Annotated Bibliography

The Effect of Cartoon Movies on Children’s Gender Development

Cartoon movies are a necessary source of fun for children and also have educational aspects.

innocent displays in cartoons give many subtle messages for kids cognitive development.

The characters of men and women in cartoons are shaped through existing stereotypes and roles in society, this contributes to instilling these norms in little kids.

during the first 18 months of their lives, children begin to differentiate between the 2 sexes. 18 to 20 months their gender identity begins to evolve. By the age of 2, kids would not have constructed a consistent view of their own gender, but rather they can distinguish between the clear divide of men and women, pink and blue.

by 3 and 4 they are aware of their sex but unaware that it is a permanent characteristic.

One of the most effective factors in children’s internalization of gender is media.

Male characters are seen as more dominant than females

they are also associated with colors, girls like more “feminine” colors such as pinks and purples, boys tend to like more “masculine” colors such as blue and green.

Media is an expression of people’s common, ordinary feeling and interests on screen broadcasted on TV

Gender discrimination in TV programs is the reflection of a social problem on the screen

Parents are happy to see their kids manifesting socially acceptable behaviors

Behaviors suitable with gender roles are rewarded, behaviors which do not match social expectations related to gender are punished

Cartoons which are tools for entertainment include many hidden messages.

Social learning approaches suggest that children’s development of gender related characteristics stem from reward and punishment of gender typing behaviors or observing role models who had been rewarded or punished (Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Huston, 1983; Mischel, 1966, 1970)

Children at a tender age cannot distinguish between fiction and reality. (baler and Ball, 1969). They think that movie characters and toys are real and alive. Children at such ages tend to take other same sex people in their immediate surroundings as models. For example, girls take their mothers, boys their fathers, and both take their favorite TV characters as role models and internalize their behavior.

True representations of men and women contribute to healthy growth and nurturing, whereas stereotypical representations cause negative effect on their children audience

Stereotypical gender role models are especially responsible for the negative views of young women.

According to a research report in 1981, Barcus (1983) realized that 75% of characters in children”s cartoons were male, while 21% were women. When women are present in Tv shows that are often shown for less screen time, silent and almost never in leadership roles. They are not very active, have less responsibility and are much more childish than men.

Women’s representations at lower status reveal itself in the jobs they do, women are shown to be either unemployed or housewives. Housewives, mothers, secretaries, maids, nannies, nurses.

Thompson and Zerbinos examined 175 cartoon movies in the cable and normal TV and reported that “the number of males among protagonists is more than females by one third while the number of other male characters are nearly one fifth more than females (Thompson & Zerbinos, 1995)

The Smurfs has 90 male characters ranging in personality types and characteristics, while having only 1 stereotypical female character.

For a program to be successful it should cater to boys preferences, since boys do not watch cartoons with female protagonists. Unlike girls, who watch both male and female protagonist leading cartoons.

According to Streicher, assessing the difference between roles given to male and female characters.

Male characters are attached to roles of importance, the savior, the doctor, the superhero. While female characters are narrowed down to supporting roles, the mother, cheerleader, nurse…

Leading male characters are more free, honorable, attractive, athletic, pretentious, and responsible than female characters. While female characteristics are often friendly, emotional, romantic, compassionate, fragile, mature, and domestic.

Female leading characters are often found requesting help, waiting to be rescued and request security, meaning they are not in charge of their own fate.

Boys’ and girls’ preferences differ due to the inclinations of the family, boys are encouraged for displays of strength and fearlessness and this is deemed “male appropriate behavior” this is why males lean towards cartoons with higher displays of action and physical violence. Girls are told their greatest attribute is their kind heart and their goal should be finding their prince charming, this is why girls grow up watching sad romantic movies, since emotions are more a girls area of experience thus “Female appropriate behavior”.

Improvements have been made

Another problem is inter - sexual transformation, in some cartoons females turn into male characters and males turn into female characters. Which has been shown to cause anxiety for children in development, who do not know how to separate reality and fiction.

In the cartoon Ranma (1987 - 1996), the leading character is shown to transform into a female when in contact with cold water. The transformation into female is shown as a humiliating section of the show.

“Ranma you talk like a girl” “Ranma you have dishonored this family” suggesting that being female is the problem.

Asexuality in cartoons, such as teletubbies, is seen as a positive approach since it doesn’t show one gender as more dominant.

Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses

The advertising campaigns behind the princess movies targeted young girls with the aim that of encouraging them to personally identify with the characters, later helping them sell their products

Disney and its princess phenomenon have been identified as one of the most powerful influences on children’s media and contributing the the new “girlhood”, that is largely defined by gender and the consumption of related products and messages.

Leaper et al. (2002) conducted a content analysis of gender stereotypes character portrayals across four genres of TV shows: traditional adventure, non traditional adventure, educational/ family, and comedy, all of which had highly stereotyped characters and messages related to gender. (Extent differed according to genre)

An examination of 6 Disney heroines Found there was a focus on their sexuality and the “exotic” especially those of color. (could tie this point to Orientalism)

The portrayal of women in Disney movies has been constant and quite unrealistic over the years, with the girls having small waists, extremely pale skin tones, full breasts, and delicate limbs.

