Blog #8 "Gendered Voices in Children's Television Advertising"

One of my favorite activities as a child, and even as a teenager, was watching cartoons on Saturday mornings. Growing up, we did not have a TV for over ten years and when we did have one, we usually were only allowed to watch movies. Because of the lack of TV exposure, I thoroughly enjoyed those Saturdays when I got to spend three hours watching cartoons. The commercials were more memorable than the shows themselves. I can distinctly remember that there were “boys” and “girls” commercials and that the “boys” commercials were always exciting and action packed and the “girls” were boring and full of feelings. I even remember the ad mentioned in Johnson and Young’s article about the RC MEGA RACING remote control car and how cool the ad made it look to be a boy with a car. I can still hear the aggressive voice-over in my head.

I am not surprised by what Johnson and Young found in their study, but it does make me feel like I should throw out my TV right now so that my 7 month old daughter does not get exposed to such blatant and exaggerated sexism. Kids in this country have almost no chance to be sensitive to sexist language when they are constantly being shown and told how to be a certain gender. The sexism found in TV commercials scares me because it is shaping who we become without our direct knowledge. I want my daughter to be open to a wide range of possible roles in her life, so watching Saturday morning cartoons may be off limits for many years to come. I will tell her later that she can thank my Linguistics class for her lack of TV viewing time.