Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Research Paper

First Advisor

Anne Cong-Huyen

Abstract

The world of television cart and designoons has historically been, and largely remains, a space dominated by stories of straight male characters. Cart and designoons are written about boys, for boys, and even as live-action television is making dedicated strides toward on-screen gender equity, these animated programs continue to fall short. At least, that’s the theory. ‘Think of the Children!’: Gender and Sexuality in Nickelodeon Cart and designoons examines the amount and quality of representation of genders and sexualities in five culturally-significant cart and designoons that premiered on children’s television network Nickelodeon between 1991 and 2001: Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, SpongeBob SquarePants, As Told By Ginger, and The Fairly Odd Parents. These cart and designoons were selected according to a list of four criteria, including financial success, critical acclaim, fan following, and current network relevance. One to two sample episodes of each program are analyzed through the critical frameworks of gender theory, queer theory, and feminism as applied to film and media studies, and then put into perspective within the larger cannon of Nickelodeon’s programming. The end result is a summary of Nickelodeon’s successes and failures in portraying diverse identities within the context of these five programs, presented as a nonlinear essay on the USC’s Scalar Platform, as well as a script and storyboard for a sample episode of The Fairly OddParents.

Comments

WSP Major: Writing for Multimedia

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