Exploitative Commercials in Children’s TV Programming Essay -- Media T

Alcohol. Obesity. Violence. For kids today in the United States, these are only a few of the problems linked to the child-targeted wad media, especially the multi- million dollar business boob tube commercials in childrens programming. With the disappearance of a TV-free environment, a typical American kid sees about 40,000 tv set advertisements each year, most(prenominal) of which are for soda, candy, video games, fast food and their free toys. In order to collect some information, I sat down on a Saturday morning on July 16, 2004, and recorded several kids TV ads for further analysis. Needless to say, the results were quite shockingaside from the obvious, I also noticed that most ads featured active and aggressive boys while the presence of girls was rarely to be seen. Being a girl myself, I felt the need to take a close look at such inequality. I began to wonder if commercialism has overlooked the importance of gender issues, which would then create negative impacts on children by sending out harmful hidden messages. For example, these ads can promote a polarization of gender roles that portray the sexes in stereotypical and traditional ways, which will unconsciously affect young viewers attitudes and values. In his article written in 1988, What Are TV Ads Selling to Children, John J. OConnor asserts, Things havent changed a lot in the television business of childrens merchandising, and some aspects of the scene are even more appalling. Indeed, though not as prevalent as in earlier years, TV commercials aimed at kids still contain underlying themes such as sexism thats extremely harmful to the development of the youth. Stereotypical images permeate kids television commercials, giving young chi... ...eyre being preached of becoming the gentle, pretty, sensitive and domesticated dream-girls who are submissive to boys. It is as if females lives revolve around males. On the other hand, boys consort to get the wrong impression that m en have to be physically strong, competitive, rational and superior to women. As illustrated by stereotypes, roles, and representation, boys always seem to be the succeeder in the unequal gender portrayal on kids TV commercials. Many kids try to emulate such characteristics from role-models they see on the screen, which can be real misleading and harmful, for they hinder the development of childrens innate talents and abilities. As OConnor indicates, Commercials in childrens programming are exploitative and a disservice to society. Despite fresh improvement, sexism remains to be a major problem in the child-targeted commercialism.