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?

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

If that's the case it just shows women have been sacked with more frequency and the blokes get a job for life!

cringy is the word yes, i have to say i dont really like same smile but i do think the idea is a good one.

and i have noticed there is more inclusion of sn children i the prog now, it used to be that they were just on 'something special' with justin etc but on myr blooms nursery they have had some sn children on recently, the children that come in to help etc.

i have to say mr blooms nursery makes me laugh they they talk and befriend the vegetables etc but the underlying theme is to encourage children to EAT them!! so yes make them all friendly and chatty and like a real person type charachter and then EAT them! tho i guess its the same as eating meat :)

people have complained about tree fu tom? or whatever its called, i havent seen that yet, what are the issues with it?

Who says they're sacked? They may choose to move on

It's not all bad though is it?

Balamory- yes, Miss Hoolie works in a nursery but there's Edie MacCready who drives the bus and has travelled extensively, Susie and Penny run their own business but don't get me started on Penny's singing Josie Jump is a fitness/sports bod.

Katy cooks but so do Big Cook Little Cook, both male.

Sid is male and black

Tree Fu Tom- Ariela runs the farm

There's more positives I'm sure. Not saying things can't be improved but there is diversity.

It's not all bad though is it?

Pointing to a bit of tokenism doesn't hide the glaring, overwhelming inequality.

Who says they're sacked? They may choose to move on

And the logical next question is: Why?

I don't get that about mr bloom thingy either

They are all matey with the talking veggies and tucking them in at night and singing to them and they're growing them to eat

It seems odd.

I don't pay much attention to it, does the eventual fate of the vegetables ever get mentioned?

This is a bit of an aside here, but I complained to my DH that the way Mr Blooms sings seems to be full of suggestion and innuendo "watch them grow, pop along and [lechy] say hello" and "lovely fennel called Joan. Hello my dear [lech] haven't you grown"...
My DH then cracked a joke
"what does Mr Bloom say when he takes his pants off at night?"
"I dunno"
[sung]"Meet the veggies!"

Since then he makes Mr Bloom feel a bit ill!

Call it tokenism if it suits but it's still a fact that they are there. Positive role models. Even Stevens on Balamory.

I should say, Mr Bloom make Me feel ill

I brought up Ballamory as an example of a programme that does quite well on diversity

Call it tokenism if it suits

I don't know what that means? I'll call it tokenism if it is tokenism.

Mr Bloom creeps me out. He looks like Uncle Peedo to me.

Sue and Nicole were definitely allegedly sacked. There was a big row about it at the time.

I think there's a difference between tokenism (I would put Tree Fu Tom in this category - it's as though hey've written it, thought "oh, and we'll need to stick a couple of female characters in there too" and put in Ariella and the she-Yoda, who only seem to meet in one episode. Oh, and one of the baddies) and programmes (such as Balamory) where it's been more carefully thought out from the beginning.

I don't think the presenters / programmes with adult 'actors' are nearly as bad as the animated stuff. Me Too, for example. It's crap, but there's a woman taxi driver and a female doctor who works with a male nurse.

There is an orange able bodied male on Milkshake. That's diverse.

This one

The real danger with tokenism is that it is a disguise, which is dishonest. It is an attempt to cover up lazy (sexist/racist/ablist/heteronormative) prejudice in plain sight.

Tokenism (as ElephantsAreMadeOfElements says) is an afterthought: "we'll stick in a [insert disadvantaged group member] to avoid complaint".

Its dangerous, because it does actually fool people who could potentially be allies to change things. It gives them the vanilla they need to think the world is all nicey-nicey, progressing in the right direction all by itself and there's no need to complain.

And because of that progress is S-L-O-W and full of counter-movements, regressions and backlashes.

And there's an actor with a visual impairment playing a character with a visual impairment, ninjasquirrel.

"Granny" Murray is clearly an illegal unlicensed childminder, though (unless she's doing it for free, I suppose). There's no way she would pass an Ofsted inspection.

TFT was actually created by a friend-of-a-friend so I am particularly at how bad it is in terms of diversity and all other respects as well .

We just got kittens yesterday, one of each. Both my 8 year old and my 5 year old were convinced you could tell male and female animals apart by looking at their eyelashes!! And my 8 year old also told me that it was strange that the female was braver "because usually boys are braver"!! We have had a chat.

ArtexMonkey That Guardian article makes me want to cry.

All that BS unquestioning gender stereotyping. My daughter loves playing with trucks and cars and shows no preference for pink, since she is not really aware of its significance yet (as a gender code).

There's also no question about the misogyny of parents and adults generally in the way they encourage/discourage their children's viewing according to their own misogynist prejudice (we don't want our sons turning out girly)...and then that gets reinforced in the playground "did you see [insert male-centred 'action-packed' female diminishing programme] yesterday?" amongst all the rest of the misogynist gender policing "urgh that's for girls"

Basically the Beeb is saying "we live in a misogynist world that hates women and girls, so we have to cater to that preference in order to do our job as a public service".... which is of course the opposite of the stance a public services should take - it is how the private sector operates - and we pay a licence fee for a duty to counter-balance that 'tyranny by the majority' of the private sector.

Also, I believe all hope is not lost. That Guardian article was written in 2007, which I believe was the time that the antifeminist backlash had swollen to its most mainstream and monstrous size - with even Yorkie bars saying 'not for girls'. It was before Jonathan Ross and 'Sachsgate', the global economic point of falcrum, ... etc, etc.
That Jonathan Ross moment I believe, was where the Beeb took a knock in its assumption that it should be like the private sector, with overpaid sexist oafs, lording it over the rest of us at our expense.
So I basically believe the climate has changed and it is time to challenge all that antifeminist propaganda that clearly made its way to the top!

foodunit, I love every word you have ever written (well, on here anyway).

I'm so frustrated with important people in positions of influence making decisions on the basis of "oh my daughters throw away trucks and only like pink". My daughter really likes pink because she got told to like it at school. Literally on the first day of school she came home with a new favourite colour because the other girls had already been programmed. It's not embedded in the physical laws of the universe - it's idiots like CBEEBIES programmes who make it happen.

It reminded me of another absolute idiot - the guy who was the head of Harvard Business School or somewhere who proclaimed that it's true that girls are more nurturing (and basically less intelligent although he didn't say that outright) than boys because his little girl arranged things into groups of three by size and named them "Daddy, mummy and baby". Because of this huge scientific study of one, he concluded that women had more soft skills and were less suited to maths etc. I think of him every time my little boy groups things into groups of three and says "Daddy, mummy, baby". The only difference is that there isn't a group of gendered thinkers standing around my son saying "oh look, he's so nurturing, such a typical boy".