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

[FoodUnit]

I'm fed up with the surplus white able-bodied men in children's programmes - especially those who really aren't all that. I mean Justin Fletcher and Chris from Show Me Show Me seem to have got in on talent - but Andy from Andy's Wild Adventures - what's the deal with him? Same for Mr Bloom and Alex. It would be really easy to replace these white men with more diverse presenters.

The same goes for cartoons like Mike the Knight- why don't they, just at the commissioning stage, have a process where they ask: Does this character actually NEED to be an able-bodied white male? If not, they could change them to somebody other than an ABWM. Wouldn't that be great?

So I'm just interested in knowing who else you think could be binned without any great loss in the name of diversity?

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.

Tunip bakes.

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

I remember long distance Clara!

She didn't even wear pink.

Chibi you are norty!

''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?

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

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

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.

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.

Doesn't the female character in Octnonauts the boat fixer?
I like the male cbeebies presenters. I prefer it to the fake female presenters.
Mr Bloom devised the programme idea himself since he was concerned his children didn't know where their food came from. That's quite a devoted dad in my book.
This is obviously my personal opinion.
I understand in terms of postman pat and bob the builder but postman pat comes from what the late 80's early 90's? Mrs Goggins was voiced by a man back then!
I think the BBC have to be quite diverse don't they?
Please note this is not my specialised subject!

Cross post there Optimistic!
I agree re. Antimated cartoons.

There used to be three female cbeebies presenters. Then five years or so ago two disappeared and they brought in Sid and andy. So at the time there were three men and one women (Poi). It was written about in the guardian at the time so there may be a link. Anyway they made this decision as apparently they were losing boy viewers to nickelodeon and other channels.

I am not saying it was a right decision. But mention it to say there is deliberate male bias on cbeebies so the basic proposition of the op is not wrong at all.

I think the problem really is that white able-bodied blokes are still "default person". Imagine going to a meeting with an idea for a kids' show. It's hard to imagine someone with Mr Bloopy being asked "why MR Bloopy?" - much easier to picture the creator of Viking Vi having to find an answer to "why a GIRL viking?"

(Really want to watch Viking Vi now, someone tell me it exists)

I named my firstborn after Long Distance Clara! Er, without the long distance bit, although there was some debate in the registry office. Driver Dan is such a rubbish substitute.

You are right Elephants it is all about the default being white male and everyone else taking the scraps. I mean we are scraping the barrel if we are trying to big up the one female cartoon character in the octonauts.

black men are actually over-represented in the media. Young men are in a more general way.

the most under-represented group is women over fifty, followed closely by women 35-50.

so, basically, your whole argument rests on a false premise.

but i think Andy is great. Sack Alex if anyone's going...

Mr bloom was a street show for kids called the vegetable jammies; it was gorgeous, as is Mr bloom, and no, he didn't go to the drama centre.

Mike the knight is atrocious though.

Nannies not jammies

I mean why the hell NOT a female captain? Or a female anything? Or a Chinese train? There's no reason why I'm a woman, just bloody am one. I expect the same logic to be applied to fictional characters.

It's also part of the CODDLING of boys on the grounds that they supposedly "won't watch girls". Well, loads of boys like Northern Lights or My Neighbour Totoro, IMO it's the adults projecting onto them that precious boys shouldn't have to concern themselves with watching someone who doesn't exactly resemble themselves.

agree elephants

ah...i see you were arguing for more females ..so not entirely wrong (just noticed this was in feminism/women's rights)

Cbeebies seems to have changed since my day.

It was all Auntie Mable and Come Inside with Poi in between.

And Sid.........has he grown his hair?