I watch a lot of kids TV with my two girls. A lot. Like, you, hypothetical bourgeois CT reader, think I am a bad parent type of a lot. This is in part a consequence of a happy development: 24-hour cable channels offering ad-free, age-appropriate kids shows. To say that these shows are better than the ones I watched when I was young doesn’t begin to bridge the vast chasm which looms between the Higglytown Heroes and Jem and The Holograms (which remains, however, totally outrageous. And in fairness I watched that show when I was much older than my kids are now. Which is all the more embarassing, really.) But one’s mind tends to wander when a previously viewed episode of Stanley comes on. (Warning: an instrumental version of the Stanley theme song will play. Interestingly, the original version played on the show is performed by the BahaMen, of “Who Let The Dogs Out” fame. Or, perhaps more accurately, not interestingly.)
So, I have been wondering about the gender politics of these shows. Let’s take the new offering: Little Einsteins. This show has obviously been put together by a crack team of well-meaning educational consultants. The opening credits for the show have the Little Einsteins explaining that the music from this epsiode is by Camille Saint-Saëns, and the images are provided by Paul Gaugin and Hokusai. But they refer to him as Katsushika Hokusai. On the kids show. That’s not even really his first name, it’s some kind of toponym, but whatever. It’s not like I’m totally ignorant about Ukiyo-E, but I had never heard this before. It’s a very random thing for 4-year-olds to know.
The Little Einsteins have to navigate around the problems they encounter by referring to a map on which the directions are encoded as various musical themes. So then they offer (phantom) choices to the viewer, Ã la Dora The Explorer: was this a crescendo? No, the music got quieter! And so on. So, the cast: there are two boys and two girls. One boy is black, the other white. One of the girls is asian-ish, and the other white. This is all fine and dandy. But who is the captain of the team? The white boy. Why? No, really why? (Or on Stanley, sure, he’s got some little black twin sidekicks, but when you get right down to it it’s all about Stanley and his British fish (also male.)) Now, there are also shows with female leads, such as Dora and Jojo’s Circus. (Though in the former case they’ve had to come up with Diego, even more boring than Dora herself. And all her friends are boys except Issa the useless iguana.)
No, the thing I don’t understand with Little Einsteins is, since it’s an absolute given that the creators had all kinds of earnest meetings about the ethnicity of the characters etc., what was the motivation to just revert to ordinary filmic conventions and make the white boy the leader? I sort of imagine them feeling, well, me made enough concessions in putting the asian chick in, so… Finally, if the Little Einsteins ever get in any real trouble that little black guy is toast. (This just reminds me of watching Final Fantasy. When the one big black marine sacrificed his life for the white guy and his magic scientist girlfriend I thought “even a digitally animated brother can’t catch a break.” Although the most egregious example ever was in that movie Mimic about scientist Mira Sorvino inventing giant bugs. The noble black subway worker who just met these people 10 minutes ago sacrifices himself by going out to lure giant bugs to eat him alive, and he does so by banging a sledgehammer on the subway tracks while singing old Negro spirituals, I shit you not.)
{ 43 comments }
Paul Orwin 03.16.06 at 1:40 am
I understand your sentiment (although I think you are unduly harsh on Diego!). However, my kids run around the house singing “I used to be a buggy wuggy, buggy wuggy, buggy guy” to the tune of Beethoven’s Ninth. I couldn’t be happier!
Barry Freed 03.16.06 at 1:40 am
Finally, if the Little Einsteins ever get in any real trouble that little black guy is toast.
Is he wearing a red shirt?
lalala 03.16.06 at 2:37 am
There’s something pleasingly stream-of-consciousness about this post. I’m assuming you’ve read Ellen Seiter’s book Sold Separately? Kind of dated as far as the children’s products she talks about, but many of the ideas still hold.
rilkefan 03.16.06 at 2:57 am
I would hazard the guess that it’s already too late to present a neutral world view to 4-year-olds – they already have become convinced that it is just the way of things that the white boy is the leader.
Or, the white boy drew the long straw, and the asianish girl will lead next season.
Dumb question: in a group of kids that age (and all of an age), is a boy or girl more likely to be the leader?
