Category — *Kids' Shows

Hold onto your hats, folks — I found a children’s animated adventure that has nearly as many female main characters as male ones! Possibly more, depending on where you draw the line on which characters are main characters.This film is Kirikou and the Sorceress.

The hero of this fairy tale is Kirikou, a tiny baby boy with miraculous powers. He’s born into an African village where almost all of the men are gone because they’ve been eaten by Karaba the Sorceress. … READ MORE

Ice Age is one of the worst children’s films I’ve ever seen in terms of gender portrayal.

In a nutshell, Ice Age is a classic all-male buddy adventure in which a motley group of guys of different prehistoric species bring a (male) baby back to his human clan. The human clan is weirdly also all male except for the baby’s mom, who sacrifices her life in the beginning of the movie in order to set up their great adventure. The lack … READ MORE

I’ve done well steering clear of children’s programming, specifically anything produced by Disney. This weekend, though, I caught myself heading back to that channel for reasons I can’t really define as anything other than boredom.

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is a show about twins who live in a hotel with their mother, Carey, who is the singer for the hotel’s lounge. As with most Disney shows, the mother and all other adults are there for comedy fodder and … READ MORE

How many times have you seen this plot in movies and television? Man and woman are friends. Man harbors romantic feelings for woman. Woman isn’t interested and/or doesn’t even realize the man loves her. Man is determined to make her see the light. Man does all sorts of ridiculous, over the top things, and sometimes even creepy things to make the woman see how perfect they would be together. By the end, the woman miraculously does see the light and falls madly for this … READ MORE

The 1993 version of The Secret Garden introduced Mary Lennox, a spoilt brat who’s been given everything she thought to ask for - except her parent’s love and attention. This luxurious lifestyle is brought to a screeching halt when they die, and she’s sent to live with her uncle (the husband of her late mother’s late sister, a man she’s never met) in a dreary mansion in dreary Victorian England.

She hates it, and immediately throws a tantrum, something that’s worked … READ MORE

Taken individually, most of Hollywood’s recent offerings for kids have been reasonable quality entertainment. But taken as a group (I’ve been watching them alongside my kids), I’m struck by the lack of female characters in these films. For a while I was thinking “Well, I have only boys, so of course I haven’t been following the ‘princess movies’…” But after I thought about it a little, it hit me that I have kids, and all I’ve done … READ MORE

Okay, so I watch too much programming specifically targeted to teens or younger. How else would I learn important thinks like that Trix cereal has a “new” shape (the new shape is really the shape in which it was originally produced, btw, round puffs)?

I’m actually not all that familiar with Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101, other than knowing it stars Britney Spears’ younger sister, who I sincerely hope is learning what NOT to do from her older sibling. It’s about … READ MORE

I remember reading a shopping guide/gift suggestion blog online this past Christmas, because I needed to buy a gift for an 8-year-old girl (a generic gift, to help those families unable to provide). The woman recommended a Bratz Doll for this age bracket, because they are affordable toys and a Bratz Doll was what “every little girl wants.” Several commenters said they’d never buy their girls those dolls and why…to which the blogger/expert responded, again, “Why not? They’re cheap and it’ll … READ MORE

As a child, my first fictional hero was She-Ra. She was both strong and kind, never compromised her values, protected her friends and the people of Etheria, and had spiffy accessories (including a flying/talking unicorn and a kickass sword). What more could a 4 year old want?

The show was developed as a spin off to the popular He-Man series by producers who thought that perhaps little girls would like to be able see themselves as the hero. I know that … READ MORE

As a child of the 80s, I grew up well-versed in all things pertaining to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and retain a good deal of emotional investment in all things TMNT-related. So of course I rushed to see the new CGI movie.

There are lots of good things to say about the film, but I’ll concentrate on the subject most relevent to this site: the portrayal of its female characters. For a film that is explicitly about four brothers, and … READ MORE