Staring Down Stereotypes
I\'ve always been a TV lover, from my earliest days as a Sesame Street fan, through the years when I was glued to the screen after school watching reruns of Who\'s the Boss? and Magnum, P.I. (not to mention The Smurfs on Saturday mornings), and up to the present, when I set the TiVo for every new installment of Lost, Arrested Development, The Office, and 24.
But since I began my tenure as Common Sense Media\'s Senior Editor of Television just over a month ago -- when it officially became my job to watch TV (my mother is so proud...) -- I\'ve really started looking at television with new eyes. And not just kids’ TV, either, because we all know that kids are watching a lot more than Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network.
As we\'ve focused on ramping up our TV coverage (300+ reviews and counting), I\'ve been chagrined to notice the relative lack of strong female protagonists and role models on television. The ones who grab the primetime spotlight tend to be of the catty, girl-feud-promoting Laguna Beach variety. Meanwhile, two of this spring\'s newest kid-targeted cartoons -- My Gym Partner\'s a Monkey and Kappa Mikey -- revolve around male heroes.
Just goes to show that parents need to keep talking to their kids about how girls and women are portrayed, both on TV or at the movies. Our Common Sense TV writers make a point of calling out any offensive or negative portrayals in their reviews, as well as celebrating the sensational stereotype-breaking stuff. Our writers also brainstorm discussion topics as part of the Common Sense Note, including questions that challenge families to talk about gender roles. For even more ideas, check out the questions below, courtesy of the See Jane program at Dads & Daughters, a national nonprofit advocacy organization.
Betsy Bozdech is the TV editor at Common Sense Media.
Used with permission from Dads & Daughters.
I\'ve always been a TV lover, from my earliest days as a Sesame Street fan, through the years when I was glued to the screen after school watching reruns of Who\'s the Boss? and Magnum, P.I. (not to mention The Smurfs on Saturday mornings), and up to the present, when I set the TiVo for every new installment of Lost, Arrested Development, The Office, and 24.
But since I began my tenure as Common Sense Media\'s Senior Editor of Television just over a month ago -- when it officially became my job to watch TV (my mother is so proud...) -- I\'ve really started looking at television with new eyes. And not just kids’ TV, either, because we all know that kids are watching a lot more than Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network.
As we\'ve focused on ramping up our TV coverage (300+ reviews and counting), I\'ve been chagrined to notice the relative lack of strong female protagonists and role models on television. The ones who grab the primetime spotlight tend to be of the catty, girl-feud-promoting Laguna Beach variety. Meanwhile, two of this spring\'s newest kid-targeted cartoons -- My Gym Partner\'s a Monkey and Kappa Mikey -- revolve around male heroes.
Just goes to show that parents need to keep talking to their kids about how girls and women are portrayed, both on TV or at the movies. Our Common Sense TV writers make a point of calling out any offensive or negative portrayals in their reviews, as well as celebrating the sensational stereotype-breaking stuff. Our writers also brainstorm discussion topics as part of the Common Sense Note, including questions that challenge families to talk about gender roles. For even more ideas, check out the questions below, courtesy of the See Jane program at Dads & Daughters, a national nonprofit advocacy organization.
Betsy Bozdech is the TV editor at Common Sense Media.
Tips for Viewing Films with Children
by Erin Trahan
- Count the number of characters. How many are female? How many are male?
- For the female characters, what behaviors are the most common?
- Are any female characters leading the action in the story? Or are they supporting the story?
- What kind of work do the female characters do?
- What do the female characters look like? Do they look like most of the girls and women you know? What do you think of how they are dressed?
- Is there a female character that you would like to be? Why or why now? Would you rather do what one of the male characters does?
- Does one gender have more close-ups, or more close-ups of particular body parts?
- How do the kids in the story relate to their parents? What do you like or dislike about that?
- Who created the story? Was the writer female? How about the director? If you don\'t know, what would you guess?
- What would you do differently if you were making the movie?
Used with permission from Dads & Daughters.
