Saturday morning, as I am wont to do since I’m not at work (rare, I know), I watched Saturday morning cartoons. Or, at least, I attempted to watch. There is certainly a dearth of choices nowadays. I came across one, Winx, that was truly terrible. Among it’s many problems:
- It reinforced gender stereotypes in a huge way: e.g., in order to be popular you must show your midriff.
- The moral of the episode I watched was: negotiate with terrorists. Seriously, I’m not kidding.
- The show used the tired story-theme of “the magic shoes were in the off position the entire time!”
I wistfully remember Digimon, with its extended debates on whether to be isolationist or internationalist (with respect to 7 kids on a fictional island, but still the concepts are the same). And Voltron, Transformers, and Thundercats were pretty good in my day as well. Where has my Garurumon gone?
First, it’s wont not want.
Second, as a women’s studies major I feel compelled to point out that gender marginalization has long been a problem in cartoons. Remember the demographics of the Smurfs? One girl!
Sadly, there was little progress made toward gender equality throughout cartoon history. Space age Jane Jetson’s role was largely the same as that of her stone age counterpart Wilma Flintstone: clean, shop, cook hubby’s dinner. Granted, Jane Jetson had some help in the form of a robot maid, but that just raises all sorts of thorny Marxist class issues.
One day, Wilma and Jane will discover The Second Sex. Then Wilma will tell Fred to make his own damn brontosaurus spare ribs and Jane will get her M.B.A. and take over Spacely�s Sprockets. Until then, I recommend Kim Possible on the Disney Channel and As Told By Ginger on Nickelodeon.
Thanks for the grammar fix; bet that made you feel good after getting your butt kicked in Scrabble, eh?
Kim Possible: decent. As I recall, more midriff showing, but you’re right, there are fewer stereotypes in that one. Pro: it is reasonably funny. Con: I have to find the Disney channel.
I must admit that in my own Digimon there is a disproportionate amount of male leadership; and only 3 of the 8 digidestined are girls. On the other hand, the male-female counterparts line up well: Tai/Sora as leaders, Mimi/Joe as flawed, and TK/Kari as young’uns. That just leave Matt and Izzy to fulfill the stereotypical male parts of rebel and nerd, respectively. Not too bad, but could be better.
As far as the smurfs are concerned, there actually weren’t any female smurfs to begin with. Smurfette was made by Gargamel to lure the all-male popoulation of smurfs. Feministically, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. It just didn’t seem like it had malicious intent behind it. It’s not like she was in charge of cleaning up after the entire population of smurfs. If you want to be sexist about something, we could refer to Jem and the scantily-clad, animated heroines.
I suppose you�re right; the Smurf population probably wasn�t established with malicious intent. Still, I�m uncomfortable with the message that women can be so easily discounted or left out all together.
I was going to make a point about kids needing lots of different types of role models, but then I realized that if a kids� role model is blue with a boot-shaped head, he or she likely has bigger problems than gender norms. Ha.
I remember surprisingly little about the smurfs–I never really got into them as a kid. Gargamel? Was he the bad guy?
As per scantily-clad, animated heroines, I completely agree. What’s especially disturbing is that it appears the trend is getting worse…shouldn’t we be making progress?
Is it a problem that my role model was a car that turned into a talking robot? That’s better than blue, boot-shaped head, right?