Marketing, Media and Childhood

Still searching for just where Lego made the wrong turn

2012-02-07T14:35:00.003-05:00

The Lego Friends maelstrom continues. Here's an update.

These two videos thoroughly deconstruct gender stereotyping in Lego marketing:

Feminist Frequency

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I’ll explore how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provide a brief history of LEGO’s ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70′s. In part 2 I’ll delve into LEGO’s intentional strategy to market almost exclusively to boys since the mid 80′s by developing and marketing sets that are male identified and male centered. In conclusion, I’ll offer LEGO a couple of suggestions that they can consider when creating and marketing new products.

Meanwhile, Lego has apparently agreed to a meeting with Spark, the organization behind a petition that has received nearly 52,000 signatures.

Crystal Smith, author of The Achilles Effect, examines the disconnect between Lego's claims about its company values and its contributions to children's development, and its marketing: filled with violence and harmful gender stereotypes.

Meanwhile, some of the same sexist attitudes apparent in LEGO friends also apparently carry over into Legoland, where a female firefighter is portrayed, but not putting out a fire. No, she's applying lipstick.

What I find quite remarkable is that Lego is based in Denmark, the country that ranked 7th in the World Economic Forum's 2011 Global Gender Gap Report, which ranks 135 countries on measures of gender equality.

In Denmark, according to the report, women hold almost one third of the highest positions in government and business. Well, maybe Lego doesn't fit in so well in Denmark. Take a look at their management page:

Management Board

	Jørgen Vig Knudstorp CEO/Chief Executive Officer Download high-res image
	Mads Nipper CMO/Chief Marketing Officer Executive Vice President Marketing Download high-res image
	Bali Padda COO/Chief Operations Officer Executive Vice President Operations Download high-res image
	Jørgen Vig Knudstorp Acting CFO/Chief Financial Officer Business Enabling

Corporate Management

	Product Group 1 Ulrik Gernow Senior Vice President
	Product Group 2 Poul Schou, Senior Vice President
	Europe Dirk Engehausen, currently Senior Vice President
	Americas Pacific Søren Torp Laursen, Senior Vice President
	Asia & Emerging Markets Jens-Peter Poulsen Senior Vice President
	Consumer Marketing & Innovation Per Hjuler Senior Vice President
	Shopper Marketing & Channel Development Skip Kodak Senior Vice President
	Corporate Affairs Robbert Nickolaj Stecher Senior Vice President
	Corporate Finance Lars Mikkelsen Senior Vice President
	Corporate IT Henrik Amsinck Senior Vice President
	Executive HR Simon Riis-Hansen Senior Vice President
	Europe Moulding and Europe DUPLO Jesper Hassellund Mikkelsen Senior Vice President
	EU Packing Carsten Rasmussen Senior Vice President
	Procurement Michael McNulty Senior Vice President
	Engineering & Quality John Hansen Senior Vice President
	Supply Chain Planning & Distribution Claus Flyger Pejstrup Senior Vice President
	Value Chain Innovation Maarten Tibosch Senior Vice Presid

Which one is a joke, and which one is the real ad?

2012-01-06T11:50:00.000-05:00

Thanks to SPARK Summit and Princess Free Zone

It's the Lego Friends roundup

2012-01-03T12:55:00.008-05:00

[update January 12, 2012 to add Impeus.com]
[update January 9, 2012 to add children's television creator and dad blogger Jason Tammemagi]

There's been a tidal wave of response to the LEGO Friends line for girls among bloggers as well as in an opinion piece in the New York Times. Also, a petition to the CEO has gained nearly 2,500 signatures. I wanted to do a roundup for you. [update January 12, 2012: The petition now has over 35,000 signatures]

And keep in mind, please, whenever you read that Lego did a lot of "research" before they came out with this line, that the research was directed at finding a way to make more money in the girls' toy market, not at figuring out what is best developmentally for girls.

Dr. Jennifer Shewmaker

As I have said before, one of the things that I find most disturbing about gender stereotyping is the way that it constricts a child’s vision for themselves. When a girl or boy repeatedly sees males and females displayed in very narrow roles, it is sure to impact their own view of how they should behave, what their dreams should be, and who they might become.

