Before you have kids, if you are anything like me, you have this idea that you won’t let them get sucked into consuming various television shows, junk food, brand names and etc. Then reality hits as your 2 year old points at an ad in the supermarket carpark and says, “Dere’s Wiggles, Mummy!” Children are very good at picking up on these things, even when you try to shield them.
Children’s TV shows are a big factor in exposing kids to certain brands and concepts. I find some shows stupid or repellent. For example, I can’t see the attraction of Teletubbies or In the Night Garden, although my daughter loves these. I can’t stand Hi-5. I’m not a big fan of Lazytown. Why are half the characters puppets and half real people? Why does that girl have pink hair? And “sports candy” (otherwise known as fruit) – what a lame concept.
By contrast, there are some children’s TV shows that I don’t mind. My favourite is Playschool. I like Sesame Street, Thomas the Tank Engine and Charlie and Lola too. I can deal with The Wiggles.
I’ve always been quite fond of Dora the Explorer. Dora is no-nonsense, capable and self-sufficient. She uses initiative to solve problems.
Dora the Explorer and Boots the monkey
However, this may be about to change. As Mia Freedman explains at her blog Mamamia:
Dora is something of a post-modern feminist icon and an absolutely brilliant role model for very little girls. In a scary world of Bratz dolls and Barbie dolls and Pussycat Dolls, Dora is an inspiring oasis of sanity.
Dora is smart and sassy and it’s not about what she wears. Her only accessory is her backpack which is all about utility.
…
And now? Now? DORA IS GETTING A MAKE-OVER.
…
Gone are the shorts, t-shirt, sensible shoes and simple haircut. Dora will now have long hair, a short skirt and ballet flats. Will she also have a belly-button ring, eye make-up and a spray-tan?
The news release shows a new sillhouette of Dora:
Teaser - Dora's new look
Noooo! I’ve said it all before in an earlier post on girls growing up these days:
It seems to me that there are some very weird messages mixed up with the way in which our society portrays teenage girls.
First, there’s the whole body image thing. I’m sure some of these celebrities must have had heaps of plastic surgery to make them look the way that they do. Plus, their business is “looking good” so they can devote time to diets, workouts etc. But to a vulnerable teenage girl who doesn’t fit in with the slim gorgeous stereotype, these images just serve to further compound her misery, and make her feel unattractive and unworthy. (Although, hey, that makes her more receptive to buying rubbish!)
The reality is that there are many body shapes out there, and lots of beauty which doesn’t fit into the stereotype. I once worked with a girl who fulfilled all the stereotypes: tall, blonde, clear tanned skin, slender, big breasts, regular features – you name it, she had it. Yet I found her very unattractive, because she had a sour, sullen look on her face and often made unpleasant comments about others. Attractiveness is not just about looks. But teenage popular culture doesn’t seem to portray this.
But the other thing that worries me is the way in which girls seem to be expected to grow up very quickly. After watching Video Hits, I went to the supermarket, and my eye was caught by one of those horrible little pink magazines at the checkout (”TeenZine” or some dumb name). The cover had a heavily made up girl who looked about twelve. It was a bit disturbing: the virgin and the whore, all in one. Unfortunately, the first thing that came into my mind was that this picture would be a pedophile’s dream. I was reading an article the other day that the catwalks are full of 13 and 14 year old models. That just seems revolting and ridiculous to me on a number of levels.
It’s true that childhood and teenagerhood are modern ideas. In the European Middle Ages, one was considered to have reached adulthood at the age of 7. My grandmother was born in the Depression era and had to grow up quickly in another sense. She finished school at the age of 14 and went out to work, because she had to earn her keep. It seems childhood is a modern luxury. But there seem to be mixed messages in society as to when one should start behaving like an adult. I think it would be very confusing to be a teenage girl these days.
The whole thing reminds me of the description of Susan in the Narnia books:
“…She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”
It seems sad to me if girls are encouraged to become mini-adults too soon. I hope my daughter doesn’t grow up too fast. After all, you’ve got the whole of the rest of your life to be an adult.
