The Quiet Potential of ‘The Loud House’

A deep dive into the issues at the core of Nickelodeon’s newest breakout hit, as Nicktoons Month! comes to a close.

There’s not much subtlety in the theme song lyric “One boy, ten girls!”, but that hasn’t stopped The Loud House from becoming Nickelodeon’s newest breakout hit.

If you’re not familiar with it, The Loud House is a slice-of-life guide to navigating a large, unruly family. The show focuses on 11-year-old Lincoln Loud, the middle child with five older and five younger sisters. The best new Nicktoon on the block is good, but it’s not Doug-tier good yet. Here’s everything we like and think the show could do better.

The formula works.

The format is fairly consistent. Episodes start with Lincoln Loud laying out a plan to reach a goal (gaining control of the remote control, claiming the best seat in the minivan, etc.) by circumventing his sisters’ quirks and antics. Lincoln’s plan backfires, or is otherwise thwarted, and Lincoln learns that his family dynamic is rewarding, however frustrating. Also: Everyone’s name begins with the letter L, as a shout-out to his five L-named sisters.

Since premiering on May 2, The Loud House’s grown in popularity surprisingly quickly. The original pilot short was part of a Seibert-style call for entries, the Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program in 2013 (incidentally, this model is also how most of your favorite 90’s cartoons were created). Within a month of its launch this year, The Loud House had beaten out longtime Nickelodeon hit Spongebob Squarepants in the ratings, and was renewed for a second season almost instantly.

There’s a lot going for this show: invigorating energy, spot-on Sunday comics art style, and good ol’ gross-out humor. Also, importantly, it debuts Nickelodeon’s first gay parents. (One of whom is played by Wayne Brady! It’s nice when your dreams come true.) There’s one thing I can’t get past though: with ten female characters, how does this show manage to only feature a boy’s perspective?

Not two, not three, but 10 girls — can this show handle it?

Let’s unpack this. Girls are present in nearly every scene, but the show doesn’t pass the Bechdel test until the last few minutes of episode 3b. With the exception of screaming and punching, Lincoln’s sisters have surprisingly little to say to each other. Which is…weird.

The Loud House’s gender problem is hidden in plain sight. The Loud sisters are presented as expressive, passionate about their hobbies, and extremely opinionated. However, there are few instances where their points of view are treated as valid. Most of the time, the sisters’ quirks are problematic and inconvenient for Lincoln. Only at the end of the episode does Lincoln admit that his sisters’ personalities are what he loves about them, with this realization played for his character’s growth, not theirs.

The problem is, when you get down to it, the Loud sisters aren’t developed past their baseline interests. While their hobbies may be diverse and refreshingly non-gender normative, they’re not a substitute for actual character development. Instead, it just feels like Savino picked a singular trait at random for each sister and stopped there. Lynn: Athlete. Lisa: Science Whiz. Leni: Fucking Idiot. The end result is ten flat characters who are only mildly interesting.

By contrast, take Cartoon Network’s breakout show, Steven Universe, another cartoon featuring a boy being raised in a predominantly female household. Though Steven is the title character, the show still finds time to humanize each of its female leads. One character, Amethyst, struggles with self-esteem issues and questions about her heritage across multiple seasons of the series. We see her grapple with and reconcile her demons, sometimes with Steven’s help, and sometimes not. My hope for The Loud House is that we’ll eventually get to focus in on the other sisters in a real way. After all, it’s not just Lincoln who’s coming of age — the writers have every stage of childhood to explore. Narrowing the narrative feels like a missed opportunity. Ten missed opportunities, in fact.

This approach toward gender is part of a frustrating trend.

The Loud House’s dynamic is reflective of the golden rule of gendering kids’ content: girls will watch “boy shows” but boys will not watch “girl shows.” Those of us who have ever been around kids know that’s a huge blanket statement and not always an accurate one. (TBT to my brother and I watching hours of Lizzie McGuire). Libby Copeland’s Slate article does a great job breaking down the qualities of female protagonists that draw a balanced demographic of lil’ viewers. She argues that the secret of any great protagonist is simply for them to be an active player in their own story. It’s not that boys won’t watch shows about girls, it’s that they won’t watch shitty shows about girls: “In other words, girly trappings in and of themselves need not be a deal-breaker for boys so long as the main character and narrative are strong enough. At least, not until our culture beats it out of them.”

We’re starting to tap into something deeper here: there is a belief that femininity and dynamic characteristics cannot live in the same character. It seems that every time a concept shows promise, a female POV equates to self-sabotage. I can practically hear the network execs muttering about ratings and not wanting to risk alienating the “main demographic,” (code for: young white boys) and it’s bumming me out.

But there’s one saving grace…

The one thing I really do appreciate is that the Loud Sisters are gross as hell. There’s a poop joke in every episode, starting with baby Lily toddling across the screen, gleefully murmuring “poo-poo” at the end of the opening song. There’s no shortage of gross-out gags distributed across the characters, which is relatively rare for female characters. One of the best running jokes is Lisa Loud’s fecal study, in which she tracks and reports on the bowel movements of everyone in the family. The consistent reminder that everyone poops is refreshing, albeit disgusting.

If I could put a bug in the writers’ ears, I’d suggest that they take it even further. Poop is great, and so are other perfectly normal and weird habits alike. Real comedy thrives in the creation of unexpected combinations, which is what The Loud House really lacks. I think we’d be amazed at what adding one contrasting personality ingredient per character would yield. Yes, there are a lot of girls to account for in each episode, but strong characters lead to better plotlines and a richer overall series. Sugar, spice, and everything nice is just better with Chemical X.

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