"These
two news stories and the rhetorical strategies employed in both, demonstrate
the various ways that children's media...are understood and contested within
public discourse."
The two news
stories this sentence is talking are about Nickelodeon and two different campaigns
shown on their channel. One was to
promote diversity, but people had a problem with it when it showed a same sex
couple, claiming it was "brainwashing" their children. The other was
promoting kids to go outside and get fit, trying to "empower" them to
go outside. This was comparing "brainwashing" and
"empowering" in children's media.
I just spent
the last couple of hours watching Nickelodeon and Disney XD with my sister and
we started talking about children's media and how, well, honestly, screwed up
it is.
I can see
both sides of the issue, to be honest. All you have to do is watch the commercials
on a kids' program and you might be able to see why people think kids are
getting brainwashed. Especially with gender differences. Oh my gosh, it was
depressing. I think the gender labeling might be getting worse. I saw so much
pink and blue in the different commercials for "boys toys" and
"girl's toys". I can't even remember what the products were but I do
remember for girl's toys I saw pink and white and boys toys were surrounded by
red and blue.
But what was
really interesting about these is that they all came off like they were
"empowering". The children all seemed happy in them. And now that I'm
thinking harder about these, the commercials often encourage the kid watching
them to build and/collect whatever they are selling like it's something
amazing. It's like it gives the kid the illusion of power, but while doing that
it's sending the message that girls and boys can only play with these certain
things.
And in most
of the actual cartoons, the girls are very girly and always concerned about
looking good. And I've seen this growing up in most shows I watched. This is
not limited to cartoons. Most of them are also obsessed with getting a
boyfriend and it becomes a status symbol. If a girl has never had a boyfriend,
the other girls will make fun of her for it. It's like that a little bit with
the boys, but not as much. There are different issues there.
The guys are
concerned about looking tough and they're afraid to show any type of affection
towards another guy. And while many of the guys in shows are depicted as having
or wanting to have a girlfriend, it's not the same as with the girls. They are
treated more with sympathy than ridicule.
The shows on
Disney channel now are just painful to watch, partially because they're
horrible stories, but the other is the stereotypes. And when kids watch these,
they're going to think that is what is normal for when they grow up.
For example:
On how
Disney "brainwashed" girls: http://www.thetalko.com/12-ways-disney-movies-brainwashed-you/
On how men
want to appear "tough", an example from Hannah Montana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdinji8mZ1Y
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