Allure of the Forbidden

by Natalie Jankowski

BEAST: The castle is your home now, so you can go anywhere you wish, except the West Wing.
BELLE: What’s in the West Wing?
BEAST: It’s forbidden!

What is this allure toward the forbidden we humans have? In the Disney animated classic (ok, so clearly the allure is not just limited to humans) Beauty and the Beast, despite Beast warning Belle not to enter the West Wing as it is forbidden, what does she later do? With slight trepidation, she goes in anyway. Why are we innately drawn to things just beyond our grasp, things we are told not to go near?

 

Last Friday, October 21, I had the opportunity to attend the Center’s last event of the semester, a brown bag discussion with Dr. Charles Bosk about his paper “Forbidden Knowledge: The Phenomenology of Scientific Inaction” (though he prefers the term “social cartography of knowledge” to “forbidden knowledge”). Trying to grasp this concept of “forbidden knowledge” (which I am going to abbreviate as FK for now…) was a bit tricky, I’ll admit. In his paper, Dr. Bosk gives a kind of two-fold definition of the broad term, FK: it “refers to research that poses an unacceptable threat to human or animal subjects, to society at large, or to the researchers themselves…. [FK] better calls attention to how academic researchers understand the cultural, organizational, disciplinary, and personal factors that shape acceptable research options.” It’s kind of a broad definition and thus, I had a little trouble trying to relate to it or at least put it in a context that I could better understand.

 

The questions of who, exactly, is doing the forbidding and where authority lies came up frequently. In his question to Dr. Bosk, one of the Center’s fellows used the term “corporatization of knowledge” almost as an alternative to FK. Kind of like in Monster’s Inc. when Mike and Sully figure out how to occupy Boo once they realize she is only a harmless little girl (second Disney reference… you see where I’m going with this?),and then it hit me: Disney! Now, as usual, I could relate. “Corporatization of knowledge” almost seems like a branch of FK, though in the case of the Walt Disney Company, it is not quite in the same context, but Disney will serve as a great example nonetheless.

 

Disney has a TON of authority and forbidding power in our society that many people may not realize. Why? Because they don’t hear about it. Why? Disney keeps it on the DL. Why? So as not to tarnish their happy, magical image. Disney fits the concept of “corporatization of knowledge” perfectly. They are one of the big five media conglomerates that dominate global media and have a “to infinity and beyond” (thank you Buzz Lightyear) type of control over what information the public sees and consumes. Disney is an active participant in a kind of FK in all the information they choose, or not, to release to us; a type of control that could be seen as threatening to our democracy. And I mean that with the utmost respect as I still do work for them, but find critiquing their practices absolutely fascinating. On that note, (and no, I am not always required to say this, but shall say it anyway) have a magical day!