Parent

__**Is iCarly as bad as we think? Mom says no.**__

This parent is heavily involved in media literacy and children’s education and had some very specific ways of looking at the iCarly program and viewing TV with her kids. She was very outgoing and definitely not afraid to take part in the media literacy and interaction that her children experience every day. She seemed to use her own experiences as a teacher and media researcher in order to be a better parent and allow her kids the ability to explore the internet, TV, video games and other media in a supervised and safe way.

Some of the first questions we asked related to the age appropriateness of the show and displays of sexuality, sexual innuendo, etc and what her thoughts were about the show. First she talked about how her youngest “just kind of goes along with it” and that all the children often watch together because iCarly is one of those shows that falls into the “family pleaser” category for them. She noticed that Austin seems to like the show because of the silly humor, Emma watches because her brother and sister do, and Erin seemed entertained but was also the child who noticed some of the inappropriate material.

The mother believes that iCarly is not a harmful show because the sexual content either a) is above the comprehension level of her child watchers and b) the show gives her an opportunity to discuss the potentially problematic material that surfaces in the episode. She explained to us that often if elements of the show she thought could be too racy or something that her kids could misunderstand or not fully understand she takes the time to sit and discuss which she believes is an incredibly important part of helping kids learn. Because she helps them dissect and understand what they are watching they are more likely to do this on their own when interacting with media not under direct parental supervision. Proof of this was when Erin talked about Sam and how she is “not a good example of a good person, she does a lot of bad things.” This means her daughter is not misunderstanding the characters actions as cool and a model of behavior she should follow, but she recognizes that she is not a role model and the negativity of her character.

She said that teaching children to be critical of media and to be active instead of passive consumers is an incredibly important thing in today media flooded world. She stressed the fact that this is not taught in schools and therefore should be taught at home.

She also discussed how in addition to her kids being able to recognize the bad parts of what they are watching, they also learn how to bypass inappropriate content on the internet. Her older daughter Erin spends a lot of time looking at videos on YouTube, as well as her younger daughter whose favorite video is “Charlie Bit Me”. She says Erin knows what is inappropriate and that’s not what she’s interested in anyway. She searches what she wants to see and bypasses what doesn’t meet those criteria. She also believes adults should show their kids the safe way to use websites and which websites they can use. Otherwise the internet is so vast the kids won’t know where to go and this is where they can get onto inappropriate websites. Though she thinks icarly is family appropriate if viewed under the correct circumstances and environment she doesn’t conclude that the age rating should be for late middle school, but that younger children aren’t really catching on to the inappropriate parts anyways.

Doing this interview definitely brought a new light on iCarly for me. I have been very anti-iCarly because of the messages conveyed and the inappropriate material for the target demographic, but the parent definitely made me realize that this was not necessarily the case. Kids do not understand the things I deem as inappropriate and the things they focus on are the outer layer, not the innuendos. They like the costumes, the colors, the silliness and the overall story but they are not dissecting a show as an adult is. The bottom line seemed to be, the inappropriate material goes over their head and the stuff they do focus on is harmless.

Sasha White