Molly Bienstock Children's TV

I really enjoyed everyone's presentations and gained a thorough amount of information that I was not privy to before.  Sometimes my mind gets blown in this class because it seems that we're studying a caricature of the subject.  Everything we've been reading and watching are telling us this is happening and now our children will be audience members soon.  It is difficult to take yourself out of a habitual situation and critically analyze its structure, but this isn't just our classroom, it's the millions of kids who watch these shows every single day.  This project lets the culture blanket be seen on a widespread scale.  What is it about the fact that we all knew what we would get from this project?  I don't know if I'm generalizing here, but I knew we would get similar results to what was concluded in the presentations.  Girls wearing pink, not being main characters, having high pitched voices, and being vulnerable.  But girls depicted in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse even wore high heels, huge bows, and makeup, as several people pointed out in class with their projects.  We are looking at these shows through a sociological lens, but that lens is fogged with the acceptance of our corrupt culture.

Children's television needs to change with the times because change is progress and progress leads to a bright future of creativity, innovation, and intellect.  I read a study the other day claiming that mothers are disappearing from children's pictures because they are at work.  Children draw what they know and they see their fathers at home, so why can't they see that on TV?  I remember when the Buster scandal arose about his two mothers on Arthur.  There was an uproar of discontent from parents, but PBS said "The fact that there is a family structure that is objectionable to the Department of Education is not at all the focus of the show, nor is it addressed in the show."  It's a little disturbing that they have to defend "Postcards from Buster" anyway when the relationship explored wasn't even promoting of same-sex marriage, which it is was excused of doing.  


Lastly, I found it so interesting that objects in the children's shows were highly gendered.  Is it that we need our lives to be gendered from the start?  My philosophy professor told us of a story where some researchers dress up a baby in pink and walk it around the park.  Everyone speaks in a cutesy high pitched voice and talks to the baby.  Then the researchers dressed up the same baby in blue.  Everyone came up to the baby and spoke to him and touched him to play.  Finally, the researchers dressed the same baby in yellow.  No one came up to the baby or spoke to him.  This experiment shows that people don't know how to react to someone of they are not sure of their sex or gender.  We are made to feel to uncomfortable in our own skin so it is no wonder we don't understand how others could be.