Which CBeebies White Men Would You Sack To Make Room For Diversity?

Well the question should be why are they commissioning so many cartoons with white male leads then? They don't need to. As chibi pointed out women aren't a minority and shouldn't be represented as such.

The man who plays Mr Bloom provided the inspiration for the show himself and had a part in creating it, so in that sense he wasn't just given the part iyswim. It is nice to see a male given a caring role (in the sense of him doing the gardening with children iyswim), but I do wish it had had been a cooking show he created, and Katy doing gardening as a bit of stereotype reversal

I like Nina and the Neurons because it's always good to see a female role model doing science type things iyswim, but too many of the other main female characters are shown to be carers or other stereotypically female things (Nisha visiting nurseries, Miss Hoolie works in a nursery, Granny Murray is a CM, Katy doing cooking).

Agree about their animated programming, there is no reason for it not to be balanced yet many (Tree Fu Tom, Octonauts, Mike The Knight) only have one token female character.

just Doing What I Can in this the best of all possible worlds

Smellesliketeenstrop - exactly, that's what i was saying in my above post.

''Captain barnacles, mike the knight and driver dan are cartoon characters.

They tend not to audition. Just sayin'''

That's as maybe but I'm pretty sure the actors who voice the roles do audition, and the casting offices will be looking for specific types of voice actors. Do you think they'd have cast somebody with an identifiable Indian accent for Mike the Knight?

Chibi you are norty!

I remember long distance Clara!

She didn't even wear pink.

Bring back Auntie Mabel, she had her own aeroplane and she made toilet roll factories look interesting.

Tunip bakes.

I'd also like to say I am so glad I am not the only one to have really dark thoughts about fizz and bella and pansy and drum. Particularly fizz and bella. All that hair twiddling does my head in.

Ah, Mr Bloom. I have am imaginary life about the actor that plays him...He takes Cocaine all weekend, goes to strip joints AND I bet he went to Drama Centre London...

um sorry, off topic

My DD sticks her arm up her jumper and pretends to be Kerry. I don't know what to do about this, I think it's because she likes her long curly hair and wants to be like her.

Captain barnacles, mike the knight and driver dan are cartoon characters.

They tend not to audition. Just sayin'

Oh yes, Octonauts! Of course. Had slipped my mind. The male characters all go off and "do" stuff while the sole female character stays on board the ship (presumably baking cookies).

''Im all for diversity but i think you're suggestion is ridiculous. For starters the job should go to the best "candidate", not just the nearest ethnic person.''

Well, there's the problem. The 'best candidate' will always be a white male so long as TV programs are written with the main character being a white male.

Remember how scarce and precious a resource women are, and then you'll totally understand why programmers, writers and the like don't want to waste them by filling up cartoons and link sequences with them all willynilly

Tweak is a girl, and an engineer. She's also a rabbit.

I love chibi. :)

I can dimly remember from Pigeon St, and FoodUnit is quite right that I can hardly think of any other women labelled by their jobs from kids' TV. And that was 20 years ago!

I would love Postman Polly or Fireman Sal, or how about Vet Vi or Traindriver Tess?

I still think Zingzillas shouldn't be allowed. It is a disgrace. And Everything's Rosie. Tweenies is just dated in terms of gender equality. I am sometimes aghast at what we thought was normal back in the 1980s even at university.

Captain Barnacles is a cartoon character from the octonauts, for the uninitiated.

Tunip - i have no idea who captainbarnacles is! As far as him being the best,do you concrete evidence to support your assumption that he wasnt the best candidate ?

Foodunit - i agree more with your point on "unimaginative stereotyping", this is also a large part of the problem, for instance the story of snow white, just somehow doesnt fit for a black, asian etc girl, its quite obviously meant for a white girl. If these story lines were more imaginative then we would see more suitable ethnic minorities applying/auditioning for these parts.

I think Wendy should read Wifework though, in Bob the builder.

i really don't see why you are complaining, women make up a tiny proportion of the population, somewhere between one armed accordionists and redheaded zoroastrians, if i recall the latest census data correctly

it follows perfectly that cbeebies, for which you pay a teeny licence fee, reflects that with programming that features men and boys in dominant roles

Oh the meritocracy solution. That solution that just happens to give most of the plum jobs to the men. Seems we have always had positive discrimination, just in favour of men.

Captain Barnacles . Not fond of Grandpa from Grandpa in my pocket. Why does he always know best? Or rather why is what he thinks the best way forward? I personally much prefer Great Aunt Loretta and think she should be the central character. It would be much more interesting and wouldn't involve any sacking just a redistribution of emphasis away from the boring characters of Jason and Grandpa.