasies" while Pollan talks about alcohol which will never make it to Disney. You did a good job of presenting the facts and stating who the audience is and why they stated it.
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