{"id":11529,"date":"2018-03-07T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11529"},"modified":"2018-03-08T04:55:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T04:55:26","slug":"why-its-so-important-for-kids-to-see-diverse-tv-and-movie-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-its-so-important-for-kids-to-see-diverse-tv-and-movie-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it’s so important for kids to see diverse TV and movie characters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julie Dobrow<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em>; Calvin Gidney<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em>, and Jennifer Burton<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The hype surrounding \u201cBlack Panther<\/a>\u201d has been as hyperbolic as any feat its characters might perform, with the film being praised for its layered story and what\u2019s been described<\/a> as its \u201cAfrofuturist\u201d cast. And \u201cBlack Panther\u201d will be joined by \u201cA Wrinkle in Time<\/a>,\u201d another film with blockbuster potential and an interracial cast. <\/p>\n

But no matter how much money or how many awards films like \u201cBlack Panther\u201d and \u201cA Wrinkle in Time\u201d amass, our research strongly suggests another reason they\u2019re important: Children need a diverse universe of media images. And for the most part, they haven\u2019t had one.<\/p>\n

Some progress, but \u2026<\/h2>\n

In the 1970s, Boston University communications professor F. Earle Barcus began publishing the results of content analyses<\/a> he had conducted on children\u2019s television. His findings showed large disparities between the numbers of male and female characters and between the numbers of white and non-white characters. In a 1983 study, Barcus analyzed over 1,100 characters in 20 children\u2019s television programs and found that only 42 were black. Just 47 others belonged to some group other than white. <\/p>\n

Since then, researchers have consistently found<\/a> that the animated worlds children see on television are out of sync with their real environments. <\/p>\n

Over the past seven years, we\u2019ve continued studying this topic at the Children\u2019s Television Project (CTV) at Tufts University<\/a>, documenting images of different races, gender and ethnicities in the most popular children\u2019s animated series. We\u2019ve also taken steps to try to understand why stereotyped portrayals still exist well into the 21st century. Finally, we\u2019re starting to develop ways to study and collect data about how children process the images they\u2019re exposed to on TV.<\/p>\n

In order to categorize the images children see, we\u2019ve developed a system for coding the race, ethnic identity, gender and age of primary and secondary characters in children\u2019s animated television shows. We\u2019ve also included a sociolinguistic component to the analysis, because we know that children are absorbing both sights and sounds as they process media. <\/p>\n

The good news is that the world of children\u2019s animated television is more diverse than it used to be. For example, we\u2019ve found that female characters account for just under one-third of all characters. Discouraging as this may appear, it\u2019s a significant improvement from the 1:6 ratio that F. Earle Barcus had previously found, and better than the 1:4 ratio that communications professors Teresa Thompson and Eugenia Zerbinos found<\/a> in the 1990s. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s more racial and ethnic diversity, too. Black characters account for 5.6 percent of our total sample of over 1,500 characters. (A study conducted<\/a> in 1972 by researchers Gilbert Mendelson and Morissa Young for Action for Children\u2019s Television found that over 60 percent of the TV shows in their sample had no racial minority characters at all.) There are many more Asian or Asian-American characters (11.6 percent), though this likely due to the prevalence of a few popular cartoons featuring mostly Asian characters such as \u201cLegend of Korra<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad news is that there\u2019s still a ways to go. African-Americans represent an estimated 13.3 percent<\/a> of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, Hispanic or Latinos make up 17.8 percent<\/a> of the population, but we\u2019ve found Latino characters only made up 1.4 percent of our sample. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, stereotypes persist in both how characters are drawn and how they talk, with \u201cbad guys\u201d using non-American accents and dialects. We see this in characters like Dr. Doofenshmirtz<\/a> from \u201cPhineas and Ferb\u201d or Nightmare Moon on \u201cMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.\u201d <\/p>\n

