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Posts tagged ‘Television’

Feb 26

Kids and Television

On a website called “Media Awareness Network,” there is an article entitled  “Television’s Impact on Kids” about the dangers or concerns related to tv. The article addresses the various ways that tv can have a negative impact on the minds of children. The issues that it presents are violence, sexual content, and healthy development. It points out that television has more violence than everyday life and can cause aggression, desensitization, and fear among children. The article also explains that tv allows children to be much more sedentary than children from previous decades and promotes unhealthy food in commercials. The combination of these things could be a factor in the rising rates of obesity. While I have never heard of the argument that advertising plays a part in obesity, it seems like a logical complaint. It stems from the rising rates of childhood obesity and the concerns parents have other this new issue in today’s society.

The article has no author mentioned, but it is directed to parents or adults. The entire website seems directed at teachers and parents. This article is a form of moral panic because it bemoans the increased emphasis of television in children’s lives and explores any negative consequences tv might have. The piece is meant to be informative and to succinctly articulate the negative aspects tv has on kids.

The article emphasizes violence as a negative consequence, which is also a negative consequence of the nursery in “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury. The children in the story become desensitized to violence and end up killing their parents rather ruthlessly in the end. In this way, the two pieces are similar. While Bradbury’s story doesn’t really explore sexual content aspects the nursery might have had, it does seem to go into the health concerns relating to tv and technology. The family members are all lazy and when threatened with turning off all the appliances, the little boy, Peter, asks if he’ll have to tie his own shoes (167)! The roles that technology played in the family’s life changed each member into lazy and spoiled people who were used to having everything done for them. The article worries that tv could cause similar laziness.

In these ways, Bradbury’s story and the article are extremely similar. Both fret over the role that technology, particularly tv, plays in people’s lives and the eventual effect it might have.

Feb 26

Ren and Stimpy

One of the cartoons I used to watch in my childhood, “Ren and Stimpy,” in particular relates to the concepts of anxious parents and concerns over children’s television that we discussed in relation to the Chudacoff reading, “The Commercialization and Co-optation of Children’s Play.” “Ren and Stimpy” was created in 1991 by a Canadian animator named John Kricfalusi for the children’s channel Nickelodeon. The show focused on the adventures of a chihuahua named Ren and his dim-witted cat friend Stimpy, and the various gross and outrageous situations they would get themselves in to. This was one of the major concerns my parents had over me watching this program. In the article Cartoons Aren’t Real! Ren and Stimpy in Review, by Animation World Magazine, the author states that, “The Ren and Stimpy Show featured filth, illness, disease and mutilation to an unprecedented degree, making these horrors an integral part of the show.” My parents were very disturbed by the sorts of gross-out comedy and toilet humour that the show relied on for the majority of its punch lines.  Whether it was scenes of outrageous violence and mutilation, or bodily fluids spraying all over the place, “Ren and Stimpy” was always good for a laugh, and contained a variety of great low-brow humor. My parents worried, however, that by allowing me to view things such as this at the young age where I was watching Nickelodeon, my growth would be stunted, and I would be exposed to things I didn’t yet understand. This related to the fears we discussed in relation to the Chudacoff reading. Parents were worried that if children saw inappropriate or adult content on the television, their emotional development would be stunted, and they would be prematurely aged by things they were too young to comprehend. I can’t say how much of this was true for me, but “Ren and Stimpy” was a staple in my television viewing as a child, and was one of the most ground-breaking shows of its time for its willingness to go to extreme lengths in depictions of the gross and disgusting.

A scene of gross-out humor common in Ren and Stimpy to serve as an example.

