How apropos! This was a dinner conversation the other night, and then this morning Google’s flogging their 12 days of giving, or whatever, and this turns up as one of their selected charities:
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I guess these execs at Cartoon Network have never heard of this little network run by this up-and-coming company, Disney…you may have heard of them? Their shows primarily appeal to girls and I think they’ve been making some decent coin at it, I mean if that’s all they really care about.
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I agree that a lack of female power/role models in this content isn’t preferable.
Yet, isn’t this what capitalism and freedom is all about? They’re producing a product and trying to be as profitable as possible. Maybe subsidies would help; it works for corn.
Beyond outrage, we have no evidence that they are wrong to target their shows this way.
Nice snark 
Shows that primarily appeal to girls and selling toys to girls will likely avoid boy-focused content. It’s a different segment.
Depends how many bronies there are really.
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Judging by what I see around the fandoms of speculative fiction and games, young women and girls are as passionate about these things as young men and boys. The big difference I see is that women favor the speculative fiction in which women are actually characters in their own right, which is sadly a limited subset of speculative fiction. And it’s noticeable that the higher the production budget of the medium, the less likely there are to be women as fully developed characters.
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You seem to have a strange understanding of the word wrong. “Wrong” is favouring bad content over good content. “Wrong” is letting the buyers of commercials get in the way of telling good stories.
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Clearly the execs aren’t thinking. If they would just put all the characters into fashionable clothing and accessories, they could easily monetize the girls who will tell the boys what to wear based on what they see the cute and popular boys in the show wearing. Boom mind blown.
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It’s pretty annoying that programs are less concerned with plot, characters, art, cinematography, or anything of that sort, than they are with selling toys.
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I’ve long wondered why it’s so often the case that films and television programs will have incredibly well executed visuals, sets, costumes, music and sound, and yet have scripts with witty dialogue but poor characterization and an incoherent plot.
My guess is that it’s a mix of ideology, and that corporate executives don’t even pretend they understand, say, costuming, and so won’t mess with it as much, but they do think they know all about storytelling, when they don’t.
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Seems to me like there is an opportunity for someone to start making awesome action cartoons with girl characters and drink the other networks’ milkshakes.
But I suppose being the first to do it is risky, and networks execs do not like risk. Time for a kickstarter or something. Maybe Netflix, which seems to be willing to completely ignore ‘received wisdom’ about what to produce (since they don’t sell ads) might be the place to do this.
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Not the only reason, but one of them.
I thin a bigger problem is that it’s a primarily live-action show on Cartoon Network.
I suppose its just that a few of us crazy idealists had this quaint outdated notion that some content aimed at kids might be produced with a tiny bit of artistic input, rather than just spat out of the corporate meat grinder like Golden Yolk chicken pellets.
Also, you should start every sentence with “Despite what the PC crowd wants to sell us”, its a real time saving shortcut.
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Really? There are?! Wow. What a profound statement backed up by … why is it that you feel we should take what you say at face value, again? I’m not sure…
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So… is the Cartoon Network claiming that the Power Puff Girls didn’t move enough toys and other merchandise?
Or did it just get written off as a “fluke”?
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I’m not really buying this whole story. Seems to me that most superhero cartoons routinely have strong female characters. Granted, the traditional superhero canon is dominated by white males (with the exception of Wonder Woman) but if they wanted to dissuade girls from watching (why that’s even a thing I don’t know) then why go out of the way to have the female characters at all?
Also, Steven Universe.
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Girls don’t want to buy toys. Really?? Tell that to my daughter who circled practically every item in the ToysRUs Sunday sales flyer.
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From books and movies to sports, the whenever something creative or entertaining comes along, the suits come swarming all over it and ruin it. It’s time for Hollywood to die, already. Sure, it’ll be replaced by something else which will eventually be just as bad, but it will give some respite for a while, anyway.
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It’s pretty much marketing 101 that people only want to buy things because they’re told they do. What makes him think that telling young girls they want those toys is any different from telling young boys they want those toys? Does he think that boys are born with a a natural desire for comic-book related plastic?
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Except that of course in the real world boys can like characters that appeal to girls too.
These people aren’t just frustrating, they’re morons.
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Ah, you’re one of those people.
Also, the majority of the differences between girls and boys that are relevant in this discussion are directly related to marketing. The actual differences, for example subtle hormonal/emotional variances and the presence of different genitals (which incidentally aren’t debated by anyone - even those loony lefties!) don’t effect the enjoying or purchasing habits of cartoon related entertainment.
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