One might also ask why a group of little kids needs a clear leader.
joel turnipseed 03.16.06 at 2:57 am
Well… having just crossed the tubicon with my 19 month-old daughter, I’m torn. While I realize that babysitting a toddler is an arduous task (especially for someone seeking to get some reading/writing done), I wonder: is it possible to limit their intake of television to programs that do not reinforce unfortunate stereotypes?
And, for all that, if it’s not,, doesn’t this in itself provide a kind of learning opportunity? My mother-in-law positively cringes when I read Maia her “Bible Stories” book (I have no choice in which book she brings me when she wants to upo sa papa’s lap)–as I say, “And here’s where God so loved his creation that he killed off all but two of each…” & “Here’s Abraham–God asked him to kill his son–is that a nice thing, Maia?” To which she replies, with a response learned from Five Little Monkeys,” “no, no, no, no, no…” Heh.
Which is to say: don’t know much about the particulars of the shows you’re watching–but am asking the CT crowd: what to be aware (or beware) of? How do you use pop culture as an educational lesson?
dale 03.16.06 at 3:09 am
rilkefan threatens to ask an interesting question:
“One might also ask why a group of little kids needs a clear leader.”
this early, we’re being taught to defer to leadership and to identify leadership structures. that IS interesting.
i also second lalala (3) – lovely post.
Ginger Yellow 03.16.06 at 3:48 am
I haven’t seen Mimic, but is there any chance they could have been taking the piss out of the cliche? If not, Jesus.
otto 03.16.06 at 7:04 am
It would be much better if every show had a female african-american in a form of (post-heroic) leadership, an asian-american musician/slacker, and a white guy sidekick.
Belle Waring 03.16.06 at 7:29 am
see, otto, maybe you’re laughing at me and stuff, but I think it actually would be better.
Steve 03.16.06 at 7:37 am
I agree with Otto. And yes, we are laughing at you.
But don’t worry. Once the kids grow up, they will learn from pop culture that every judge in the United States is a black female. Karmic balance will have been restored.
Steve
otto 03.16.06 at 7:38 am
Wouldn’t it be even better if children’s shows included more discussion and actual practice of redistribution of resources by common decisions (i.e. not just ‘sharing’ or charity)?
A little counter-intuitive ethnic diversity is all the Scheissliberalen want, no?
reuben 03.16.06 at 8:22 am
It would be much better if every show had a female african-american in a form of (post-heroic) leadership, an asian-american musician/slacker, and a white guy sidekick.
It’s the word “every” that makes this argument one of the strawman variety, no?
That being said, as a white man, where can I find some of these non-white males who will sacrifice themselves for me so that I can achieve all my goals and get to bang really hot chicks? Because I could really dig some of that action.
John 03.16.06 at 8:42 am
There might be more going on than gender politics. Or, more precisely, the educational consultants might be playing gender politics chess, not gender politics checkers. (But wait, that’s not precise at all, let me explain.)
I was reading Gurian’s “The Minds of Boys.” While atrociously written, the book has an interesting perspective: a lot of child-rearing institutions are not well-suited to the development of boys. Boys need kinesthetic stimulation, for instance, and it’s in short supply when they’re crammed into a desk for 6th grade English class. They need to run around, and they’re not generally as verbal as girls.
Maybe they even need to feel in charge of something, instead of bossed around by quicker developing girl peers.
Western Dave 03.16.06 at 8:49 am
Belle,
You must, must get your hands on Backyardigans. No explicit racial angle except for the names of the animals (Pablo, Tyrone, Tasha, and Uniqua) but they imagine a new adventure in every episode and different characters have different issues that they are working on. Pablo the Penguin can be counted on for at least one panic attack per episode. They rotate things so that different characters take the lead in each episode and not every character appears in every episode. The music is really, really good and the choreography is strong. My 3 year old daughter and I veg out to this quite a bit. Also popular in our house are Little Bear, Little Bill, Hi-5, Dora, Angelina Ballerina, Big Sister Little Brother (a Swedish import on PBS kids), and Barney. A lot of people talk smack about Barney but that’s because deep down in inside, they hate the messages of peace, love, respect, and cooperation that Barney teaches. Or it’s the damn voice.
Over tghe course of a week, my daughter watches shows made in the US, Iceland, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands (ah, Miffy you impish rabbit!), the UK (Maisy, you scamp of a mouse) and god knows where else, especially with a lot of the animation being outsourced. This is a huge shift from my own youth.
