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Author
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Comment
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/15/06 4:23 pm)
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saccharine
"At the moment, the very young seem to be innundated by saccharine, and the middle grades by violence, with the occasional knock-off from reality TV. "
Oh, now that's a really interesting point. I tend to spend time with children who would fall into the first category (the very young), so maybe that's what I'm seeing. Do you think one has to do with another? I also tend to spend more time with little girls than boys, and many of the violent stuff you mention seems to me (and I may be wrong) to be marketed toward boys. Is there something similar going on for girls, do you think, or is there a divergence there? Or is that while boys are hyper-violenced (not a word, I know, but I'm just too tired to think of a good one) in the middle grades, girls are becoming hyper-sexualized, with thongs being made for 10-year-olds and suchlike? Or am I misstating the case?
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/16/06 11:58 am)
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Re: saccharine
I don't have answers for your questions, Veronica, only personal observations. The TV shows I mentioned, I know about them because my children (girls) have watched them, even if they were targetted for boys. Statistically, I believe more boys than girls play with the video games I've described. In the "chick-TV" (my word) world, there's also a fair amount of violence depicted--something that has been around since cartoons first started being shown--but instead of plot lines centered around fight scenes, the plots tend to be centered around cattyness, which my daughters find repulsive and is why they prefer the "boy" stuff. And yes, from an early age, girls are bombarded with make-up, sexy outfits, nail polish, jewelry and vatfulls of pink. My take is that the entertainment industry views the fare provided for boys and girls as a distillation of grown-up values set in a "kid friendly" format--a rather sad view of our society's values.
For the youngest set, I think the entertainment industry faces more and more vocal opposition--parents want to protect their youngest from the worst of this onslaught as long as possible, and have demanded less violent, less sexist fare which has led to Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer and an ever expanding group of children's programming on PBS. The problem with this is not that quality stories don't occasionally get told, but rather that they get submerged in pablum. EVERY bit of violence, EVERY bit of sexual content, EVERY bit of "bad" stuff gets edited out. So we end up with this dichotomy: on the one hand children's programming that is devoid of terror and tension, and on the other, children's programming that's all about violence and sex.
Best,
Alice
P.S. I realize I sound totally doomsday-ish about all of this. My kids, and most of their friends, view what TV provides as one form of entertainment, and is a small proportion of their life. Family time, books, playing with other kids, far too much homework, and school and school related activities take up most of their thinking time.
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