Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hi, my name is Cindy and
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this is my presentation on gender and youth tv.
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So the show, one of the shows that I analyzed was Arthur.
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You probably have heard of it. It's on PBS kids and it's popular.
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Um
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The show has been running for about 25 years and it first aired September 2,
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1996 and recently aired its last episode.
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I watched it with my younger cousin.
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And the theme of the show is about an eight year old boy named Arthur
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growing up in his neighborhood with his friends
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and family and solving everyday problems together.
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Many of the episodes can be found on Youtube for free as well as just watching it on tv.
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The show aired a number of episodes that
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tackled the harmful effects of gender stereotyping.
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Um just to name two. There are other, there are more episodes that talk about
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gender issues, but just to name a few.
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Um one is called Arthur Unravels and pretty much a summary of the episode is
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he learns how to knit and
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from his grandmother and he becomes passionate about knitting.
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Um but then he's embarrassed
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about being teased for enjoying a grandma activity.
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And one of his friends,
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he finds out one of his friends is also hiding the fact that he nets
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and by the end of the episode, him and his friends just learned that hobbies
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like knitting are not strictly for boys or girls. It's
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they're just general hobbies
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that anyone can enjoy.
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Another episode
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that gave an example of gender tackling gender stereotyping would be
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an earlier episode called francine's bad hair day and in this episode
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it tackles the idea that girls have to look
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act and dress up in certain ways to be approved
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by society.
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And pretty much in the episode,
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francine who's one of Arthur's friends um goes to
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picture day and her friends peer pressure her to
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dress up in a dress and bows and pretty much just look like the rest of them to be
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oh
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a well dressed girl.
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But by the end of the episode,
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francine pretty much
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concludes that she'd rather just
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dress the way that she wants to dress and go
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and play sports with boys and not worry about being
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having mud on her shirt or her hair being
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a little messy
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and she
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gets her picture taken and she's happy with it because it's authentically her.
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So the conclusion stands that at the end of the episode that different
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expressions are good as long as they're authentically used no matter the gender
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for the topic of intersectionality.
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This show usually has targeted each social issue,
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one at a time from what I've noticed.
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And um so not really overlapping different social issues.
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It's usually just like this episode is on race or this episode is on
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um
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gender
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not really
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mixing
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them within an episode when it comes to race. Specifically, a lot of shows on PBS.
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Kids feature animal characters, so I rarely saw it come up through
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the episodes.
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I noticed a trend of introducing homosexual relationships though, for example,
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in one of the episodes of Arthur,
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the proud family
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louder and prouder,
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I believe it's called, which is on Disney Plus
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steven's Universe and other shows on Cartoon Network
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um where they're just kind of
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normalizing it and there are a number of episodes I watched as
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a proud family and Arthur where
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the characters debunked stereotypes about certain religious
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culture,
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religions and cultures and explain the truth from the original perspective.
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Uh for example, and when are the episode?
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They had an exchange student from Africa and a lot of the students projected
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what they believed about Africa and that student was able to
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explain what it's actually like
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in his country, I believe it was Cameroon. Um
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and in
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the proud family,
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they had a cultural cultural exchange episode where
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the main character was able to spend time
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with one of the characters who was muslim during Ramadan and they were able to like
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um I learned from that experience by being immersed
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these shows
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do explore the theme around
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how if you fit into society standards, for example,
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by being straight then it will be easier to receive some sort of respect.
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Therefore power in your community.
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Thinking critically.
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I think what would help you think critically about
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these messages is asking them questions about the topics that
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these shows bring up rather than just
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watching them for entertainment purposes only.
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I believe that conversations opened the door to
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make connections between the material that's in front
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of them about these social issues and how these topics show up in their daily life.
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Thank you.