As a feminist and the mother of a young girl, I will boycott Dora if they “sex her up” and turn her into a mini-adult.
There’s a petition you can sign here.
(via Mamamia)
(Hat tip to my beloved husband)
Update:
It seems there was a debate mid last year about the makeover of old cartoon characters (see NY Times Article here).
Some makeovers have been successful, others have not. I must have missed the flop that was “Earring Magic Ken”.
Here’s a post at Feministing about Strawberry Shortcake’s makeover.
Another post at UTNE on cartoon makeovers notes:
Sleek and sinister, slim and sexy—are these the characteristics that are emblematic of our modern culture?
Update 2:
Earring Magic Ken wasn’t actually a flop – he was the highest selling Ken ever and immensely commercially successful…it’s just he didn’t appeal to his target audience (young girls). However, he did appeal to another audience…
Prism Magazine explains the popularity of Earring Magic Ken within the gay community.
In 1993, Mattel takes a stab at modernizing Barbie’s main squeeze. Some might say it tried too hard. Maybe it’s the doll’s foofy mesh shirt, the screaming-lavender vest or the pendant — which many insist resembles a c**k ring — but Earring Magic Ken is quickly labeled the “Queer Ken.” Mattel is not amused. After adamantly denying the doll is gay, the company pulls Earring Magic Ken off the shelves, despite it being the biggest-selling Ken doll in the company’s history. (editing added)
A search on the Net shows that Earring Magic Kens are now a collectable item. For some reason, I find this absolutely hilarious.
Update 3:
Nickelodeon and Mattel have been forced to reveal the new Dora after uproar from parents.
Dora's new look
44 Comments
I suppose the closest you be able to get to the traditional Dora will be the Wild Thornberry’s…. with the one having a similar silhouette to the Sell-Out-Dora being the elder snotty-nosed teenager sister who is (most of the time) the villain.
Ooooh, I’ve just figured it out…. it’s not Dora…. it’s the evil Angelica Pickles who has taken over the show!
In a world fraught with pink princesses needing to be rescued from Prince Charming I was thrilled to discover Dora. Someone recently made a comment “I know a lot of parents like you who are anti-princesses” and that angered me. I am not anti anything, I am for strong, dedicated female role models for young girls. Nothing wrong with princesses, but I can’t understand why all need a prince to be complete. The focus on physical appearances is also what bugs me. Kids have their entire life to be obsessed with that (and yes, obsess they will) so why do we need to push that? Let my girls be kids. Let them dig in the dirt for worms if they want to (ok, I am not that fond of worms but you get the picture). My adventure and exploration always be a part of our children’s lives.
Dora shouldn’t need a spray tan, she’s supposed to be hispanic. Or are they changing that too?
It sucks when they give classic cartoon characters makeovers for a new audience. I remember when they made an American version of Superted. Superted used to have the accent of a plucky young English man; then it turned into the accent of a bratty US kid. You bastards, you stole Superted!
TimT, I remember that with Superted too. It’s the quickest way to kill one’s affection for a character…
Thanks for the petition link!
Why is it so impossible to not let a 2 yr old or 4/6/8/10 year old watch so much tv or, here’s a revolutionary idea, no tv?
No wonder brand names are so recognisable to tinytots when they are parked for some many hours in front of the idiot box.
Just Say “No”.
Can’t remember where – perhaps boingboing – but there is a body of eliterature on the contemporary trend towards less charismatic versions of cartoon characters.
Richard, as I said, my initial intention was to have no TV or very limited TV.
Out of interest: do you have kids yourself? And if so, do you stay home for part or all of the time to look after them?
I think it’s easy to be judgmental when you’re not in the position of juggling work, full time study and kids, and you have limited child care options. Previously I would have thought, “Goodness, why don’t these parents just ban the TV?”
But now, I do what I have to do to survive. I don’t park my kids in front of the TV for hours, but there are times when it’s a godsend (eg, when I want to have a shower in the morning).
