EDIT: A big thank you to ladyschrei who pointed out my mixing of children and adult television. In originally writing this post I didn't even think to separate children and adult programs because of two big reasons A) Children watch a lot of adult programs, or at least are in the room as their parents watch them. This I feel is undisputed fact, I think, because most reasonable people know at least one poor parent who would let such a thing happen. I am not sure on any legitimate statistics (I didn't check) but I didn't feel like that was the main topic of the post anyway.
And B) I am viewing the majority of the shows talked about in this post as "things I grew up with" so there are of course kids shows, and then varying levels of "adult" shows that I watched and understood more of as I got older. To me it felt silly separating them, as "children" "little girls" and "kids" seemed to be terms that fit the eye of the beholder anyway. I'm 19 and I STILL get called a little girl. So go figure.
In being a 90's kid, I had certain privileges that I think some of the youth today do not have. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena Warrior Princess, Daria, and the Wild Thornberries were all shows I had the chance to grow up watching. All these shows, in case you didn't see the pattern, had strong female leads and/or a cast full of female characters. Sure they had some major flaws--Buffy for instance was a prideful character who often refused help or overestimated her abilities, Xena ends up being raped and beaten, Daria was pessimistic and depressed, and Eliza was more than a bit powerless--however they were all groundbreaking shows that gave women and girls a huge presence in the time between 1990 and 2000.
This is just a small sample of some of the female-heavy shows that were popular at this point in time. (I could bring up Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sailor Moon, Ally McBeal, or Dr. Quinn.) All in all, I could easily say I was spoiled with female role models in the media. Yet, for some reason instead of female-heavy (or even female equal shows) it seems as if media has become MORE male dominate rather than more equal. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with men in the media--I am a sucker for Archer, The Walking Dead, and even was a fan of Supernatural until they started putting all those girls in refrigerators--but there is an obvious disproportion between the men we see on T.V. and the women on T.V.
For instance, most female-centric shows do not focus on empowerment through action, creativity, or self reliance. Most T.V. directed at women and girls nowadays focuses on vanity, getting a man, or simply following well known stereotypical tropes. Although not the biggest consumer of television (more of a book reading hipster, I know a strange find on a creative writing site, go figure) I am more than at a breaking point with television directed at girls and women today.
There is no more Buffys or Dr. Quinns, instead shows like Pretty Little Liars which although female-centric does so in the most supreme misogyny possible. Mad Men--while although gets away with a lot of misogyny due to it being a period piece--still never fails to make women out to be hysterical beings that lack common sense. Game of Thrones, although I haven't watched any of it yet since I haven't finished the book(s), seems promising but there is still a huge disproportion of men and women.
In the end all I can say is that media affects nearly all aspects of life. If we choose to consume media that portrays women poorly, limits their representation, or simply uses them to forward male story lines--what role models are we giving to the little girls of today?
Not registered?
Create an account