Cory D. sent us these pictures of gendered T-shirts for kids at Disneyland (see them here).
T-shirt text: “I rode [the Pirates of the Caribbean ride] and I spun around in a [teacup]. I ate some [ice cream] and yummy [popcorn]. But the best part of my trip is when I met [Goofy, er Pluto].”
T-shirt text: “I rode [the Carousel]. I saw [Cinderella] and went to her [castle]. I spun in a [teacup] and I ate [ice cream]. But the best part of my trip is when I met [The Little Mermaid].”
I took these pictures at the Toys ‘R Us in Henderson, NV. If you can’t tell, the picture on the left is the boys’ section of the store, and the picture on the right is the girls’ section. First, why must there be a boys and girls section at all? Must all toys be coded as masculine or feminine? Second, notice how gender is color-coded. Kids can tell immediately, even before being able to read, which aisle is for them. All this is aside from the content; that is, what toys are sold in each aisle. These are strong and clear messages to children about group differentiation.
In this series, I offer a typology reflecting the ways in which people of color are used in advertising aimed primarily at whites (see the first and the second in the series). In this, the third edition, I suggest that sometimes people of color are included because the idea of “diversity” triggers the related ideas of “cool,” “hip,” “urban,” and “youth,” which also invoke “modernity” and the idea of being “global,” “cosmopolitan,” even “progressive” politics.
In this ad, a mix of races are used. Notice that the ad also happens to include, in the bottom image, photography, what looks like a dark beer, and espresso (all “upper class” “sophisticated” interests) and, in the top image, we see that the woman who appears Asian is an art dealer.
In this next ad, again, we see a mix of races enjoying what looks like a train ride (how European!) with hard liquor. The text:
The shortest distance between two places isn’t nearly as interesting.
I think it is no accident that “interesting” and racial difference are both present in this ad.
In this next ad we see a racially ambiguous male and a black woman. Notice the clothes that they are wearing (casually sophisticated) and the delicate nature of their coffee cups. This is leisure, not some working-class Joe with a cup o’ joe. Text:
3658 miles from the coffee fields of the Columbian Andes. But still the perfect climate for Colombian Coffee.
The idea of travel, of course, invokes a certain degree of cosmopolitan-ness and wealth. And the “perfect” climate refers not just to weather, but to the kind of company Colombian Coffee drinkers keep.
This ad for H&M is a bit different. Instead of invoking sophistication and cosmopolitan-ness, I think it invokes who and what is “hip” and “cool” and “diversity” is used as a signifier. The text:
H&M is Europe’s leading fashion retailer [Europe again], with over 850 stores worldwide [a reference to being “global”]. Offering high-fashion [i.e., “sophisticated?”] and quality for men, women and children at great prices.
These last two ads, instead of using people of color to emphasize being “hip” or “sophisticated,” use them to signal “youth” and what being young represents. Young people are on the forefront of “cool,” of course, and also, in some sense, define “progressive” in that they herald a more “diverse” and “tolerant” future (hello, Obama).
Next up: Including people of color so as to trigger the idea of human diversity.
Don’t miss the others in the series:
(1) Including people of color so as to associate the product with the racial stereotype.
(2) Including people of color to invoke (literally) the idea of “color” or “flavor.”
One of my former students, Kim D., brought my attention to the old and new versions of Strawberry Shortcake (found here):
Her hair has gotten longer and sexier and she’s more “human” looking. Her clothes are also more form-fitting, and her face is thinner.
Here is a close-up on their faces, from this series of images focusing on her “makeover”:
Notice her lips are fuller and pinker and her eyes are larger. She also has fewer freckles.
The New York Times discussed her makeover:
Strawberry Shortcake was having an identity crisis. The “it” doll and cartoon star of the 1980s was just not connecting with modern girls. Too candy-obsessed. Too ditzy. Too fond of wearing bloomers.So her owner, American Greetings Properties, worked for a year on what it calls a “fruit-forward” makeover. Strawberry Shortcake, part of a line of scented dolls, now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, appears to wear just a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and spends her time chatting on a cellphone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard.
I don’t remember Strawberry Shortcake being “ditzy,” but maybe my memory is bad. And do kids really like cell phones better than pets these days? They probably do, I’m just out of touch.
Here is the original Holly Hobbie from the 1970s (found here):
The new, sassier version, from USA Today:
There’s a Holly Hobbie website where you can read her journal and watch videos.
When I started looking at these, I was puzzled; if the originals are so unappealing to today’s kids, why are they being re-released? Why not just come up with new products? I found some interesting commentary on Jezebel.com:
As part of a growing toy-industry trend (Care Bears are getting slimmed down; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be more pumped, less aggro), vintage brands are being reworked to appeal to the kids, while still playing on young parents’ nostalgia…What I find bizarre about all this is the implicit assumption that kids can’t relate to a character who’s not exactly like themselves. Strawberry Shortcake wasn’t popular twenty years ago because we all wore bloomers and lolled around in a berry patch; it was cute and fun and the dolls smelled good. This kind of formulaic thinking presupposes a narcissism that, ironically, agendas like these seem to create.
I think she may be on to something there: the appeal is to parents, not the kids themselves. To a little kid, Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobbie have no history and aren’t particularly different from other toys available at the store. It’s their parents who have an attachment to the toys. But since the prevailing wisdom is that kids are more “sophisticated” and grown-up at earlier ages, the toys are tarted up a bit to look more sexified teen or pre-teen girls.