Just remember – Susan’s behaviour meant that she couldn’t go to Narnia/Heaven with the rest of her family. She was condemned for trying to be an adult when she wasn’t. CS Lewis (and indeed a tremendous number of people) have no sympathy or concern for girls who *do* imitate what they are shown to be appropriate, adult behaviour. They are called “prostitots” and men who rape them get light sentences because the underage girl “asked for it” or “looked slutty” or “was drunk”. It’s easy to blame the visible face of commercialisation of childhood (the blonde pretty girl you mention, the young models) and much harder for people to confront the market forces behind it. Challenging this new Dora is a good start.
Dora the explorer appears on commercial TV so she does not feature in my children’s viewing mainly because of the ads that interrupt the show. So whatever the message that may be there for a young girl is undermined by the advertising for products that I don’t approve of…
Re Hi five as a bloke I totally get it; if you have to watch TV with your offspring it is nice to have something that makes the experience pleasurable. Lazy town is actually very cute and quite popular in this house I actually see it as a homage to classical pantomime. My son loves it. The Wiggles were cute for child number one, but I have avoided them like the plague the second time around mainly because they seem to be trying just a bit too hard and they are very patronising to their audience.
I’ve successfully banned television in a household with two teenagers. It became clear that both (in this case a niece and nephew who lived with us for a couple of years) were tanking at school thanks to television habits, so it went off and stayed off. That said, my partner and I had to go without too for this to work. Not sure how it could be effective with little children, though — I’ve always been much better with teenagers than little kids, but then, I’ve also always been utterly draconian (as my own mother was with me).
Thanks for this snippet, LegalEagle.
I know exactly where you’re coming from, although my girl loathes Dora with a passion.
Magilla’s nearly 7, and for the past couple of years has thought that being skinny is cool, and also came home from her father’s with the idea that she looked “better with decoration”.
I restrict my comments to a bland, “Oh, really? Why is that?” and pretty much leave it.
I’ve introduced her now to Punky Brewster as a plucky, resourceful little girl who doesn’t dress like a whore, and does the right thing by people.
Luckily I never had to suffer In The Night Garden, and the amount of pc-dreck out there for kids is appalling.
We rarely watch television that’s not dvds, and my girl has an extensive collection to choose from.
I vet all her television shows before she’s allowed to watch them.
You can’t lock your kids away from modern inventions as much as you’d like to, but you can control their access to it.
And those dreadful little Bratz are verboten in this household.
I’m the second youngest of six kids and we were not allowed to watch tv during the day and only between sundown and 10pm on Friday and Saturday nights up until the end of high school. It wasn’t really a big deal for us, there were plenty of other enjoyable things to do that didn’t involve electronics, or being indoors, though I do accept it’s harder for a maximum of two adults with only one or two offspring and no other help to enforce such draconian measures today. But then many young parents do, somehow, without too much angst.
Young kids, all kids, don’t need to be entertained or made safe by tv and playstation and there are other arguably less harmful ways of protectively confining their movements, if that is the partial objective, other than by a flickering screen.
Ah, Iain, that explains why I don’t like Lazytown – I’ve never been a fan of pantos. I suspect my daughter has inherited this: she says, “Why don’t they know it’s just Robbie Rotten?” And when I say that’s part of the story, she says firmly, “They are silly.”
We don’t watch commercial television in our household either, but my daughter became acquainted with Dora when we briefly had Foxtel. Usually we only watch ABC Kids in the morning.
I’ve found TV useful in three situations:
(1) when I need to have a shower and I want my daughter to be occupied so she doesn’t go wake the baby while I’m stuck in the shower;
(2) when I’m breastfeeding the baby and I don’t want my daughter distracting him (he turns his head and almost pulls my breast off); and
(3) when my daughter is really silly and tired but just won’t sleep, sitting and quietly watching TV or a DVD can calm her down.
So I wouldn’t ban it completely, but I have limits.
Being the nerd I am I like to think of a technological solution that may be impracticle depending on the child’s age. Why not torrent every season of the shows you think are good and hook up a hard drive type device to the TV, something like an appletv? That services the “sometimes i need to plonk the kid down” aspect and prevents them from watching “the wiggles”.
