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?

Granny Murray?

Equal is good, IMO. I send DS to a school where all staff are known by their first name.

Nothing wrong with equal if all the staff are treated equally! If he were calling his female teachers by their first name and his male teachers Mr. SoandSo there would be a problem though.

Thanks for the heads up sausagerolemodel.

Re-lucysnowe "Milkshake, where there are loads of really prominent, good girl characters - Peppa Pig, Iggam Oggum, The Little Princess, Holly, Fifi, Angelina Ballerina" I don't get Milkshake but of those you listed, you've got a ballerina - who in real life brutally damge their feet amongst other injuries and get very little paid work for their troubles and of course a princess is a status only open to women marrying royalty - which is not a sensible aspiration either. As others have said, we need females with decent occupations, preferably called 'Dr So and So' - amongst all the princesses an sidekicks.

Professor Nina please :)

I miss Jane and The Dragon on Milkshake.

I would distinguish between the male presenters and real world people on CBeebies, like Mr Bloom (and perhaps Mr Maker) where there is a real value in showing young men in a caring role, and the cartoon/puppet story portrayals of gender which is bloody awful.

I completely agree with Dilys- It is good to see men in caring roles. Presumably this is part of the social ambit the BBC is aiming for. Still don't see why they all have to be "Mr.". It occurred to me that maybe it's to echo clown's names (eg Mr Tumble)

Mr Tumble was a clown name thing (after all, Justin on the same show is "Justin" rather than Mr anything). And come to think of it, I can't remember anyone on Cbeebies pre-Mr Tumble being "Mr" anything (they all seemed to be first names) so I wonder if thete's an element of some commissioning editors thinking "This Mr Tumble seems awfully popular with children; it must be the 'Mr' that does it..."

Email is sent to Ms Benbow - thanks to all the people I stole ideas off for my long complaint!

TeddyBare, as someone else said - its not that the boys don't want strong females or lead characters, its their parents.

I know someone's who's DS (14MO) isn't allowed to watch Peppa Pig because its a girls program. I queered whether its a girls program and was told the girl is the main character and the boy is just the little brother.
I asked if her daughters weren't allowed to watch programs with a male lead and there was a bit of a tumble weed moment. It was explained that after 2 girls, her husband didn't want him to grow up as a girlie girl.

Does anyone remember Aunty Mabel and Pippin? Two female characters who always got the job done. Mabel had Pippin as a pet dog. We knew a Pippin in real life too! OH! .

Me and my two girls at that time just loved this series and years later we still talk about it. Such a lovely programme.

Story Makers was pretty good for diversity, as well: presenters were as many female as male and all black, and the stories often featured female leads, too.

Having watched a lot (gaaaaah) of Cbeebies over the past six years or so, I have noticed a definite tendency of it getting more sexist or at least more heavily into gender myths.

Agree. We love Tree Fu Tom in our house but why does Ariella have to be pretty and sparkly....Ugh. My DD 5 feels obliged to say she loves Ariella when actually she loves being Tree Fu Tom and so do I

There was a webchat five or six years ago with the creative directior (or similar) of Cbeebies who commented that they'd been losing audience share of boys to competing channels and had had to put measures in place to claw them back. I wonder if there's a connection?

Cracken they still show Come Outside. Not all the time, but it's definitely still on rotation with the other programmes.

So pleased that Come Outside is still being shown. Made my day that did!

Just been reminded of this thread - 'small potatoes' was on and it turns out that 3 are male and just the tiny one female. That's real dedication to the cause of gender imbalance.

oooh there was a massive ding-dong about small potatoes before

I looked on their website and was vindicated

You'd think an adult woman might have better things to do with her time....

I definitely want to complain - I just need to compress the multi-faceted issue into a communicable point. Well done Lavendercakes!

I've been thinking about how they really need some sort of procedure, where must justify every character for every show commissioned (programmes cost enough to produce, I hardly think it would be prohibitively time/money-consuming). The programmes would be so much better if they did. Imagine if 'Granpa In My Pocket' was called 'Granma In My Pocket' and set in Southall rather than 'Sunnysands' and the characters were Sikhs? I'd definitely watch that without feeling continuously irritated - and focussing on how annoyingly dust-gathering all the ornaments are in their house).