I think these images are good for showing the trend toward making girls’ toys, even those for young girls, increasingly sexy, with an emphasis on more human (as opposed to obviously toy-like) features, make-up, and flirty eyelashes and lips. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not meaning to romanticize the earlier versions as some perfect type of toy for girls or that there’s some idyllic past when childhood was sweet and innocent. Personally, I thought Holly Hobbie was boring when I was a kid, though I adored Strawberry Shortcake (or, more specifically, Blueberry Muffin and Lime Chiffon; all I really cared about was the way they smelled and the pets they came with–I was a farm kid, so animal toys were always of great interest to me). But I do think there’s something disturbing about the ways that so many of the toys we give girls today constantly reinforce the message that sexiness and being flirty are desirable attributes, even for young girls.
That might lead to a larger discussion: why are we seeing this trend? What’s going on there? What might be the cultural impetus behind the choices to design, manufacture, market, and purchase toys that incorporate these messages about femininity?
Thanks, Kim!
In case you haven’t seen the FOX News commentary in which the host suggests that a fist bump between Obama and his wife is a secret terrorist signal, you can see it here. (And I thought this was bad.)
Here’s an image of the infamous terrorist signal:
NEW! It’s not an image, but Patrice Evans has an interesting essay on the “fist bump heard ’round the world,” arguing we should celebrate National Fist Bump Day.
Vesko J. sent in several images from “Bee Movie,” the cartoon with Jerry Seinfeld as the voice of the main bee character, Barry. He says:
Female bee workers exist in the movie, but are hardly visible (unless sexual presence is needed.) They can be seen only for a few seconds in the distant background and don’t have any lines of dialogue (as opposed to random male bee workers, who are clearly visible and have lines of dialogue).
Even the bees, that pollinate the flowers, are male. They are called “pollenjocks” and all the female bees fall for these strong, muscular, brave guys.
These are the pollenjocks. In case you didn’t know, it’s actually female bees who collect pollen.
The pollenjocks are big, muscular male figures who tower over the females, who, as far as I can tell, could be called pollengroupies. They aren’t really individuals with personalities; they exist as background to show how awesome the pollenjocks are. On the other hand, the female characters that are treated as individuals tend to be in the home, such as Barry’s mom. Barry’s love interest is not a female bee but a human female, a florist.
Now, I get it. It’s a kids’ movie, and there’s going to be a lot of anthropomorphizing and such. But how animals are anthropomorphized tells us a lot about our social assumptions and what we’re comfortable with. There’s no reason the worker bees’ sex has to be changed, except that it makes more “sense” to us that the hard-working providers would be male. The choices to make the males the center of the story, to make them bigger than the females, and to portray female bees as fawning groupies desperate for male attention tells us an awful lot about the gender stories we tell ourselves about humans, and that they’re important enough to us that even children’s movies have to recreate those stories, no matter how much fiddling with reality it takes. And even though this is an animated children’s movie about bees that talk, flirt, and wear clothes, I bet an awful lot of people will think the gender hierarchy in the movie is fairly accurate.
Thanks, Vesko!
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
I’m always interested when I see ads that play on parents’ fears of neglecting their children as a way to sell them stuff. Middle and upper-middle class parents often encounter, and adopt, a parenting ideology that requires the input of lots of money, time, and emotional energy to be a “good” parent. Parenting is commodified into a set of things parents feel a lot of pressure to buy to prove that they love their children and care about their futures–and don’t want them to be social outcasts.
My mom got pregnant with me when she was 16 and I grew up decidedly working class, and the parenting style I was used to was basically, “The kid’s still alive, so I guess I did a pretty good job.” My mom may have taken this attitude to extremes a bit, since she was known to put me in a harness and tie me out to the clothesline so she didn’t have to keep such a close eye on me when she was busy around the house. Give her a break–she was a teenager! It seemed like a really good idea! (And admit it: there’s part of you that is thinking, “That’s brilliant!”)
My point is, I’m always interested in the ways we seem to always be raising the bar on what is considered good parenting, and “good” parenting is usually defined by middle class standards–though we also often criticize middle and upper-middle class parents for supposedly being distant and self-centered and for pushing their kids too much to succeed. So it’s a catch-22: working-class parents don’t have the money to buy a lot of the products or services we think loving parents must provide their kids, and middle-class parents who do provide them may be criticized for doing so.
Anyway, the other day I came upon these two ads, both of which try to sell products by making parents afraid that if they don’t, they’ll be neglecting their kids. This first one makes it clear that this tactic isn’t new; it’s from 1919:
I found it in the article “Standardizing Childrearing through Housing,” by Paul C. Lukin and Suzanne Vaughan, in Social Problems, volume 53, issue 3, p. 299-331 (the poster is on p. 310).
I found this ad in a Las Vegas community magazine. The text lets you know that silver crowns can be unattractive, and that for your child’s sake you better pay for the white fillings (which are more expensive, and the extra cost is often not covered by dental insurance, even when people have it). I also like that metal fillings are called “bling.” Awesome.
Some of the text below the picture:
Being able to see the dental work in your child’s mouth is not always an appealing appearance. A healthy, natural looking smile for your child is our goal…Now you have a choice!
This McDonald’s Is All Out Of “Boy Toys,” via The Consumerist
