Wednesday, October 26, 2016

October; Goldie: Children's Media

"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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