To try to understand why stereotyping persists, we\u2019ve interviewed some of the people who write, direct, cast and provide vocal talent for children\u2019s animated programming. While we haven\u2019t completed this part of the study, it seems that economic pressures compel the creators of children\u2019s animated programming to rely on stereotyping as a kind of shorthand. <\/p>\n

For example, one director of a popular children\u2019s animated show told us, \u201cIf something\u2019s worked before, you tend to just use it again,\u201d even if that \u201csomething\u201d is stereotyped. An African-American voice actor reported being in auditions where he was told to make something sound \u201curban,\u201d a code word for a more stereotyped African-American dialect.<\/p>\n

Kids, quick to judge<\/h2>\n

But the real question is why this all matters.<\/p>\n

Studies<\/a> from many<\/a> fields<\/a> have shown that it\u2019s important for children to see characters who not only look like themselves and their families, but also sound like them. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a relationship between low self-esteem and negative media portrayals of racial groups, in addition to an association between poor self-esteem and the paucity of portrayals of a particular group. Others have found that media misrepresentations of ethnic groups can cause confusion about aspects of their identity among children of these groups.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n The worlds children are exposed to on screen can influence their self-esteem and how they judge other people.<\/span>
\n PanicAttack\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In our study of how children process the sights and sounds of animated worlds, we developed a method in which we show children images of diverse animated faces and play voices that use different dialects. We then ask kids to tell us if the person is a good person, a bad person, or if they can\u2019t tell. We follow this up by asking them why they think what they do.<\/p>\n

Though we\u2019re not far enough along yet in our research to provide definitive answers to our questions, we do have some preliminary findings.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, kids notice differences. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve found that first- and second-grade children, when presented with a variety of drawn cartoon character faces they haven\u2019t seen before, have no problem sorting them into \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d characters.<\/p>\n

In fact, many children have clearly developed ideas and are able to tell us lengthy stories about why they think a particular character might be a hero or villain with minimal information. Sometimes this seems to be based on their belief that a character looks like another media character they\u2019ve seen. They\u2019ll then make the assumption that a face they\u2019re shown looks like \u201ca princess\u201d or \u201csomeone who goes to jail.\u201d With the lack of diversity in the world of children\u2019s television, it\u2019s not surprising that kids would make associations with so little information. But it\u2019s also a bit alarming \u2013 given what we know about the prevalence of stereotyping \u2013 that children seem so quick to make attributions of who\u2019s good and who\u2019s evil. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important that children not only have a diverse universe of characters but also that these characters have diverse characteristics. It\u2019s okay for characters to have non-American accents, but good guys \u2013 not just bad guys \u2013 should have them too. The heroes can be male and female, and non-white characters don\u2019t have to be relegated to the role of sidekick: They can assume leading roles.<\/p>\n

This brings us back to why these new films are so groundbreaking. Yes, \u201cBlack Panther\u201d is demonstrating that a film about a black superhero can shatter box- office records. Yes, \u201cA Wrinkle in Time\u201d is the first $100 million movie directed by a woman of color. <\/p>\n

But beyond all that, these films break the mold by showing the complexity and variety of black male and female experiences. <\/p>\n

\"TheIf more movies, TV shows and animated series follow suit, perhaps we will finally move beyond the underdeveloped and stereotyped characters that children have been exposed to for far too long.<\/p>\n

Julie Dobrow<\/a>, Senior lecturer, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University<\/a><\/em>; Calvin Gidney<\/a>, Associate Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University<\/a><\/em>, and Jennifer Burton<\/a>, Professor of the Practice, Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julie Dobrow, Tufts University; Calvin Gidney, Tufts University, and Jennifer Burton, Tufts University The hype surrounding \u201cBlack Panther\u201d has been as hyperbolic as any feat its characters might perform, with the film being praised for its layered story and what\u2019s been described as its \u201cAfrofuturist\u201d cast. And \u201cBlack Panther\u201d will be joined by \u201cA Wrinkle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[4019,4136,132,2711,453,308,4135],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11531,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11529\/revisions\/11531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}