Nilk, my sister and I LOVED Punky Brewster. That show rocked. I guess one of the reasons why I don’t ban TV totally is because some TV shows are genuinely enjoyable, and I have happy memories of some shows. Like you, I always vet what my daughter watches. And most of the time, I sit with her or nearby so that I can switch it off if something inappropriate comes on or if she is scared by something.
Posey, I guess if I had more kids then my daughter could control them while I was having a shower or something (she’s rather bossy).
The problem is that our house is (a) open plan, and (b) tiny. Thus it’s hard to control movement, and even if I put my son down the other end of the house while I’m having a shower, my daughter can wake him by shouting “HELLO, WAKE UP! I WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU”. The main problem since his arrival has not been sibling rivalry; it has been stopping her from loving him too much!
Iomlate, that is a good idea, but I am a technological dunce – I’m not sure how I’d do it. What I’d really like to do is tape lots of episodes of Playschool end on end, but our video recorder got ruined after my daughter climbed up on the sly and posted toast and crayons into it when she was one and a half. We only found out ages later – we didn’t realise that she was agile enough to get at it!
LegalEagle you need to either get yourself another video recorder – I did that with my girl. Several 4 hour vhs tapes with PlaySchool back to back non-stop was a Godsend.
Or get a dvd recorder and just save the PlaySchool straight onto disk.
Otherwise, I’d recommend Where’s Boo? for a fun watch. The Hoobs can be fun for the littlies, and I always preferred The Hooley Dooleys for musical entertainment.
The Muppets are also especially fun, although it took a bit of time for my girl to get into them. Muppets From Space is a fave, as are The Princess Bride and The Dark Crystal and Neverending Story.
There are lots of good shows out there, and Miss Piggy is just awesome as a rolemodel lol!
Needless to say, being a household of film fanatics, we’ve literally hundreds of dvds covering all genres, so there’s no excuse for her not to have something appropriate to watch.
Nilk, yeah, we should invest in a DVD recorder. It would be worth it. Where’s Boo is good – but I haven’t seen that for ages. I don’t know what happened to it.
Sounds like your DVD collection is very much like our DVD collection. Our daughter’s a bit young yet, but I look forward to introducing her to my favourites.
It seems there was a debate last year about the makeover of old characters (see NY Times Article here).
Some makeovers have been successful, others have not. I must have missed the flop that was “Earring Magic Ken”.
Here’s a post a Feministing about Strawberry Shortcake’s makeover.
Another post at UTNE on cartoon makeovers notes:
Poor LE, although I do sympathise. In the end, you go with the flow, relying on you kids to sort thinds out. We did exercise a degree of censorship, but mainly so far as adult things – sex and violence – were concerned.
I think that the thing that we tried to achieve was to give the girls access to a range of material. We would and did say no to requests triggered by things like advertising,
Maybe a post at some point, talking about our own experience.
I am surprised you are prepared to run as far as you do with C S Lewis’s account of Susan which you quote. I’ve long thought that was a pretty misogynistic passage and line, pretty much in line with blaming everything on Eve.
I’ve got back into kids TV with my 2yo grandson (I let his parents sleep in most Sat and Sun mornings). Thank goodness for ABC2, but I prefer to keep the TV off… megablocks or going out and giving food/water to the birds (esp talking with the magpies and investigating the different trees) keeps him very amused… difficult tho he was in Melbourne.
I CANNOT STAND NIGHT GARDEN – How can good old Uncle Clau-Clau-Claudius have fallen so low??
That said, there ARE some good kids programs (and Channel DVD is always useful). “Bottletop Bill” is brilliant the way the bits and pieces of scraps come together as the scenes change… if you like Play School turn scraps into toys, then you’ll love Bottletop Bill.
There were two things I did with my daughter and TV… control the programming: Either to bore her senseless (“Oh Dad, not BBCWorld/News/Current Affairs again! I’m outa here!”), or ensure it was something I thought had merit, be it Thomas the Tank Engine (she became a Beatles fan because of Ringo) or even “nice/whimsical” cartoons like Aaaargh Real Monsters (Oublina turned her into a Kate Hepburn fan), Angry Beavers (hey, I liked the 60s music), Rocko’s Modern Life (what a role model!), and Fairly Odd Parents (I can have a touch of the Cosmo’s). All of these were good for “cuddle up on the couch”-time.
