Appearances Press Photos Bio Home Archive

« The Cat Came Back | Main | Substantive, Angry Post About Health Insurance »

January 30, 2006

Bing bang Diggiriggidong

A few posts ago, I made a remark about "oversexualized" children's television characters, and the comments section started buzzing a little bit with interesting nominations. Someone actually disagreed with me about Little Bear because, she said, Little Bear has to run around naked while the other animals remain clothed, which makes some sense to me.

I countered with June from the increasingly omnipresent Little Einsteins show. While the other kids explore the world in dungarees and T-shirts, she wears a tutu, cocks her hips, and is always twirling around. Forced to watch a pirate episode of Little Einsteins the other day, I couldn't help but notice that all three of the other Little Einsteins were wearing dorky skull-and-crossbones hats while June was wearing a pink bandana, as though the dorky hat weren't dignified enough for her. Over the holidays, my brother-in-law and I were trapped in my parents' living room with our kids and a Little Einsteins episode, and when June did her little "dansey dansey dance," he looked at me and said, "am I seeing this right?" and I said, "I believe you are."

Another comment mentioned Stephanie on the Nickelodeon show Lazy Town, which is a live-action/puppetry hybrid produced by a leading Icelandic aerobics instructor (this is true), with the aim of getting kids to eat well and exercise. There are two human males on the show, the hero Sportacus and the lazy villian Robbie Rotten. Then there's eight-year-old Stephanie, the mayor's niece, who arrives in town in a baby-doll dress and a bright-pink bob wig and immediately starts dancing around and singing lyrics like this, to a techno beat:

Bing bang diggiriggidong
Funny words I sing when I am dancing.
Bing bang diggiriggidong
Silly words that can mean anything.

"Stephanie" is played by a 14-year-old Broadway actress whose name is sort of like Juliana Margulies. While she isn't really my speed, which is fortunate because I'm 36 years old, I can see how many preteen boys might be using her as a comfortable springboard to adult sexuality, much in the way that Lynda Carter opened the gates to so many of my generation. Apparently, according to this bulletin board and this one, I'm not the only person who recognizes the phenomenon. It seems that a lot of moms around the world like Sportacus.

So I must beg the question here: Do the makers of kids' TV shows occasionally make little deliberate nods to the moms and dads in their audience, most of whose sex lives have withered like kiwi fruit in winter? Is it accidental? Am I just being a pervert? Why were the cheesy sex icons of children's television in my childhood, like, say, Electrawoman and Dynagirl and Daphne from Scooby Doo, actually adults? Were is that gronwup eye candy for dads now? And are the rumors true? Are there adult women out there who really want to fuck the Wiggles?

People. Let this discussion continue. Together we can change the world.

Posted by at 11:59 PM |

Comments

You had to bring this up and make me feel like a perv. I don't normally pay attention to kids' shows, but my husband and I regularly watch All My Children. There is a teenage character who is quite pretty. Recently, her face has taken on a "quality" and I told my husband, "She's gotten fucked". He wasn't quite sure until this week, when the same actresses voice has deepened quite a bit. He laughed and said, "She's gotten fucked hard!" Then I looked her up. She's not yet 16! What's worse is she plays an Autistic girl- www.levenrambin.com I think I'm going to go poke my eyeballs out now.

Posted by: Anon | January 31, 2006 4:53 AM

I don't think we can talk about children's shows without talking about how you look exactly like Bus Driver Bob from the Doodle Bops.

Let's get on the bus
Let's get on the bus
Let's get on the bus
It's time to go
Let's get on the bus
Hey don't you know
Let's get on the bus
Go here to there
Let's get on the bus
Go everywhere

Posted by: Anonymous | January 31, 2006 8:02 AM

Neal, you're depressing me. It's bad enough that I had a bad crush on Steve from Blue's Clues and yes, Sportacus is kinda attractive but not eye-candy. If the makers of kids t.v. shows are doing this on purpose because our lives as parents are so dull and sex deprived I may have to start taking some serious anti-depressants. I don't think you're being a perv. It think there is definitely something going on especially on those shows that are aimed for children a bit older. I watched Lazy Town last week just to make sure I wasn't crazy and making some kinda weird shit up in my head. The relationship between Sportacus and Stephanie is different from the other characters. He just can't deal with ever letting Stephanie down. I also think there is a subtle message to the kids themselves. Since he's her hero and the hero is the guy little girls want to marry small children can run with their imaginations. At least when, I was little I wanted to marry Superman. As for the other shows, I have never seen them so I am going to have to tivo them and get back to you.

