Bloody bloody toddler television- Everything's fecking Rosie! and Fecking Zingzillas

[duchesse]

So in today's episode, we have the boy character charging around on his roller blades trying to break a speed record and generally in every episode behaving badly, whilst poor weak little Holly droops around looking for someone to "cure" and wanting to be a nurse- not a doctor, a nurse.

If EVER the BBC had a role in redressing gender imbalances, toddler telly to my mind is where they could and should start!! Why the constantly boisterous and frankly rude boy character? Why the weak little girl character who wants to be a nurse rather than a doctor? There is nothing wrong with being a nurse obviously, if that is your vocation, but they had a golden opportunity not to resort to 1950s stereotypes and they utterly bloody failed.

And don't get me started on the Zingzillas, who frankly are all one sandwich short of the full picnic, but when in the line-up the boy characters are always presented first. The boy characters are presented as the more senior in age, and Drum is basically barely more than a toddler.

At an age when children are like little moral sponges, our children (all of them, boys and girls) are being imprinted with this tripe. It makes me livid that in 2011 they can produce such sexist crap for little children without so much as an editorial eyebrow lift. I am seriously going to start writing letters, and in meantime, stop telly for DD3.

[Mummalish]

Oh boy, have truly never thought about it in those terms before, I wonder if my ds takes notice of it?

[duchesse]

Mumma, you can bet he does subconsciously. 1-6 is the age they lay down many of their values and philosophy on life imo.


BTW I must apologise for my duplicate threads. I was so incensed this morning when I wrote my OP that I must have pressed send twice in quick succession.

[Fink]

Found this thread while looking for a rant: I've only seen one episode of Zingzillas (today's) and it was appallingly sexist all the way through. In addition to what would seem to be their general characters (the annoyingly flirty/princessy/'girly' girl and the adventurous lads, and some weird passive baby girl), also had the boys running off to find a doctor while one girl was left to nurse the other. The 'disaster' of a bruised knee was solved by one of the boys coming up with a plan to rapturous adulation, at which point I switched over to Homes Under the Hammer, argh! I'm with you on the letter writing, Duchesse, if only I weren't back at work tomorrow (only at home today as DD is ill, hence sympathy telly, she's usually not allowed any...I hope this isn't the kind of crap she watches when I'm out!)

[duchesse]

Fucking fucking Zingzillas has GOT to go! Today features girl character cleaning whilst being patronisingly told she's doing a good job by boy character, followed by extravagant eyelash-fluttering by girl character to get boy character to "allow" to sing the solo rather than do backing vocals. I'm so fucking furious about this programme. No response whatsoever from BBC about my comment the other week. Does anybody know who I can write to directly at the Beeb?

[duchesse]

Anybody know how to get in touch with Kay Benbow? She seems to be head of CBeebies but I can't find an email address for her anywhere. I think she did a MN live webchat earlier this year, didn't she?

[falasportugues]

duchesse, i don't have any leads, but hope you get somewhere with this. Kids TV is so babyish and has no real stories, So I decided big toe books on radio 7 was a good alternative to telly, but then they axed it when they changed it to radio 4 extra. now instead of 2 hours of children's radio per day, they have 1 hour per week, because there weren't enough children listening... well there'll be even less children listening now, that's for sure. radio has a forum called feedback which you can complain to, but i don't know about telly. I recieved a reply to my email, but when i sought further clarification i've has no further replies. I suggest making an official complaint to standards rather than commenting in general, if you get no replies. good luck

[duchesse]

So anybody hear Woman's Hour this morning?

[PerryCombover]

Switch it off. We did this week. We crafted (badly) played games and went out
I am constantly disappointed by television and children's books. All such dross.
God I now it isn't practical but when we do it I'm a much happier more secure parent