The process would be like this: So 1) do the lead characters need to be male for this programme to work? Okay, so the producer might say something like yes because we need to perpetuate male dominance by promoting intergenerational male-bonding through shared secrecy give good role models for male relationships. 2) do the female characters all have to promote stereotypes of women being fickle, silly, crazy? It would be hard to justify that. 3) does the family all have to be white? the producer will probably come out with some thinly-disguised racist clap-trap similar to Midsomer Murders, saying it harks back to a nostalgia of sunny beach holidays in Dorset say - we are trying to take the focus away from London-centricity to be more inclusive of the rest of the country, then the conclusion is that it could be set up in Bradford, with a family of asian origin. And by the same process, cover Disability and sexuality.

There was a webchat five or six years ago with the creative directior (or similar) of Cbeebies who commented that they'd been losing audience share of boys to competing channels and had had to put measures in place to claw them back.

This just makes me so angry. I am sure that it is just a trickle down of all that anti-feminist backlash propaganda since the 1990s (bringing us new lads/porn is healthy for men so put up with it frigid, jealous minghers, the rhetoric of 'poor failing boys in a 'feminised' system of education' shit girls are doing bloody well with less oppression - must do something to stop that, etc, etc) and then the Beeb just caving into parents who fell for it - stopping their sons from watching 'girly' programmes - AT THE EXPENSE OF GIRLS AND FEMALE PROGRESS TOWARDS EQUALITY!

For all the captain barnacles haters out there, can I just point out that polar bears are black. They have white fur yes, but their skin is black. Don't let him go!

Can't believe no one has mentioned Waybuloo. God, I loathe that programme!

The two female chracters are submissive, passive and sterotyped 'caring' characters. They do floaty decorative stuff while the two male characters do the fun things like driving little cars etc. The programme perpetuates that 'men do, women watch' dynamic. And they have breathy little girl voices. One is pink, one is lilac. Aargh!

Yes Waybleedinbaloo!!! Arghhh.... Its so bad I think we almost didn't dare mention it! I hate it so much. Why do the boys get the equipment that require skill and mastery, and the girls in really put-on submissive giggly voices, just say "pretty flowers"... and nothing else. Its like they are actively trying to be offensive.... Or perhaps they write an episode and someone says "oh look you wrote that whole script and only Yojojo and Noktok spoke" - "ah never mind - I'll just stick Lau Lau in saying 'pretty flowers' somewhere and the jobs a goodun."
"sweet - ker-ching!"

what about the woman out of 'same smile'? does she count as a good female role model, tho the fact that she rides round on a three wheel back with cuddly bears on the back may loose her some street cred....

the zingzillas is just AWFUL!!

my ds4 is a big fan of thundercats, not strictly toddler tv! he is 4, its on cartoon network? anyway cheetarah is a good female role model and one of the two little thundercats, wilykit and wilykat is also a girl, not sure which one but theyare just as good as the boy thundercats at fighting etc, and cheetarah has a 'staff' aka a big stick which makes her the ultimate in cool to my 4 yr old ds4!

Agree witht he points about the actual programs

For basic cbeebies presenting though, in it's entire existence
there have been 7 women and 5 men presenters

I agree that the woman on Same Smile is a good role model - but it does seem a bit tokenistic (and I find it a bit cringy the whole panda thing - but to her credit she really carries it off with aplomb and enthusiasm, even if the kids look a bit confused as to why they need to cuddle a random toy panda). I can't think of any other females of a similar background on at the moment. The only programme I think does fairly well is Ballamory where you sometimes get two people who aren't white having a conversation with eachother, and Archie the inventor lives in the pink house, and they do have a genuinely disabled actor. Where it does fall down is the professions: Male- police officer, painter & decorator, inventor. Female: nursery teacher, shop assistant, teacher (gym).