Posted by: nancydrew77 | January 31, 2006 9:45 AM

Was Daphne an adult? I always thought of her as a meddling kid.

I explain away my Steve (of Blues Clues) crush by telling myself that when you have a child what is attractive to you changes. For example, now I am quite taken with any man who can entertain my child for 1/2 hour, and even moreso with one who appears to enjoy it.

I don't know why there is no legal eye candy for men though. There's always Noggin's Laurie Berkner.

Posted by: Anonymous | January 31, 2006 10:11 AM

Look no further than Disney's Princesses campaign for global consumer product domination. A number of these products feature Sleeping Beauty giving out a "come hither" vibe, the Mermaid sporting cleavage that Jessica Simpson would envy, and most of them walking around with size 0 figures and killer racks (with obvious exceptions of Cinderella and Snow White).

Posted by: Anonymous | January 31, 2006 12:06 PM

And what are we to make of the relationship between Bing and Bong, who are shown literally sleeping together?

Posted by: troy | January 31, 2006 12:16 PM

I'm so glad to see this topic get the attention it serves. I'm equally glad to see the "Doodle Bops" come up for discussion.

This is one of the more sexually overt kids' shows out there. The premise: pastel-colored humanoids with wild hair and weird facial enhancements perform mediocre pop songs. The female doodle bop engages in a great deal of hoop-skirted hip shaking and squeaky-voiced coquettishness, establishing, on a pre-teen level, the kind of freaky purple-skinned allure that attracted Captain Kirk to so much space snatch on the old Star Trek series.

And one of the two male characters is so lilting and effeminite as to leave little doubt about which side of the sexual preference plate he's batting from. But if there were any doubt, it would be removed by his character's name. It's "Mo." Not sure if they spell it with an apostrophe in front. Talk about your wink-and-nod to the parents in the audience!

All told, there's a lot of easy-to-read sexual implications in this horrible little show. What's worse, the acting, storylines and music simply blow.

Posted by: James | January 31, 2006 12:56 PM

I read a few things about this probably two years ago. The idea was that if a children's show appeals to adults too, they will be more likely to set aside the online gambling and watch a few shows with little Joey. I think the trend began with Disney and the makers of the Veggie Tales movies. The sluttery may be the standard in cartoons now. Some of them, even Disney movies, cross the line a little. (and sluttery should be a word)

- - a m burns

Posted by: a m burns | January 31, 2006 1:43 PM

LazyTown is unbelievably weird on many levels, not least being ... actually, it's hard to single anything out because it's just so weird. For one thing, Robbie Rotten would seem to have a huge head start in his evil schemes of sloth given that they're all living in, as the Jam would say, A Town Called Lazy.

But on topic, like you I have no trouble not sexualizing Stephanie, since she's a child. I've noticed the appeal of Laurie Berkner, although she has a bit of a jolie-laide thing going on if you look at her closely. And then there's Loonette the Clown on The Big Comfy Couch. Kinda cute, and certainly limber, as seen in the clock sequence. Alas, though, there seems to be no real-world equivalent of Miss Sally on Oz. Or am I missing someone?

Posted by: John | January 31, 2006 2:44 PM

Lazytown. Ugh.

Sexuality in children's show characters? I don't know. I think Steve from Blue's Clues had quite a following from the moms. Joe seems to leave everyone cold. Steve did throw in a few nods to the grown-ups here and there.

I can't stand any of the Nelvana stuff. It's too...Canadian.

What about all of those pent-up conservatives reading stuff into SpongeBob? That show manages to throw in a few things for the grown-ups, although I wouldn't call it sexual. I dig Sandy, but maybe that's just the native Texan in me.

Bring back Kipper.

Electra Woman and Dynagirl? Now THEY were sex and, if it's possible, campier than the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman. In retrospect, how much do you think the old man who stayed back at their headquarters got out of them? What was his name?

Posted by: ttrentham | January 31, 2006 4:08 PM

You guys are the reason I don't want kids. Surely discussing the sexuality of children's programming must be shameful. I'm embarrassed for you. State of the Union address tonight. Someone care to comment on that...anybody...going once...twice..aww forget it.

Posted by: Will | January 31, 2006 4:15 PM

Be quiet, Will. I have a piece prepared for post State Of The Union about families and health care. Will go up sometime tomorrow....

Posted by: Neal Pollack | January 31, 2006 4:52 PM

Why is it shameful? It's not like it hasn't been discussed before. What is really bothering you, Will? It's the sad state of our government isn't it?

Posted by: Anonymous | January 31, 2006 4:53 PM

Yeah thats it.

