Media and particularly the television are very crucial in the learning process of small children. Television is considered to be the active tool in shaping and molding the characters of children in their gender roles in the community. Depending on the type of material children watch, it shapes their social life which has an impact in later days. The behavior, cultural, social and skills is important for children to learn or adopt through social and culture norms. Media is very important in the way adults and children socialize through varied dramatization, characters and storyline of different genders through portrayals and themes. Different studies have proved that genders are stereotypically in childhood and adulthood. Animated cartoons are important in the growth of children and their activities (Rozario 220). It means that gendered portrayals found in cartoons have helped to communicate ideas and offer values on how children should see things and understand gendered behavior in the society.
By observing the social learning theory, it is widely believed that young children’s social behaviors, beliefs and ideas about gender roles in the society is shaped and molded by gender role portrayals in cartoons. Furthermore, the social learning theory suggests that a good number of children begin to learn steadily and smoothly from various cartoons and particularly those that are aired on TV. From their tender age, they begin to learn about behaviors that relates to their gender or sex in their social learning theory. Working with other agents, cartoon programs on television contribute and shape human behaviors particularly channels such as Cartoon Network. Social learning theorists understand that effective and positive behavior change can be brought in gender roles of each child at a tender age through animated cartoons. Being part of the crucial agent of social identity such as friends, social groups and parents, cartoon also moulds the minds of small children to rely their identities in the society. It imperative to understand that when children get more time to watch cartoon that have stereotypical materials, there is high chance that they will adapt and learn the social practices regarding gender behaviors from cartoons they watch (Rozario 215). Such exposure will make children to have varied characters and identify if they are boys or girls. It implies that the presence of hegemonic control state’s masculine belief and through stereotypical portrayal, the boys below five years is trained to become more active, aggressive and intelligent whereas five year old girls are required to be attractive and passive. Because of the current values on gender that is disseminated through cartoons is possible that in the process of socialization, all types of stereotypical representation of gender results to superiority and inferiority complex in boys and girls respectively.
There are common characters of male and female in cartoon. Male and female characters are exhibited in the cartoons and are normally on the basis of their physical appearance. Because of the male-dominance man are regarded as strong and powerful both mentally and physically. On the other hand, women are normally regarded as passive in the society and whose existence is meant for beauty purposes and sexual objects. Male have been portrayed as strong and have masculine bodies that have the capability of fighting. The male characters are always ready to face danger or compete with rivals. For instance in Generator Rex, there is a boy called “Rex” ‘Lion-o-lion” in thunder cats appears as 10 aliens and has always been portrayed to be very strong and powerful. This relationship shows that a strong person is always a male. Male characters are shown in cartoons to depict intelligent. Male characters have been shown to think rationally with knowledge and intelligence. They always give different forms of idea and they seem to be very genius. In the carton “Power puff girls” the male figure is shown to be very intelligent. The scientist behind the creation of the power puff girls seems to be very intelligent. On the other, cartoons have portrayed females to be physically weak. The characters are abused and receive physical assault by other characters.
Female always depend on male characters to rescue them in cases where there is danger. For example Dephne in the Scooby Dooby Doo is presented as weak though she has some attractive looks. Additionally, females are shown to be caring and emotional towards others. Most of the time, the female characters tend to cry because of some occurrences. Cartoons tend to show women to be passionate and loving as well as patience in issues that affect others. For instance, “Dawn” in Pokemon is portrayed to be confidence and active but starts to be emotional since she gets depressed from defeat and failure of her Pokemon (Rozario 211). Cartoons particularly on the television are very vital in small children. Programs aired on TV are considered to be the active tool in molding the characters of children in their gender role in the community. The behavior, cultural, social and skills is important for children to learn or adopt through social and culture norms. Media is very important in the way adults and children socialize through varied dramatization, characters and storyline of different genders through portrayals and themes. Different studies have proved that genders are stereotypically in childhood and adulthood. Animated cartoons are important in the growth of children and their activities. It means that gendered portrayals found in cartoons have helped to communicate ideas and offer values on how children should see things and understand gendered behavior in the society.
Works Cited
Rozario, Ann Maria, Vaageessan Masilamani, and Arulchelvan Sriram. “Kids’ TV programming
in India: A comparison of gender representation in imports versus locally produced
programmes.” Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications 3.3 (2017): 207-227.
