FROM THE FLINSTONES TO THE POWERPUFF GIRLS

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FROM THE FLINSTONES TO THE POWERPUFF GIRLS

• The Influence of Television Cartoons on
  Childrens Gender Role Socialization

By Cameron Bornholm
Kennesaw State University
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The gender biased and gender stereotyped
behaviors and attitudes that developing young
people are exposed to on television will have an
impact on their perception of male and female
roles in our society

• - Susan D. Witt, Ph.D.

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The Modern Role Model for Children
TELEVISION
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Did You Know!?
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• Television is the most influential form of media
  in shaping ideas of race and gender for children

• Preschoolers spend an average of nearly 30 hours
  a week watching television

• By the time children are 16 years old, they have
  spent more time watching television then going to
  school

• On average, children are exposed to 20,000
  advertisements a year

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Gender Bias on Television
According to the National Institute of Mental
Health

• Men are usually more dominant in male-female
  interactions

• Men on television are more rational, ambitious,
  competitive, smart, powerful, stable, and
  violent while women are sensitive,
  romantic, attractive, happy, warm, sociable,
  peaceful, and fair

• For men, the emphasis is on strength,
  performance, and skill for
  women, it is on attractiveness and desirability

• Marriage and family are not important to
  television men

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• Television influences both childrens pro-social
  and anti-social behaviors as well as their
  attitudes about race and gender

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Children Development

• Environmental experiences significantly shape the
  developing brain of children
• Children take in information and acquire
  knowledge at a fast pace
• Childrens ideas about how the world works comes
  from the experiences they have and the behaviors
  they see around them
• Role models and imitations are
  extremely influential factors in
  shaping the gender- based
  behaviors

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Do Children Notice they Live in a Boys World?

• Since 1970, research has shown that females have
  been under represented on television programs, in
  commercials, and on cartoons
• Male characters are portrayed in a much greater
  variety of roles and occupations
• Female characters were seen as the mother, maid,
  nurse, girlfriend, teacher, and waitress
• Research found that 75.5 of the characters in
  childrens television were male and 21 were
  female

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• In a study of 90 children (2-9 years old), 78
  of the
• children thought there were more male
  characters
• in cartoons than female, 12 of the children
  thought
• there were more female characters in cartoons
  than
• male, and 10 of the children did not notice a
• difference in the number of male and female
  characters
• Male action heroes have been a staple of
  childrens
• television for over 50 years
• 83-91 of the voices for voiceovers and
  narrations
• are male
• The Muppets all have male voices and male names,
  
• including Ms. Piggy

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GIRL POWER

• In cartoon land, all the girls
  are sidekicks and there is no
  doubt who is in charge
• Smurfette was blonde and
  very caring
• Velma was smart but unattractive
• There were very few female cartoons before
  Sailor Moon hit the United States in 1995
  and the number of female action heroes
  increased
• Empowerment is a common subtext
  in many recent cartoons geared
  to girls
• Recently, female cartoons are
  trying to break out of the standard
  gender stereotypes

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VIOLENCE

• By the time a child graduates from high school,
  they will have witnessed 13,000 violent deaths on
  television
• Children who view violent programming on
  television will behave more aggressively with
  peers
• Male characters were seen as engaging in more
  violent behaviors than female characters

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• The marketing is targeted toward the children
  and cause them to want to view the cartoon on a
  regular basis, but the subliminal messaging is
  for the adults to target them into enjoying the
  cartoon.

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The Brainwashing Machine

• The subliminal messages of cartoons have become
  more overpowering in the United States than the
  marketing of cartoons
• Most common in popular cartoons
• Sponge Bob Square Pants, the 1999 favorite on
  Nickelodeon, used metaphors such as tarter
  sauce in place of profanity

• Rugrats, the popular cartoon on
  Nickelodeon in 1991, was believed to be
  sex driven
• The last name of the main character
  is pickles which is a metaphor for
  the male genitalia

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Work Cited
Choma, Chris. "Visual Subliminal Messaging in
Children's Cartoons." 9 Aug 2007
tcom103fa ll2004/gp9/. "Child and Family, from
Sidekick to Superwoman Feminine Mystique." Sept
2007. 9 Aug 2007 t/00001186.htm. Thompson, Teresa. "do children
notice its a boys world?." Look Smart. 2004. 9
Aug 2007 2294/is-n5-6-v37/ai- 20247082/print. Wilcox,
Ben. "gender roles in animated cartoons has the
picture changed in 20 years?." Look Smart. July
2007. 9 Aug 2007 /tcom/faculty/ha/tcom/103fall2004/pg 9. Witt,
Susan D. "The Influence of Television on
Children's Gender Role Socialization."
Children Education 76(9) 322-324.