Sex in cartoons (got yer attention?)
I am pleased to see that sexism is alive and well in modern children's entertainment.
This giant poster downtown for the children's film G-force has a lot to say about gender equality (i.e. that it's still a dream).
Tokenism.
- there is one token female (OK, not a strong case where N=4...)
- the female uses the least poster real estate, is positioned behind the other characters, and is last in the line-up
Gender stereotyping
- the female has the cliche "I am a cartoon female" identifiers: lipstick and eyelashes
- and (worst of all) she is posed in the classic "I am a sexy woman" style - one hand on hip, the other on hair
Skill inequality
- she is the only one without weapons*
*(The best thing a theory can do is make a prediction that subsequently turns out to be true. When I first examined this poster, I had looked to see if she was the only one without weapons. I had pre-supposed that this would be the case. But it seemed clear that character number 3 was also bare-handed, blowing that preconception apart. Oops.
But wait. What's that above him? Shurikens? Yep confirmed. He is be-weaponed too, leaving her as the non-combatant. Wait. Let me guess. She's the communications expert. What's her name? Uhura?)