Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Biased Portrayals in Children's TV Persist

Today, on "THIS is for Kids" on WHDH's "THIS" digital channel, I watched a cartoon that featured a European cowboy in Africa, blue gendered gorillas and a Tarzan character with glasses. The female gorilla was amorously chasing the cowboy for some reason (I missed the beginning), then was convinced to wed the male gorilla, presided over by the Tarzan-type character. Some of the action took place in a hut that was perched on the branch of a tree. Just like the more recent Disney version of Tarzan, there were no African people present at all. This absence of Africans in Africa was echoed in a recent past episode of Gadget Boy on the same channel.

The next cartoon featured a caveperson (male) who dressed up as a female dinosaur to lure a tyrannosaurus into a tar pit. He threw a handkerchief on the ground with expectation that the tyrannosaurus would see it and fall in the tar pit in the process. When the rex saw the caveperson, he went cartoonishly ga-ga, with eyes bulging, banging its tail on its head and demonstrably drooling. The rex "fell in love" (clearly only lust) with the caveperson and the narrative continued on portraying the caveperson as a captive housewife, unable to leave the house and placating the husband rex by dusting the house after he got angry at the "wife" for daring to want to escape. The caveperson was scheming to get ouf of the house while the rex sat in an easy chair reading the newspaper and only got free after the rex saw another character it felt attracted to.

(more on this soon)