Why The Representation of Gender Roles in Modern Day Kids’ TV Shows Is Shockingly Problematic
“I taught my kid about patriarchy using Paw Patrol”
Being a heavily involved aunt to six and four-year-old girls means I watch a lot of kids’ TV.
And it’s not like “back in my day” — the 80s and early 90s — when it was relegated to after school and Saturday mornings. Because the internet now exists, there is an endless stream of shows to watch on TV and online.
Watching kid’s TV with my nieces is both shocking and jarring. Because I — maybe naively — thought that nowadays there would be better messaging hidden within those brightly coloured worlds.
Especially when it comes to the representation of gender roles.
But I would be wrong.
Mommy and Daddy are “the best” in very different ways
There are plenty of examples of traditional gender messaging within kids’ TV but one of the clearest examples I recently came across was CoComelon’s My Mommy Song and My Daddy Song.
For those of you living in blissful ignorance of CoComelon, it peddles repetitive nursery rhyme-like songs set to 3D animation. Hell for parents, but allegedly highly addictive for…