 

 

Feb 25

Children and TV

calorielab.com

In the article Children and Watching TV, The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry argues the effects that television has on children and the family structure. The article argues that children spend a majority of their time watching TV; this can be detrimental to the child’s development. Though TV can be fun and keep kids occupied, it can have adverse effects. Watching a lot of TV can harm children’s school work, family relationships, and social development. They can learn bad things from TV as well. The article states that children have a problem with identifying fantasy from reality. TV has a lot of violent and sexually explicit material that may be too much for children. The writers believe that parents should take a more active role in what their kids watch. Parents should do this by sitting down and watching TV with their kids. They could  limit the amount of TV and censor the shows kids watch.  The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry believes the amount of TV should be limited and parents should play a more active role in their children’s lives. This article is coming from Doctors perspective geared towards parents. These psychiatrists are trying to tell these parents what they should be doing to help with child development. In Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, it was about a house that did everything for the family inside of it. After realizing their kids were reading stories of Africa and created a “veldt”, the parents became concerned about the house and it’s effects on their children. The mother felt as if she was no longer a mother figure to her kids since the house did everything a mother should do; the father had these same feelings as well. The parents were no longer playing an active role in their kids lives and the house had taken their responsibility. The house and the TV are the same in this argument. The house and the TV are being used as “babysitter” for kids. You can basically throw your child in front of a TV and they will be fine. It’s teaching them, it’s entertaining them; it takes responsibility away from parents. The house had the same effect; the parents no longer felt like they were being parents because the house took care of the kids. I do not believe that the effects of TV on children have changed very much from years ago. There is more media for children to view now than before, but; media still has it’s same effect on children whether new or old. TV is still a heavily debated  one for kids. It still has it’s same influences on children and parents still react the same to it. TV is always going to be the same and you can only limit a child for so long.

Feb 25

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Television and Children: Health Concerns

Photo from almightydad.com, a parenting website.

An article from Time magazine claims that watching television is sedentary behavior, which leads to obesity and bad health. The author of the article, Alice Park, says that researchers in the U.S. and in Spain studied 111 children 3-8 years old and concluded that of all the kinds of inactivity they studied, tv-watching was worst. The study showed a higher blood pressure in kids who watched a lot of tv, whether the kid was overweight or healthy. Other activities such as computer usage did not show the same blood pressure issues. The researchers tracked the childrens’ inactivity over one week using accelerometers. They found that kids who watched 90 – 330 minutes of tv per day had systolic and diastolic blood-pressure readings that were much higher than children who watched less than half an hour per day. The author quotes Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, who says, “These results show that TV-viewing really is the worst of all possible sedentary activities”. She also cites the American Academy of Pedriatrics, which recommends that children under 2 should not watch tv at all and that older children should watch only 1 or 2 hours a day. The researchers also explain that tv-watching is often accompanied by eating ‘junk food’, which can also raise blood pressure readings.

The author, Alice Park, is a staff writer for Time magazine. She generally reports on health and medicine issues. Perhaps as a result of her background, the article seems much more focused on the medical/health effects of watching too much tv rather than the psychological effects. This differs from most of the readings, which have been more focused on psychological impacts.

According to Lynn Spiegel, adults attacked television for several reasons. One reason is that graphic violence, sexuality, and bad behavior have unwholesome effects on children which threaten “the need to maintain power hierarchies between generations and to keep children innocent of adult secrets” (144).  Parents also worried that tv did not promote family values, and felt a lack of control over what the children were exposed to (147).  Adults had “a marked desire to keep childhood as a period distinct from adulthood”, so they were extremely concerned about children aquiring knowledge of adulthood before they should (150). And, of course there were fears of children imitating on-screen violence and becoming juvenile delinquents (146). However, there is some overlap between these two sources. Spiegel mentions the idea of “telebugeye”, or “a pale, weak, stupid-looking creature who grew bugeyed from sitting and watching telvision too long” (147). Parents were convinced that telvision was becoming an addiction for children, which would “reverse good habits of hygiene, nurtrition, and decorum, causing physical, mental, and social disorders” (147). I think the Time article reveals something new about the adverse effects of television, (the blood pressure findings) although the topic of health concerns as a result of watching tv is not new. These worries voiced in the Spiegel reading and the Time article have been constant since the 50’s.

Feb 24

Third Reading Journal Prompt: Kids and TV: Critical Views

In 1982's horror movie "Poltergeist," Kid + TV = No Good.