Ray 03.16.06 at 9:02 am
The problem with Barney is not his voice, it’s the oh-so-punchable children he hangs around with.
Alison 03.16.06 at 9:20 am
Boys need kinesthetic stimulation, for instance, and it’s in short supply when they’re crammed into a desk for 6th grade English class. They need to run around
Thank god this doesn’t apply to girls, who like nothing better than to sit still and do embroidery.
Maybe they even need to feel in charge of something, instead of bossed around
Again, I am just grateful that girls never feel disempowered or miss out on being given leadership roles.
Jeremy Osner 03.16.06 at 9:36 am
I feel a bit guilty for having gotten Sylvia into Ed, Edd and Eddy, which is now her favorite show. I find it much more watchable than Little Einsteins though.
Delicious Pundit 03.16.06 at 9:47 am
The hoary cliche I used to hear was that girls will watch shows starring boys, but boys won’t watch shows starring girls. I have no idea whether executives still act on that cliche, but it would explain Jim Belushi. “Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends”, which my daughter has gotten into, is pretty super-girly, as far as I can see, which is about three minutes.
Belle is right about the quality of these shows. I was watching a “Farily OddParents” with my kids and found myself thinking, All these jokes are really good (if screechy). Do you think they take writers who are too old for network TV?
Keven Lofty 03.16.06 at 9:59 am
You should try Between the Lions on PBS, though the main characters are lions they are patently a black family. And my kids’ favorite episodes is one where they are taught that girls can be Pirates as well using the story of .
On top of that it’s great.
The main characters in Dragon Tails are all Hispanic, but it’s not as good.
LizardBreath 03.16.06 at 10:02 am
The hoary cliche I used to hear was that girls will watch shows starring boys, but boys won’t watch shows starring girls.
This is a cliche, but I don’t know that it’s all that hoary; I’ve read, for example that Little Women was popular when it came out, and for a long time afterward, among readers regardless of gender.
Agreeing with the Little Einsteins complaint — I notice similar patterns on a lot of softer gender issues. Equality is the accepted ideal; not-quite achieved equality is an unimportant vestige of the past; but moving at all past the point of mathematical equality, and placing the white male in a non-dominant position? That’s just crazy talk.
Marital name-changing is like that. A woman changes her name when she marries? It’s tradition, no biggie. She doesn’t change her name? Great — but of course the kids have the father’s last name. She hyphenates her name? Great — odds are her husband doesn’t, and the kids don’t (my family’s a counter-example, but we’re not the norm among women with hyphenated names). Everybody hyphenates? That’s pretty damn feminist — good for you! The husband changes his name in any way that the wife doesn’t (hyphenates to add her name, changes his name to hers) or neither parent changes their name, but the kids take the woman’s name? Now that’s just weird.
Perfect equality is barely acceptable — but in any situation where there’s going to be a deviation from perfect equality, like a group with one leader, the white guy still ends up in charge an awful lot.
Keven Lofty 03.16.06 at 10:03 am
Sorry, that last post screwed up…
The episode is about the 17th century pirate Anne Bonney
Cryptic Ned 03.16.06 at 10:04 am
Please don’t tell us you also like that show about Oswald the polite octopus. That one moves just a little bit too slow for the average 4-year-old.
otto 03.16.06 at 10:17 am
I tempted by married couples swapping surnames.
Belle Waring 03.16.06 at 10:17 am
I’m all about the oswald, providing I just took a huge bong hit.*
*but that would totally never happen in real life, EVER.
Cryptic Ned 03.16.06 at 10:30 am
I tempted by married couples
How ironic.
Cryptic Ned 03.16.06 at 10:43 am
BTW, I just searched Google for “polite octopus”, and every single response (aside from all the spam blogs) was about Oswald. He’s truly an innovative character.
Urinated State of America (M.A. Cantab) 03.16.06 at 11:46 am
“Which is to say: don’t know much about the particulars of the shows you’re watching—but am asking the CT crowd: what to be aware (or beware) of? How do you use pop culture as an educational lesson?”
If your toddler wakes you up at 5:30 am, any old crap that keeps them occupied enough so you can make the coffee.
Little Einstein’s doesn’t seem so bad to me; sort of a “Cyberchase” for the younger kids. God knows its better than most of the crap on Nickolodeon.
