Stereotypes in Cartoons

Listening to one of my classmates' presentation about stereotypes in cartoons inspired me to do some more research and not only look at stereotypes pertaining to race, but also gender.

I thought back to watching Tom & Jerry growing up. I loved that show! Looking at the usual characters though, there are quite a few stereotypes. There is an African American maid, whose head is almost never seen.
There is pretty much only one female animal character that is recurring on a regular basis. This character is Toodles Galore, a white cat who is Tom's main love interest.


Donald Duck was another favorite of mine. I used to get the comic books and read all the Donald Duck stories first. Out of the seven main characters there is only one female, Daisy Duck. She is portrayed as a flirt, big eye lashes and loves Donald. One interesting thing is that Daisy is portrayed smarter, more sophisticated than Donald and also often exhibits greater self control. This is in contrast to regular television, where women were not able to solve their own problems until late in the second half of the 20th century.

I also found an interesting study about stereotypical gender roles. It looked at various cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and Spiderman and analyzed their gender stereotypical portrayal. One of the most intriguing findings was that male characters exhibited a wider range of traits, while female characters were usually dull. Male characters were seen as strong, dominate and powerful. Going along with our class discussion the study found females only worked in traditionally female jobs, very few were seen as doctors, or other traditionally male positions. Male characters were also found to be more involved in aggressive situations, feeding into stereotypes.

As a child - and sometimes even now - I thoroughly enjoyed watching cartoons. On the one hand I think it would be wise to create cartoons without stereotypes, but on the other hand thinking back I didn't really pay much attention to them. Only analyzing them for a class like this made me really become aware of the stereotypes, so I am not sure children are affected that much.