Term Paper on "Gender Roles on TV and Violence"

Term Paper 3 pages (1462 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

It was Saturday morning, and I sat down to begin my observations of

children's television programming. I had a neighbor of mine, a little six

year old boy come in to watch the shows with me. Later in the afternoon, I

planned to talk to a friend of mine (and my 6 year old friend's mother),

who is in her 40s to get her ideas about differences in children's

television from when she was a child in the 1970s and what her school age

children are watching now.

My first observation was on the large amount of choice there was in

television on a Saturday morning. Being used to Saturday morning cartoons

when I was a child, I was not as surprised, but my young companion

explained to me that he could watch cartoons at any time - 24 hours a day

if he wanted to - and that he generally did not watch the cartoons on

Saturday since he played on a soccer team. But the season was over and T-

ball had not yet started, so I was in luck.

My young friend gave me his opinion of the different television channels.

While Saturday morning cartoon shows are still available on broadcast

television, most children appear to be watching cable channels as much on

the weekends as they do during the week. My young friend advised me he

liked the NickToons channel better than any other for the different cartoon

shows like Avatar and Sponge Bob Squarepants. He told me his mother liked

him to watch PBS kids shows, as she felt they were "good for him" but he

admitted be felt they were "babyish" and did not generally watch them when

he had the opportunity to watch for himself.

Part of the time we were together I watched him, and part of the time I

watched the show. He chose to watch the show, Avatar. The plot was very

complicated, and involves a young boy of Asian background who is the next

Messiah of sorts, destined to bring the 4 nations of water, fire, earth and

air together. Eng, the character who is the nominal Avatar has been

evidently re-incarnated time after time, and each time he comes from a

different nation. He is still learning his skills, at the same time trying

to act as a peacemaker between the 4 nations.

I did not get all this from watching two episodes Avatar. Rather, my young

friend gave me a concise and detailed plot synopsis. When I asked him if

Eng had been reincarnated from the previous avatars, my friend was able to

tell me without hesitation that he was not re-incarnated, since he was able

to speak to previous avatars in spirit form. I was impressed my friend

knew what re-incarnation was, but he explained to me that the concept had

been explained in an earlier episode.

The show was far more detailed than I remembered from the cartoons in my

youth. There was a significant amount of character development, and in one

episode a character died, which was also different from the cartoons I

remembered as a child. I asked my friend what he felt about the character

who died, who appeared to be a sympathetic one. My friend seemed puzzled

by the question, and said to me that he felt like it was okay. I asked him

why it was okay, and he clarified by explaining to me that it was only a

cartoon and that the people were not real.

I was particularly interested to see his reaction to the television show.

He was rapt on the show when it was on but tended to be less attentive when

the commercials came on. He was, however, drawn to the commercials that

were for toys aimed at boys. He would attend to these commercials as

carefully as the show itself. He appeared to be cued into the commercials

aimed at boys even when he was not looking directly at the television, and

I noted that the "boy toy" commercials were full of loud guitar music and a

masculine sounding voice over, speaking very quickly. The "girl toy"

commercials, however, usually had a female voice, speaking in a soft or

very cheerful manner describing the toy. Often times the "girl toy"

commercials ended with the little girl in the commercial hugging the doll

or toy being… READ MORE

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