Shaping Youth

How (and why) are we missing profound opportunities to leverage neuroscience breakthroughs for positive change, wellness and play? With all this Lego research ‘anthropology,’ why aren’t we closing learning gaps with innovation? It confounds me that after we’ve connected the dots on the hackneyed ‘girls are more verbal, boys are more spatial’ themes only to find they’re not ‘wrong’ but are simply ‘learned’ in lather/rinse/repeat toy choice, environment, and behavior mode, that someone isn’t wildly waving their hands saying ‘hey, let’s look at this, make changes by design and improve outcomes for BOTH genders.’

New Moon Girls

Let's ask Lego to expand their vision of girls and their interests in the next round of sets they design for girls. Just a suggestion, Lego: Take the four girls from The 4th Motor team of Wisconsin who won the 2011 First Robotics Lego League North American open robotics challenge (1st all-girl team to win)!

Time magazine

…the five core “friends” who are not minifigs at all but redesigned mini-dolls that come with the following accessories: a purse, a hair brush, a hair drier, four lipsticks and two barrettes; a spatula, an electric mixer and two cupcakes… What’s worse, LEGO Friends doesn’t give girls the same sense of mastery and accomplishment that it gives boys.

Portrait of an Adoption

I believe you when you say that you have based these toys off of research that tells you “this is what girls want.” Because this is what you and other mass retailers have told them they should want. Children will listen. Children and their parents will start to believe you when you constantly tell them that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Children will agree when you tell them every day in every way that girls like parties and make-up while boys like adventure and building.

Peggy Orenstein, New York Times Op-Ed

At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging — let alone exploiting — stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids’ potential than parents imagine.

Pigtail Pals

You sold my daughter out. You shortchanged my son and now contribute to the skewed and narrow way girls are portrayed in media and toys. You became like every other toy maker and drank the pink Kool Aid.

Spark Summit

Marketers and ad execs and Hollywood and just about everyone else in the media are so busy insisting that women and girls, 50% as Lego puts it, are not interested in what they are selling unless it is pink or cute or a romantic comedy or on Lifetime. But they say this even as they refuse to market their products to the women and girls they are so certain will not like them! Who populates commercials for Legos? Boys! Where in the toy store can you find them? “The boy’s aisle.” So no wonder girls won’t buy your products!

Princess Free Zone

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the latest Lego marketing scheme, along with Disney's princess pushing methods, are inherently part of how we view girls here in the United States, with limited versions of femininity continuing to be perpetuated. As we continue to debate why so few girls end up with careers based in math and science, isn't it obvious?

Sociological Images

So, basically, what Lego has done over the last few decades is take a truly wonderful gender-neutral toy, infuse it with boyness, and tell every kid who’ll listen that the toy is not-for-girls. Now, stuck with only 50% of the kid market, they’re going after girls by overcompensating. And, to top it all off, they’re shaking their heads and doing “science” to try to figure out girls, as if they’re some strange variant of human that regular humans just can’t get their head around.

Achilles Effect

I have been ranting about LEGO’s gender bias on and off since March, and it gives me great satisfaction to see so much talk about the company this week, in response to the company’s announcement of a new toy line for girls. People are really, really ticked off and they are finding some very creative ways to tell LEGO about it.

Also: Lego stereotyping also affects boys

Jezebel

Girls With Pink Blocks, Cute Figures, & No Creativity

Reel Girl
Other new Lego sets feature all male characters, because they are based on movies that are all-male:

When girl characters are excluded from movies, they’re left out of the toys and branding on all kinds of kids clothing and products as well. Please take a look at Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing from Kids’ Movies in 2011. These movies predominantly star males, feature multiple males in the cast, and often highlight the names of males in their titles. This kind of blatant sexism repeatedly teaches kids that males are more important than females...

Lyn Mikel Brown

When LEGO announced that after four years of marketing research, the best they could come up with was a thinner, pinker version of their product, I admit, I laughed out loud. My first reaction wasn't outrage, but incredulity. A billion dollars of marketing research bought you... LEGO Barbie?

Jason Tammemagi

How can anyone say it’s what girls want when they’re being sold little else? So Lego are just that last straggler playing ‘me too’ in the girl’s toy aisle. Is it hard to blame them? I guess the thing with Lego is that I’ve never seen them playing catch-up before. Maybe people just expected better.

