Children's Media - Mike Murgo

The children's media presentations were extremely enlightening for me. Because the television shows are directed towards children, I automatically assumed that they were "child friendly" in that they were not damaging their perceptions of outlooks on the aspects of life. I was completely wrong. The most shocking revelation for me was how gendered the shows are. Girls are largely underrepresented, and when they are represented, they fit the mold of the ultra feminine woman (like Minnie in Meg's presentation where she pointed to the character's eye lashes, high heels, and pink dress, makeup, bows, and feminine poses). Even when a show does star a female lead, like in Dora the Explorer, there are not many other female characters in the show. If they want to feminize an object like her map, they'd add eyelashes to it, like men don't have them. After some time, Go, Diego, Go was released and it completely overshadowed Dora because it is way more exciting in comparison. Dora's cousin, Diego, swings on ropes while Dora merely walks through a land and has you tell her what to do. Boys, and even girls, stopped watching Dora and turned the more exciting Diego. Now, they've created an older Dora who is highly feminized.

While television shows shape and gender children in a variety of ways, the commercials between and during the shows are arguably even worse. In Dakota's presentation, he highlighted commercials directed at certain genders and age groups. In one commercial, a girl was shown taking car of a "sick" baby doll. This commercially essentially glamorized motherhood and gives little girls the perception that they must be mothers and caretakers one day, but this same message is not delivered to boys. Another commercial depicted boys playing with Hot Wheels - the cars were fast, sleek, and the tone of the commercial was very exciting. In contrast to the commercial for girls that teaches girls that their role is to be nurturers, a message is sent to boys that they need only concern themselves with fast cars and fun. Perhaps this is partly cause for the pervasive idea that girls mature faster the boys. They are sent messages telling them to be responsible adults, while boys are sent messages telling them to have fun. Lastly, Dakota analyzed another commercial that was directed toward mothers. A certain Old Navy commercial depicted mothers in sun dresses on display on display for a hunky male gardener. Even though this commercial is directed toward mothers, it reinforces the idea in them and in their children that women are merely body props and something to be looked at, desired, and objectified.

In the end, I asked myself, "Why are they gendering these shows and commercials?" Surely Disney doesn't want all their female viewers to wear high heels, bows, and makeup as part of a conservative agenda to mold America's children, right? Well, after some thought, I hypothesized that the media is merely a reflection of an already gendered society. Advertisements and media need to connect with people, so producing media that contains familiar ideas is successful. This does not give the media a free pass, though, and it is no excuse for gendering society the way it does. While the media may be a reflection of an already gendered and sexist society, this reflection perpetuates and reinforces these ideas. It keeps them in our daily lives, consistently reminding us of how we must behave. If we want to make society less sexist and gendered, the media has to change. It's unfortunate, though, because it probably won't make any significant progressive leaps in a short period of time. A children's show featuring a boy in bright pink clothing with feminine mannerisms simply is not profitable because it is so different and so many people would be hostile toward it. Until the media takes these highly unlikely risks, I don't see our culture shifting toward a less sexist one any time soon.