Essay On Lemish's Eight Principles Of Diversity

One of these eight principles is the principle of equality wherein boys and girls are treated equally in roles and opportunities while giving, recognizing and respecting their differences (Lemish 2010: 125). Furthermore, Lemish gathered that interviewees talked about “role reversal” where the conventional roles of one gender is portrayed by another (Lemish, 2010: 126). Manifestations of this phenomenon can more or less be seen throughout the series: in a cookie guy who aspired to become a princess and ultimately was crowned as one; in a princess (Flame Princess) who overthrew her father, the king, but still preferred to be addressed as Flame King; and most especially in Finn’s personality as a boy. Boys, in order to preserve their “strong”

Diversity is said to be achieved through “providing children with a wide range and variety of characters, both within as well as across each social category” (Lemish, 2010: 139) while complexity “works towards broadening possibilities and traits for both boys and girls by producing more complex, round and non-stereotypical characters” (Lemish, 2010: 141). Perhaps these principles are most apparent in the spectacle of princesses in the cartoon. Not only does the diversity of princesses attack the notion of the monotony in the traits of princesses, but their complex characters represent the excluded types of females outside the impression that females are defined by their appearance. Princess Bubblegum displays the “prim, proper, professional, and perfectly poised” quality of a conventional princess but as discussed previously, she can be aggressive. Furthermore, her undying passion for science parallels her intelligence. Turtle Princess, aside from being the princess of the turtle people, is also the Head Librarian of Ooo (Cartoon Network, 2015: 97). There’s also Muscle Princess having the toned body and toughness commonly associated to men. Nevertheless, Ice King still finds her the most beautiful of all princesses (Cartoon Network, 2015:96). Last, but not the least, there’s the sassy Lumpy Space Princess who is not at all at

Finn became Fionna, Jake the dog became Cake the cat, Marceline the Vampire Queen became Marshal Lee and Princess Bubblegum became Prince Gumball. The significance of this phenomenon lies in the principle of similarity advanced by Lemish wherein it states that “scripts shall emphasize on the shared aspects of boys’ and girls’ lives, rather than dwell on differences that can evolve conflict” (Lemish, 2010:142). Under the principle is the approach to blur the gender within characters to stir up a genderless text. Despite the array of princesses to which a viewer, most likely a female, could identify herself from, it still offers a limited set of options for which she can be identified with. Through gender-bending, it proposes the idea of a genderless text by switching the characters’ genders while still retaining their personalities and traits with only a few minor tweaks. By doing so, it severs the link between gender and a set of attributes a gender is specified