Children's TV Presentations-Tina Seretta

While watching the presentations on children’s television, it became clear that there are distinct gendered patterns and roles portrayed in these shows. Gendered behaviors are shown in character’s dress, individual body language, and enhanced physical features. I think the clearest portrayals of these stereotypical gender differences are shown in the show “Mickey Mouse Club House”; Minnie mouse and Daisy Duck are both hyper-feminized. They have high squeaky annoying voices, wear skits, high heals, and bows that are colored pink or purple. As some of the presenters touched on, both Minnie and Daisy don’t even spend much time on the show, when they do their roles are insignificant compared to their male partners. Also in the show “Go Diego Go subtly teaches children a lot about gender. The fact that Diego is a “cooler” version of Dora is something I thought was a very interesting observation. A girl going on an adventure is not exciting enough, so we should make a show more action packed with a male lead character. Is this what the producers were thinking? As Professor Jafar said, the population of little boys that used to watch Dora don’t anymore because of the creation of Diego. Diego is Dora 2.0, cooler, more exciting and male. In my presentation I posted a quote by the Nick Jr. website about Diego, and if you compare that to the bio about Dora, it directly shows gendered characteristics.

Dora: “Dora is a true heroine--an Indiana Jones for the preschool set. She is a born explorer, always eager for the next adventure. Though she's only seven, she serves as something of a big sister to her best friend, Boots, and to the viewer as well. With her pride in being bilingual, her respect for her elders, her growing understanding of her culture and heritage, and her love for storytelling and music, Dora embodies the Latina spirit”. (Nick Jr.)

Diego: “Diego is an 8-year-old Latino action-adventure hero with a heart. His goal is to save and protect the animals and their environment. Athletic and fearless, he is always at the ready no matter what the situation. Diego loves learning new things. He takes a scientific approach to problem solving and also uses a variety of high-tech gadgets and gizmos to save the day”. (Nick Jr.)

These two quotes capture the gender differenced shown through action and personal character traits. Dora is respectful, cultural, a great friend, and has a love for storytelling and music. Whereas Diego is a hero with a heart, he is athletic and fearless and uses high-tech gadgets and gizmos (run by his older sister) to save the day. Through these shows girls are taught to be smart, respectful and artsy. On the other hand, boys are taught to be athletic, adventurous and heroic. These ideas are portrayed on the show through the characters dress and body language, I don’t know why Nick Jr. feels the need to then reinforced and give clarity to these indentified differences on their website.

            Overall, I think it’s very interesting that no matter what show children are watching there are receiving messages about gender, even on the commercials. There is no way to escape these messages, from a very young age children already are forming images in their head about what they should look like and the way they should act based on gendered stereotypes they watch on TV.