“A lot of people talk smack about Barney but that’s because deep down in inside, they hate the messages of peace, love, respect, and cooperation that Barney teaches. Or it’s the damn voice.”
I hate you
You hate me
Let’s all go and kill Barney
The shots rang out and Barney hit the floor
No more purple dinosaur
Actually, Barney is much less annoying than I thought.
Doesn’t ‘Boobah’ strike people as being both very strange and also derivative of Teletubbies?
Thomas the Tank Engine is kiddy crack, though.
Mykhailo 03.16.06 at 12:41 pm
Actually, Barney is much less annoying than I thought.
Yeah, I sort of grudingly like Barney himself, at least a little tiny bit. The show really wouldn’t be all that awful if it were just him. It’s his creepy friends that are so disturbing.
Boobah, btw, was created by the same lady who came up with Teletubbies, which is a great, great show imo.
It would be much better if every show had a female african-american in a form of (post-heroic) leadership, an asian-american musician/slacker, and a white guy sidekick.
How about Kim Possible, with the post-post-post feminist chick hero who isn’t afraid to be strong AND a cheerleader, and her slacker white male sidekick? :rolleyes: But, on the other hand, that is one awesome show — a total Futurama ripoff in the bestest possible way.
it’s an absolute given that the creators had all kinds of earnest meetings about the ethnicity of the characters etc.
Did you see the Arthur “Holidy” special? Instead of bringing in “Arthur’s previously non-existent black friend”, they managed to pull off the obligatory Kwanzaa celebration in brilliant fashion, by having The Brain’s athiest family doing Kwanzaa in a thinly disguised protest against consumerism and having religion shoved down their throat, thereby striking a blow against both Christian triumphalists AND PC ninnies in one fell swoop. A truly awe-inspiring solution to a problem that the hipster writers for these shows must dread having to deal with.
BigMacAttack 03.16.06 at 1:06 pm
The cynic in me says the lack of contrary views in this thread, proves that none of Belle’s readers cast for cartoons/kid shows, but everyone cleans.
I dunno
Backyardigans Hippo Penguin Moose
Dora Hispanic Girl
Lazytown Girl is real focus
Scooby Doo Velma
Little Bill Black
The Last Avatar Chinese and has a cool girl
(Not sure about Higglytown Hereos)
Mrs Spider some bugs not sure who leads
Tom and Jerry guys/cat/mouse
Dragon Tales older girl more in charge
Batman white guy and token girl partner
Little Einsteins Older brother more in charge
Thomas is a train helmet fest
Wonder Pets Hamster
Ben 10 Boy
I dunno seems like a pretty diverse group. Maybe a little boy slant.
Don’t watch a lot of kung fu stuff, I guess that would be more boy oriented, but that makes sense.
Steve LaBonne 03.16.06 at 2:01 pm
This thread actually makes me HAPPY for a change that mine is a teenager now. I still shudder when I think of Barney… or more to the the point, his obnoxiously phony, mugging little sidekicks. My daughter owned very goddamn Barney video in print when she was little. Retro me Satanas!
Nada 03.16.06 at 3:15 pm
OK – I can’t believe I’m the first one to ask this, but he wasn’t singing “John Henry”, was he? “Hammer be the death of me! Lord, lord – hammer be the death of me.” Heh heh.
ECW 03.16.06 at 4:14 pm
Re names in post #20, you’re missing an option. My wife and I both kept our own names and made up a new last name for our child. So none of us have the same name. People often respond with utter confusion, which makes for nice opportunities for subtle consciousness raising.
Aidan Kehoe 03.16.06 at 4:36 pm
And the world is a worse place because of this why? It’s crystal clear why the world is a worse place as a result of female circumcision, stonings to death for adultery, the selling of teenaged girls as sex slaves in South East Asia. Cartoons reflecting, in their leadership roles, approximately every human society ever known, not so much.