Rugrats was good value… not only because it was “nice” and sometimes very touching… but because I could say “You’re being a right little Angelica… stop it!” which can be a good shorthand for a complex cluster of undesirable behaviour that is hard to put into words quickly, but which the kid knows is a BAD THING.
The other thing I tried to avoid was the flashy 10-seconds a subject no-long-term-focus-needed shows.
TV/DVDs can also be a soft introduction to topics that you want a kid to investigate in future years. Films such as “Jason and the Argonauts” can help develop an interest in other classics, for example.
And whenever possible I leave the subtitles ON. When older, the game with DVDs can be to put the subtitles in French or German, (or maybe spoken in French with English subtitles) to get across a feel for other languages and how they are related. I’ve since found out that there are programs in third world countries to put same-language-subtitles on films shown in villages, because it helps older people who never got much schooling increase their literacy.
Just because something is a book doesn’t mean it has value. Well-chosen TV can be better than some printed material… in fact, I think some printed material aimed at kids is very counterproductive.
btw: We never had a TV until I was in grade 1 or 2, so by the time I saw “Play School”, I considered myself “too grown up” to watch it, and was heavily into watching Julius Sumner Miller doing really neat stuff.
Marcellous – that’s interesting – I never read it in that way.
I always read it straight up. The way I saw it, once she hit puberty, she became more interested in her looks, boys and accessories, and became disinterested in the fundamental questions of life. She wasn’t very nice any more. (Perhaps it resonated for me because I was a nerdy girl who was teased by the “Susans” at school.) I never saw it as a gender specific thing – it could have equally well have been Peter who became a jock, for example.
I can see, however, that it can be read differently, and I take Lilacsigil’s point above:
You don’t want to end up blaming the victim.
Dave, that is EXACTLY what Mum and I wonder – how did Emperor Claudius get sucked into that one?
I must admit I also read CS Lewis’ account of Susan like LE — in fact, I also found it pretty affirming, in part because I found most teenagers’ obsession with sex (a) made them stupid, and (b) led them to overrate one thing at the expense of everything else. I’ve always agreed with Bob Hope on sex: ‘it isn’t the best thing in the world, and it isn’t the worst thing in the world, but there’s nothing else quite like it’.
I do like the story of the ‘Earring Magic Ken’ marketing miss. Someone in advertising must have paid for that stuff-up
Bingo. That’s how I felt about it too.
I never had a Ken. There was one Barbie who was the designated “man” if we decided we needed one for the purposes of the game.
My sister eventually got Cowboy Ken. I reckon he had a touch of the Earring Magics. He wore a purple fringed cowboy jacket and purple boots, with turquoise and silver pants. Wasn’t there a guy in the Village People who wore something like that? Or maybe I’m thinking of the guy in the Village People who wore the Native American headdress…
LE said: I never had a Ken. There was one Barbie who was the designated “man”
When my daughter was into Playmobil, the “Daddy” was played by a long-haired character intended by the manufacturer to be female, and “Mummy” was played by a short-haired character intended to be male. What happens in your house?
(And I hate Night Garden so much I have on my Facebook “Interests” section (on weekends: “Hating Iggle Piggle and friends”)
C S Lewis wasn’t really condemning Susan at the end of the ‘Last Battle’ by not granting her immediate access to heaven – in his terms, she probably remained unredeemed, but this puts her on equal terms with just about every other inhabitant of Lewis’s earth. (He commented later that perhaps Susan would find her own way back to heaven.)
I’m not sure if Lewis is really blaming Susan, either. He criticises her, yes, but he does so in a rather oblique way – through the words of another character (Professor Kirke), who was, of course, just another ‘imperfect’ human.
Here’s the new “tween” Dora.
http://tinyurl.com/ddatfq
Still not sure how she’s going to manage in the cute ballet flats. Maybe she’s going to be a stay at home tween.