For this reading prompt, find an article by a present-day critic of TV’s influence on children. Link to the piece, summarize the critic’s arguments, and contextualize them by telling your reader as much about the critic as you know (conservative? liberal? parent? psychologist? politician? doctor?) Then, compare and contrast this criticism with some of the historical critiques of television we have encountered in our reading this past week—either the critiques that Spigel and Chudacoff describe in their histories of the reception of TV, or the critique that Bradbury himself mounts in his “The Veldt.” Does your critic have anything new to say about children and TV? If so, what social or technological conditions do you think may have caused this new critique to emerge?

Feb 14

Power Rangers

Television has been entertaining people since the 1950’s. Even I was drawn

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

into this mechanical box since the bright pixels entered my pupils. As a kid I would spend countless hours watching one of my favorite cartoons, the Power Rangers. My mother would always try to make me to watch something much more educational, like Bill Nye the Science Guy, Barney & Friends, or other didactic cartoons on the screen. She believed that by watching Power Rangers I was becoming more aggressive and unrealistic versus knowledgeable and grounded. I am fairly certain she would agree with Peter Stearns’s statement that “TV seemed to be promoting a craving for violence and fantasy among children (Pg 15).”

Despite critics such as Stearns and my mother, the Power Rangers remains a widely viewed show on the air. The first season of Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, aired in 1993 and became an instant hit on Fox Kids Network. Sixteen seasons later, it has now expanded to other networks such as ABC station, Jettix, and Nickelodeon. Its latest season, Power Rangers Super Samurai, will air on February 18, 2012. The Power Rangers epic run seems to have no ending, the original creator, Haim Saban, is still working on additional seasons.

The large audience still watching the show has not discouraged viewers from labeling it as a violent action show targeting children. Nicole Jarosz claims the show promotes violence as a way to solve problems. According to Jarosz, since the Power Rangers always solve a problem by fighting and ridding themselves of the bad guy, children believe this is the way to solve problems. They fight their way out of trouble thinking everything will turn out OK with no consequences. In California State University, a study was done to find the answer to this intriguing question. Children were divided in two groups, one group was showed an episode of Power Rangers and the other was not. The groups were then released to a play and the number of acts of aggression were recorded for each child. The observers noticed that the children that saw Power Rangers were more aggressive then the ones that did not, especially the boys. It is studies like these that entices people to believe violence on television impacts the viewer. My mom may have been a tad correct after all.

 

Kid playing around as Power Rangers, until the teach ruins their fun.

Feb 12

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Toddlers and Tiaras

What is the worst thing you have ever seen on television?  If you asked me, or Charlotte Trigg’s from People Magazine, it would have to be TLC’s Toddlers and Tiara’s.  This television series follows the behind the scenes action of what really goes on in a child’s beauty pageant.  In the pageants there are girls of all ages.  You are never left wondering when the next temper tantrum is going to be because the show is full of them. Even though, if I were four years old I’m sure I’d be throwing a temper tantrum the size of these poor girls hair as well.  Prepping and preparing for these pageants are a full time job for mothers and daughters alike.  The girls spend hours practicing routines and singing songs to get them ready for the big day.  They are also put through the ringer with the amount of make up and hair appointments the mothers drag them along to.  What I find most disturbing is the mothers that whiten their daughters teeth, or take the daughters to get waxed.  Why anyone in their right mind would take a four year old to get their eyebrows waxed is completely insane.  To me, a great example of the type of exploitation of kids is in the case of Shirley Temple; whose parents exploited her talents and cuteness to captivate the country during the Great Depression.  Shirley was forced to spend long hours on set, nearly seven days a week filming, so that her parents could reap millions.  In John Kasson’s “Behind Shirley Temple’s Smile” he states how one of her directors scolded her for playing, saying “This isn’t play time, kids,” and later Temple recalls him saying “it’s work.” As a child, what is important is just having fun and being a kid, not being on set all day trying to please their parents by making them look good, or by making money with their acting.  How do we expect our kids to grow up, if they are not spending time with other kids, learning and developing their minds to become adults.  This type of exploitation has to stop because it’s not doing anyone any favors.

 

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