Representations+of+Gender+in+Children’s+Television+(pg.+107-111)+Sasha+White

// Sarah Bannet-Weiser’s book Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship// contains a section that discusses representations of gender in children’s television. Pages 107-111 discuss t elevisions power over social formation such as socialization and the understanding of gender roles. Television producers have realized the power that television has over the consumer population and in turn recognized the importance of honing in on what makes TV profitable. One of these profitability points is creating **television specified for one gender or another.** More and more studies are being done on primetime TV and how it represents gender, but there has not been much of a focus on children’s TV.

Often in children’s television there seems to be a focus on male themes and characters as this kind of TV is more lucrative. The images of women in these programs contradict strongly between **powerfully sexual and the bad-girl villain, or the super girly and innocent damsel in distress** that has been such a common theme in the past. TV creators that this use of **simplification of character was the safest, as well as most profitable way, to display difficult themes in children’s TV.** This oversimplification perpetuates the use of stereotyped and exaggerated gender representations and situations in this type of programming.

The first change in this model of programming was in the 90’s when Nickelodeon decided to try and take some risks and this was when the girl-power movement came into play. This was the beginning of pro-female shows that were actually profitable for the network and a slew of this sort of programming hit children’s TV audiences.

It's not clear why gender specificity in programming is profitable-- is this because advertisers want to target audience narrowly in order to increase the effectiveness of their messages? Watch punctuation here. GRADE: B