Gender Stereotypes and iCarly

I know this is a blog about racism in the mass media, but as much as I enjoy critically thinking about racism, I also spend time thinking about how an extremely heavy bias is placed on gender stereotyped behaviors in mass media. If one were to take the time to view some of the things that kids watch on networks such as the Disney channel and Nickelodeon-- and they watched these shows under the assumption that kids will emulate the models that they see on television-- they would find that kids are practically being taught how to be heterosexual and how to follow certain male and female stereotypes (and avoid non-conforming ones).

This is something that is hard to spot since many of us would assume that certain stereotypically male and female behaviors would be considered "normal" while any non-conforming behaviors would be considered deviant from that norm. But try watching the first 50 seconds of this video from Nickelodeon's popular kids show iCarly while keeping traditional male and female stereotypes in mind.

You can see that the male character named Spencer is the target of ridicule for engaging in activities that are  traditionally and stereotypically associated with females (i.e. being a member of a book club, sharing recipes for fruit tarts, and even his overall feminine demeanor at the beginning and end of the first 50 seconds of the video). When the three younger characters enter, you can clearly see that Spencer appears to be ashamed of what he has been doing and it seems as if he has done something terribly wrong. After explaining to the three that he was exchanging recipes for fruit tarts with his book club the three characters immediately start laughing at him-- accompanied of course by some canned laughter to signal to the young audience members that this is something that should be laughed at.

This is of course something that should not be laughed at. As a male I would like to be able to engage in such activities if I wanted to without having to face such ridicule. But the problem here is that these shows intended for children use these stereotypes as a formula for what should be considered normal, then use deviation from those stereotypes as a way to introduce humor to the show. What kid is going to emulate the character that gets made fun of in the show? Of course they would feel ashamed to copy the male character who gets mocked for liking to paint pretty pictures or the female character who is made fun of for not being "girly" enough.

These shows get approved by our rating systems, but I think that they present a problem that is extremely hard to fight. I encourage you to analyze the media that is consumed by the children in your lives. Open your eyes to what is being exposed to theirs. One could easily watch the first 50 seconds of this video in passing and chuckle at it without much thought, but after laughing at it I would like to encourage you to think about why you laughed at that and ask yourself: "is it okay that I find this funny?"