Gender Roles In Animated Cartoons

Gender Representations in Animated Cartoons on Television

Introduction

Animated cartoon films have become significant in the lives of children and adults around the world. Animated movies have started to replace the holywood and bolywood movies. The colourful cartoon world attracts children and adults because of the issues highlighted in this genre relate to their lives. The present study will investigate the gender representations of male and female characters in animated cartoons, broadcast from cartoon network i.e the worldwide popular cartoon channels for instance, Disney, Pogo, Nick, See TV, Toonami, CN etc,. The animated cartoon movies on these channels are broadcast in many languages in all developed and developing countries of Asia

TheMost children are regularly exposed to animated cartoons (Klein et al. 2000). The constructivist approach and cultivation theory suggest the gendered content they contain may impact children’s gender role acquisition (Graves 1999; Klein et al. 2000). The children in their tender ages from 3 to 8 years are more vulnerable to linguistic and social learnings from cartoons which may or may not meet the standards of their community and culture. Cobb (2001) favours this view and she says that kids at the age of 2 years are known to differentiate objects and relations as male and female as a result of social learning. From psychological point of view, most of brain development is completed within first five years of children 's life. The representations of male and female roles and relationships in cartoons may affect children 's psychological and social development for good because learning in childhood is a permanent learning.

1.1- Questions

⦁ What roles linguistic and semiotic techniques play in animated cartoon films to project the gender identities?

⦁ How does language create gender power roles and relationships in animated cartoon films?

⦁ What kind of social, patriarchal, professional and stereotypical gender roles and relationships are constructed in animated

(2008).Gender and Language (essay: on language and sexual politics) London: Routledge

Catherine, A. L. & Legg Jr. R. (2010). Published online: 07 Apr 2010 published on line Gender Differences in Depiction of Social and Physical Aggression in Children’s Television Cartoons in the US.

Cobb, N. J. (2001). The Child, Infants, and Children. Mayfield publishing company, Mountain View, California, London. Toronto.

Crystal, D. (1996). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2nd Edition (P.21-49)

Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse. Co-published in United States of America by Oxford University Press, Inc. New York (P-109)

Hoechsmann, M. & Poyntz, R. S. (2012). Media Literacies: A Critical Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, UK

Johnson, S. & Ensslin, A. (2007). Language in the Media. Continuum International Publishing Group. New York

Klein, H., Shiffman, K. S., & Welka, D. A. (2000). Gender related content of animated cartoons, 1930 to the present. Advances in Gender Research, 4, 291–317. doi:1.1016/S1529-2126(00)

80028-4.

Koller, V. (2008). Not Just a Color: Pink as a gender and sexuality marker in visual communication, visual communication, 7(4) 115-128.

Lemish, D. (2006). Gender and Language. Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press,