Posted by: Will | January 31, 2006 4:58 PM

State of the Union. Here's State of the Union on my street:

My name is Fernando. I am thirty-nine. And I am addicted to Arabian oil. It has been forty-one days since I set furnace to seventy. It has been hour and thirteen minutes since I drive past my ex girlfriend's house in suburbs to see there if she maybe is watching cartoons with one other man.

Posted by: a m burns | January 31, 2006 6:58 PM

what about the *sexual* toys, dude? My little man is obsessed with a vibrating caterpillar. Sadly, so am I. P.S. How the hell are you, Neal?

Posted by: GIRLS GONE CHILD | January 31, 2006 7:04 PM

Y'all shoudl jerk your couch-potato kids from in front of the TV and send em down here to help rebuild New Orleans. Y'all can come help too; we need as many as we can get.

I PROMISE it will take your mind off sexy cartoons!

Posted by: Michael Patrick Welch | January 31, 2006 8:09 PM

I don't know if my three-year-old is gonna be much help. Sentiment appreciated, Michael, but for god's sake, this is just one post in a long series of posts. Sorry to be so frivolous...

Posted by: Neal Pollack | January 31, 2006 11:34 PM

RE frivolity: I can't relate to being turned on by a cartoon character, but then, I don't have kids. I don't even recognize half the ones people have mentioned, and I help make advertising for a toy company, so I should know this stuff. RE the sexualizing of children's shows: in advertising they call it Kids Getting Older Younger. Kids used to play with trucks and dolls into the low double digit ages, now they move on from those at about age 7 or so. The Bratz dolls (if you've ever seen them, they're dressed like not-very-expensive whores, or Britney Spears, whichever you prefer) have been tremendously successful at pulling little girls away from Barbie, who is not exactly a healthy role model either. Personally, I think it's pretty depressing, this idea that little kids should be aspiring to adult aesthetics in dress and speech and behavior. I'm not sure what the answer is. You can refuse to buy your kid a Bratz and buy her a more appropriate doll, but if she doesn't want to play with it, she'll just go to her friends' house and play with theirs while the one you bought sits unloved in the bottom of her closet. This seems to be more of a problem with girls than boys, not surprisingly. It reflects, in an unwelcome way, the larger culture that still tells women the most important thing about them is how they look. How we thought that wouldn't filter down into childhood eventually, I can't imagine. You can bitch about the evil marketers all you want, but if it didn't sell, they'd stop making it.

Posted by: LL | February 1, 2006 8:59 AM

Fornication with a Wiggle makes me want to barf. Now Steve from Blue's Clues, him I can get behind (or in front of as the case may be. Or under. Hmmm.)

Posted by: Alison | February 1, 2006 12:49 PM

"what about the *sexual* toys, dude?"

One word: Bratz. I'm not sure if that's what you were getting at, but have you seen those things? They're like, prepubescent little ho's that sort of look like Angelina Jolie. I have two boys, so Matchbox sets and dinosaurs are all I ever buy on Xmas and birthdays, but are any parents of girls getting them Bratz? Cos they seem to be big sellers at Toys R Us ...

Posted by: Damon | February 1, 2006 11:12 PM

Sometimes, on Maisy, they show characters on the toilet.

Posted by: troy | February 2, 2006 7:11 AM

Maisy was created by a Brit. They're a little less uptight about that potty stuff than we are.

Posted by: ttrentham | February 2, 2006 7:45 AM

Fine: Sometimes, on Maisy, they show characters on the loo.

Posted by: troy | February 3, 2006 7:17 AM

"For example, now I am quite taken with any man who can entertain my child for 1/2 hour, and even moreso with one who appears to enjoy it."

I'm 100% four-square behind you on that one, Anonymous. Phew. I thought it was just me!

I used to be attracted to short, dark and handsome, smart, adventurous, athletic guys. Now I'm attracted to the (still short, still smart) guys who can make my kid laugh without resorting to acting like morons, and who seem to "get" what a great kid he is. Maybe these are just the smarter guys; who knows? All I know is, my kid is the best filter these days. If I can't imagine a guy playing with my kid, and liking it, he doesn't get invited home. Not even for dinner.

P.S. Yeah, I like short guys. What are you gonna do about it!?

Posted by: Jenny | February 3, 2006 9:34 PM

I glad to see a good work! Good! -buy tramadol online cheap cod

Posted by: buy tramadol | February 27, 2006 10:25 AM

For you mobile phone free ringtones here.

Posted by: Frank | April 2, 2006 2:06 PM

[url=http://trish-stratus-bas1.blogspot.com]Trish Stratus[/url]

Posted by: Funkiea | June 3, 2006 7:29 PM