“One Barbie who was the designated man” – OMG, that’s so cheap! And funny.
Which part of “screaming queen” did the company not notice when they created Earring Ken? Damned shame he had a truncated shelf life.
Dave, I think I need to join that Facebook group. At home, I am the Asian Fisher Price lady (even though I’m not Asian in real life).
I think there’s still some confusion about gender in our household – my daughter explained “Tigger is a Daddy who has babies in his tummy”. I said Daddies usually couldn’t have babies in their tummy (unless they were seahorses), and she said, “Tigger is special.” I thought that was fair enough.
My sister and I were just recalling that the “man-Barbie” was called “John” and actually belonged to a friend who frequently came over to play. S/He was a Peaches and Cream Barbie indistinguishable from my sister’s Peaches and Cream, but s/he was always the man. We have no idea why we did this.
I was far nastier to my Barbies than my sister. I turned my Golden Dreams into a punk with short orange and green hair and lurid texta applied makeup. My Rocker Barbie’s head melted when I left her outside on a 40 degree day. And I scarred Curly Twirls Barbie for life when I was attempting to detach her head with my teeth so I could get one of those stupid outfits on her more easily. Ever after, she was the tragic scarred Barbie with shark-like bite marks on her cheek. Mind you, my Barbies fared better than a friend’s Barbie – who had her head removed and got turned into a football.
Agreed! No wonder he’s a collector’s item. I’m still chuckling as to how they missed it.
LE@32 said “Dave, I think I need to join that Facebook group”
It isn’t a group AFAIK, just what I put in freeform text under “Activities” in the profile, not a group, not a fan, not a page. For clarity to non-FBers, my “activities” section is:
M-F: I’m boring.
F/Sa/Su : Megablocks, chasey, blackboard and chalk, find-the-dummy, getting jumped on, talking with magpies, hating Iggle-Piggle and friends, cleaning grubby faces, passing on toddler-taming skills.
Tell you what LE, YOU create the group or page, and I’ll join it!
The new Dora is hardly a Bratz. I won’t be panicking if my daughters get excited by the new look. They both already like dressing up despite not watching shows providing the inspiration you fear.
So I take it she wont be exploring much more than a shopping mall from now on, because that new outfit would last five minutes in a jungle.
DEM, I imagine that bracelet would get snagged in jungle vines… And those shoes would be a bit slippy in the jungle mud.
I just don’t see why they need to change her at all. If it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
And where is her backpack… so no food, no water, no tent…
Aaaah, exploring the concrete jungle. (actually the beasts at the top of the food chain in the concrete jungle are a lot scarier!)
Both my daughters have outgrown Dora, but with a new tween Dora they might watch again.* So the producers might simply be following the market (and of course creating new mechandise etc.)
* Right now they’re watching the same shows that their brothers watch (Simpsons and Dragonball Z). I think a new Dora might be a better option. (I personally lie Ben 10 and Kids Next Door).
Dora will now have long hair, a short skirt and ballet flats. Will she also have a belly-button ring, eye make-up and a spray-tan?
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Oh no!
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I don;t have kids but my nephew is a huge fan of Dora and it’s a cool show. Isn;t Dora a kid. Why why why why – does she need to be a Hip Hop ho’?
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As Bill Hicks said marketing? Advertising? Kill youself.
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‘Cept me?
Adrien, I’ll make special dispensation for you.
I don’t understand why you think Dora looks “sexed up” She looks adorable. She does not look prerogative in any way. Being a teenager of today I can honestly say that I have seen worse at the high school I attend. If you think this is bad then you’ve been hiding under a rock.
Molli, prerogative? I do not think it means what you think it means.
LE is not talking about Dora being “sexed up” but being required to perform femininity in the approved manner of the sex/shopping/conventionally attractive stereotype, whereas before the character was allowing girls to identify with someone who didn’t bother with this performance and engaged in adventurous stuff instead.
Helen, precisely – couldn’t have said it better myself. I liked it so much better when she wasn’t a kind of mall shopping tweenie. Personally, I always liked the adventuring type myself.