Media Gender Stereotypes free essay sample

I compared this type of media to the iCarly show which Barbie’s townhouse and Moxie Girls was aired during. iCarly features the main character Carly who has a web show named iCarly that she hosts with her best friend Samantha. Samantha is quite an individual with a tomboyish personality who tried to change for a boy she liked by being more girlie, but at the end decided it wasn’t who she really was and said she wouldn’t change for anyone. Comparing these two forms of media’s approach I think in this case it was the programming that had a much more positive and modern view on life. The advertisement played on children’s interests and fears, while the iCarly show has a more realistic outlook and combated those fears. Boys advertising shows one of these three features: Rock and roll/ heavy music, darker colors than girl focused commercials ( blues, reds, greens), and violence. We will write a custom essay sample on Media Gender Stereotypes or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Whether it’s making buildings to smash down, building car tracks to crash cars together, or running around with squirt guns to â€Å"kill† each other, there are few toy ads that I have seen for boys without any violence. And parents wonder why boys will go up and just hit each other or even girls, and not even know why they did it, which I was witness to at a cafe. On the other hand the much beloved show Sponge Bob Square-Pants geared towards boys and girls which recently reached it’s 10-year anniversary is a far cry from Captin American and the Justice League. Sponge Bob is a wimpy little sponge who lives under the sea with his snail Gary and is constantly coming out with new ideas with his best friend Patrick. Ideas that sometimes end up doing well, but a lot of the time don’t come out the way he wants. And what is more controversial is a female squirrel named Sandy who â€Å"invents amazing devices and performs awesome experiments. Sandy is one smart squirrel but is also into extreme sports, surfing and most of all karate†(www. spongebob/nick. com) but yet is not the main character of the story. I think that Sponge Bob’s adventures and the way in which he tackles them, mostly in child-like logic, are what attracts kids to him. They can relate to him to an extent, even though his neighbor Squidward hates him, this never brings Sponge Bob down as he always tries to nice anyways. The gender stereotype does not apply here. But that’s not to say that girls are always viewed as the smarter ones. In the show Jimmy Neutron Boy Ginuess, of the main characters there is only one girl. She is seen as sort of a thorn in Jimmy’s side always trying to catch him doing something he shouldn’t or tries to one up him. This is very similar to Peanut’s characters Lucy and Charlie Brown. Although Lucy is not the smartest, she acts like she is. I would view Jimmy Neutron as a bit stereotypical based on girls sort of playing mind games on boys to manipulate them. Kids used to watch American Bandstand as their number one programming source of what was cool.