Aidan Kehoe 03.16.06 at 4:38 pm
(By “approximately every human society ever known” I mean that leadership roles have disproportionately gone to male members of the numerically dominant ethnic group, not that they went to white men.)
kharris 03.16.06 at 4:40 pm
Black guy sacrifices himself to big bug carnivore? Isn’t that just tapping an Alien scene? Bad scifi tends to refer to better scifi, same as bad chopsaki refers to better, and so on. The thing in the Alien movie – a black guy leading a bunch of pathological killers who have found religion and hang on to it by a slender thread in a space prison and recognize that the presence of a woman is going to cause them to revert to type, who then sacrifices himself to the hungry bug? – now that is a stereotype problem, mostly because they are all piled up on top of each other.
tylerh 03.16.06 at 6:11 pm
Spot on, Joel Turnipseep,
Cultural jujitsu takes little energy, or even thought. Merely a general awareness of plot/character details. Here is my dated example:
My daughter had red-hair: Society pretty much forced her to strongly identify with Disney’s “Little Mermaid.” So of course I let her watch it. Then I asked her, “What was the point of the story,” knowing full well someone that young can’t really articulate a coherent response. After a kind pause, I said “it’s about learning your ABCs. If Ariel had done her work instead of swimming around, she could have written Prince Eric a letter and avoided all that bother.” She bought it.
But this episode had an even better consequence: after getting so much attention broadcasting to other adults what she “learned” from Little Mermaid my daughter became convinced that the correct way to view a Disney flick was to watch for protagonist dumbnesses (it’s a word, really). She showed up for kindergarten already a sharp critical viewer.
joe o 03.16.06 at 8:06 pm
In Power Rangers SPD , the black guy is the leader. The blue power ranger, a white guy, got pretty miffed when the black guy joined the team, got handed the red power ranger suit, and became the new leader.
Another Damned Medievalist 03.16.06 at 9:36 pm
Although I totally see Belle’s point, I don’t know how much damage it does — or it won’t so much to her girls. Schlock TV is only one kind of input. When I was a little kid, there weren’t all that many female characters to emulate. What — Sweet Polly Purebred? No thanks! I can only think of two of my TV role models that were women — Mrs. Peel and Catwoman. The cool cartoon and regular TV heroes were boys/men, but it didn’t stop me from identifying with them or imagining myself as the equally smart and macho, yet very 1960s sexy female partner.
Mark Schmitt 03.17.06 at 12:25 am
You can always try my 60s-feminist mother’s counter-programming tactic, which was to casually walk into the room every so often while my brother and I were watching The Flintstones and point out that, “You know, not all families are like that.” Which was, like, duh — we were aware that dad does not drive his wooden car with his feet to work at Mr. Slate’s quarry, there’s no bird pecking out pictures in our camera, and we know that mom works instead of spending the day preparing brontosaurus burgers for her man. And as a result, my brother and I emerged fairly enlightened about gender roles.
Dan Simon 03.17.06 at 2:08 am
Some friends of mine are very into gender equality, and have raised their two children under a pretty strict regimen of equal treatment. (He was concerned at one point about their son not developing language as quickly as his older sister had, for example, and dismissed as wildly implausible my suggestion that sex differences might have had something to do with it.)
Their principles extended to the choice of toys they gave their children. Believe me, you haven’t seen cute till you’ve seen a three-year-old boy running across a huge room, dragging a doll about two-thirds his size behind him by one leg, and pausing every now and then to pound the floor with its head.
Laura 03.17.06 at 1:42 pm
Don’t forget Shanna’s Show.
Wendy 03.17.06 at 4:15 pm
Re gender equality:
Yesterday, my 3.5 year old son said “I want nail polish! Boy nail polish! With dinosaurs!”
He’s a big fan of Little Einsteins, too. Hmmmm.
vivian 03.17.06 at 10:45 pm
Umm, Little Einsteins is made by the Baby Einstein people – the folks who brought Mozart (et seq.) to the infant set. Little Einsteins is for when they grow up, and since the company is now part of Disney, you know the rest. Little Curies is a great idea though – see if they’ll buy it.
My son adored Dora from the moment his eyes would focus. So did all his male friends (and female ones) through age three or four. Irritated me no end that all Dora merchandise came in pink only — it could have been a great chance to publicly bust the stereotype of boys not watching girl shows, but no-o-o. (It also irritated me that I wanted more merchandising…) The same boys adored Shanna, Little Bill, Backyardigans and Lazytown.
A few years ago people were raving about Powerpuff girls and how it appealed to boys, and deconstructed the genre. So watch less Disney Channel and more Nick JR/Noggin (D’you get them in Singapore?)
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