There has been some improvements in more recent movies such as Merida (Brave) and Tiana (Princess and the Frog), however most attributes remain.

Thompson and Zerbinos (1995) found that children who recognized more gender stereotyping in cartoons had similarly gendered expectations for themselves and others.

Consistently portrayed gender role images often reveal themselves to be “normal” to children due to their high repetition and frequency, and become linked to patterns of socially accepted behavior and morality.

Example: when children see a villainy character illustrated via gender transgression (e.g., a male villain appearing effeminate) they may develop lasting negative associations with non stereotypical gendered behavior.

The constructivist approach and cultivation theory both suggest there may be an effect of viewing gendered stereotypes upon children (Graves 1999). The constructivist approach proposes that children develop beliefs about the world based on their interpretations of observations and experiences (Martin et al. 2002), and therefore, viewing stereotyped or egalitarian depictions of gender roles will influence children’s ideas about gender (Graves 1999).

Cultivation theory posits that exposure to television content helps develop concepts regarding social behavior and norms (Gerbner et al. 1980, 1994). Thus, children’s media influences a child’s socialization process and the gendered information children view may have a direct effect on their cognitive understanding of gender and their behavior (Graves 1999). Further, cultivation theory posits that higher levels of exposure to gendered messages are likely associated with stronger effects on children’s gender socialization (Klein et al. 2000).

Male characteristics, want to explore, strong, athletic, unemotional, engaging in intellectual activity, brave, natural born leader. Males are often seen as independent nor depending on the authority of another and lack of emotion.

Female characteristics, tends to physical appearance, submissive, emotional, affectionate, nurturing, helpful, fearful, ashamed, collapses crying.

Gender representations and stereotypes in Cartoons: A Jordanian Case

The past three decades in Jordan have brought to the forefront a gendered ethics of existence that seeks to inscribe a vision of femininity and masculinity that resists the deterministic and oppressive social roles imposed by patriarchal values.

Imad Hajjaj has a particular emphasis is his drawings of marginalized groups, mainly women.

The political evalu- ation of the visual discourses that represent the female body has been central to feminist studies as they sought to tackle the construction of femininity in various media, such as the cinema, television, literature, and pop culture, and the manner in which subjectivity is constructed along very stereotypical and negative imagery—what Ellen Rooney (1996) terms the narrative project of patriarchy.

The intertextual reference to the wider social base with its beliefs regarding the powerlessness, inferiority, and dependence of women means that in addition to re-representing and entrenching stereotypical images, the cartoons are constituting such images in the minds of the foreign readers of such newspapers.

1. Cartoons construct and reinforce gendered subjectivities
   Rather than simply reflecting “real life,” cartoons participate in producing the very ideas about gender that viewers internalize. Each character and scenario encodes a “logic of the real” that children absorb, often uncritically, as normative .

2. Rigid binary depictions of women
   In Al‑Mahadin’s analysis, women appear almost exclusively in two opposing roles: the dutiful mother/housewife, who is confined to the private sphere, and the “immoral” working woman, lightly dressed and objectified ​. For a child, repeated exposure to only these two extremes leaves little room to imagine other, more nuanced adult female identities—scientists, leaders, caregivers beyond the home—thus narrowing their own sense of what women “can” be or do.

3. Symbolic annihilation of alternative female models
   Because cartoons almost never depict women outside those two stereotypes, entire swaths of female experience (women in politics, scholarship, diverse professions) are effectively erased. Gerbner’s notion of “symbolic annihilation”—where absence in media equates to nonexistence in reality—means children learn to treat those missing roles as impossible or irrelevant ​.

4. Fictional “everyperson” characters anchor stereotypes
   Al‑Mahadin highlights how Hajjaj’s fictional protagonists (e.g. Abu‑Mahjoub and his family) act as archetypes of “the Jordanian” . For children, these stand‑in figures feel like authentic reflections of society, making the embedded gender messages all the more persuasive—and harder to question.

5. Repetition cements gender schemas
   Because these cartoons ran daily and in the country’s best‑selling paper, children saw the same narrow representations again and again. Over time, this repetition reinforces the unconscious “schema” through which they sort new information about gender, from playtime roles to educational and career aspirations .

Implications for Gender Development

• Role‑model formation: Young viewers often emulate characters they see frequently; if women in cartoons are always relegated to home or sexualized roles, girls may feel their ambitions belong “invisible,” and boys learn to expect women only in those narrow capacities.

• Self‑concept and aspirations: The absence of diverse female representations limits what children envision for themselves. Boys may never see caregiving as a valid male role, while girls may never see leadership as theirs to inhabit.

• Normalization of inequality: By presenting patriarchy as a given—women confined to the private sphere, men as authoritative public actors—cartoons help naturalize gender hierarchies that children then carry into their own interactions.