My seven year old loves cartoons. So far, we’ve kept her on track with harmless TV like Sponge Bob Square Pants and Fairly Odd Parents. The older she’s gotten, the tougher it is to find informative, fun programs, like Mystery Hunters, a live action show whose cast of tweens reenacts historic events (among other fun stuff). Instead, the cartoon pap turns more insidious. Recently, she’s tried to convince us that Totally Spies, on Cartoon Network, is ok. The show features a group of girls who are international spies - sounds fine enough. The first episode we watched was marginally acceptable. The plot line was something about boy bands stealing the energy from their fans in order to live forever. Not award-winning, but my hope was that the program would be so trite that she’d abandon it herself. Instead, she began watching it occasionally while her dad and I caught a few segments in passing. And then….my dear husband sees another episode with her – the WOW episode.
WOW is the Women of Wrestling, a vicious group of strong women trying to take over the world by turning other women into people who can stand up for themselves. Their goal is to create a race of invincible women. The spies were charged with stopping the sinister plan of allowing women to gain independence! I’m astonished by the blatant attempt to undermine female autonomy in general and feminism specifically. The show teaches girls that they can be powerful, after all these are spies, but only when they are pursuing evil doers intent on stealing people’s hair (really!), or bad women who design coats with no seams. One plot evens deals with shopping – in it, the girls save shoppers who are being turned into anti-consumer terrorists. This reminds of when I realized that Barbie sucked because she could be a doctor, but only a veterinarian or pediatrician. Women = puppies and babies. Me, I want Barbie the UN Ambassador or the neurosurgeon.
Now that I’ve been parenting a while, I realize that we can do very little to stop gender encoding, but Cartoon Network has gone a little overboard. It’s tough enough to find girl-heroes who aren’t playing second fiddle to the boys in the show. Totally Spies falls into the same Barbie trap. The girls are international spies who solve mysteries that (so the thinking goes) “only girls” would be interested in solving. Among their goals is to keep the world from becoming fat (see Episode 17). Kind of repulsive to know that adults somewhere are writing this stuff intentionally…
Posted by Guest Blogger: Libby
Gburgkid--
ReplyDeleteI would love to see you write more about this. What a fascinating conversation!
Why not write it up as a blog entry and we'll have you guest blog!
--Aspazia
Gburgkid--
ReplyDeleteI have some more thoughts about your post. You have really helped me get my mind around an important feminist insight that is not articulated enough or at least not translated enough into talking points.
One of the most interesting observations about feminism is its critique of "humanism" or "liberalism." What is often not subjected enough to criticism is the belief that "nurturing" "tenderness" "empathy" are "feminine" qualities, whereas a "stoic" "rational" or "firm" are masculine qualities. While liberals (in the political sense of left-of-center, do criticize some of the oppressive "traditional values" of the right, liberals often do not subject their own version of "values" to a feminist critique. In fact, there are several books that show how evolutionary thinkers search for evidence of the biological usefulness of feminine traits vs. masculine traits in terms of reproduction. The assumption is that if women do this, and if men do this, then it must have a some advantage for the continuation of the species.
I think, however, that we would be much better off if we stopped dividing up qualities such as empathy or rational among the sexes. Why not see all of these qualities as utterly human qualities. Some of which have species advantage, and some of which are the product of socialization.
One example strikes me. Za has children, whereas I do not. Therefore, whenever we are around children, he has far more knowledge of them, is far more attentive and tender with them that I am. He has learned how to give baby-massage, whereas I am always quite awkward with holding them. He has learned many of these qualities, and other of these qualities have been nurtured by his bond to his children. If I have children some day, I may also develop more these qualities.
--Aspazia