Impeus.com

"P.S. If you would prefer to still receive your regular LEGO Club Magazine instead of the Girls issue then please call the telephone number above!"
Ah. Well. There we go. It’s not boys and girls. It’s girls and ‘regular’. You can be a normal child, or you could be one of those others. You know, the girls. The ones who can’t understand until something’s painted pink or related to kittens or service provision.

Marketing, Media and Childhood

Did girls not have enough choices in the doll category? Why doesn’t Lego focus on creating parts for things that girls like to BUILD, instead of more dolls with a selection of handbags? From what I understand of this new line, it focuses more on girls’ interest in interpersonal relationships, and therefore doesn’t do enough to nurture their spatial skills, which is the whole point of Legos, isn’t it?

And this.

And, this example of non-stereotyped marketing from the 1980s:

Source

(Did I miss anyone? Let me know in the comments or via email. emcn17 at gmail )

Not a friend of Legos, anymore

2011-12-16T10:25:00.000-05:00

Source: TheBrickBlogger.com

Lego Friends? Not your girls' friend. Did girls not have enough choices in the doll category? Why doesn’t Lego focus on creating parts for things that girls like to BUILD, instead of more dolls with a selection of handbags? From what I understand of this new line, it focuses more on girls’ interest in interpersonal relationships, and therefore doesn’t do enough to nurture their spatial skills, which is the whole point of Legos, isn’t it?

OK, girls aren’t that interested in building racing vehicles. What are they interested in building? Why wasn’t that the question Lego set out to answer? When I was a child, I spent hours and hours creating structures with my legos. Skyscrapers, houses, castles, cities. NOT vehicles. And NOT dolls.

My other pet peeve with Legos and all their kits that tell kids – boys or girls – exactly what they are supposed to make. General pieces that can be used for an endless variety of creations are more truly creative. A Star Wars vehicle – put these pieces here, in this order – not so creative.

Now that's creative play

When you are choosing toys for children this holiday season, keep this question in mind: Are major toy companies interested in children’s healthy development? Or are they interested solely in profit? Then shop at local toy stores for toys made by small, independent companies. Maybe a set of generic wooden blocks would serve the child in question better.

Also, consider the Nagging Nine. (Oh look, there’s Lego!)

This holiday season, send little girls a positive message

2011-11-28T08:35:00.001-05:00

Another in an occasional series highlighting individuals who are creating media or marketing products with positive messages for children and youth, and individuals using their creativity to promote media literacy among the young.

Any little girls on your shopping list this season? You want the best for them, right? How about starting with an empowering message.

Take a look at the Pigtail Pals line of Redefine Girly T-shirts for girls, by Melissa Wardy, featuring images of girl pilots, movie directors, race car drivers, paleontologists, and more.

Ms. Wardy is making a serious mark in cyberspace with her positive messages for girls, alongside her fight against sexualization and gender stereotyping of girls.

How did it start? Ms. Wardy had a little girl a few years ago and started shopping for clothes for her, but she found the pictures on children’s clothing lacking.

“Too much was missing from girlhood. Color, for one. But imagery being most important – astronauts, pilots, sailors, doctors, movie directors, pirates, dinosaurs, bugs…images that boys got, but not girls,” her website says.

Instead, girls' clothing often has tiaras, cupcakes, lipsticks, butterflies, hearts, or ballerina slippers. Not enough, said Ms. Wardy. So she started her own company with T-shirts that show girls doing all sorts of things – things that grown women actually do in today’s world.

Later, the attention to a blog post she wrote about confidence made her realize that women need a boost of confidence, too. So she put yet another t-shirt into her box. The Full of Awesome t-shirt.

Melissa told me recently that she is proud of what Pigtail Pals has come to mean to families across the globe.

I adore the emails I get that tell me the Pigtail Pals tee I mailed out has become the child's favorite, I enjoy the emails that say 'I was out shopping and this made me think of the stuff you say', but the true reason I do what I do is because our daughters deserve better.

And she loves the fact that the work she is doing helps others feel supported in their own efforts against sexualization and gender stereotyping.

Now, Melissa Wardy is a dynamo, true. But you don’t have to create a company, petition CEOs about sexualized ads and products, give workshops and write a blog, hold conversations daily on Facebook and Twitter, like she does, but you can do something. You can write a letter when you see something you don’t like, right? You can tell a shop proprietor you don’t like their “Too pretty for homework” T-shirt. And you can look for a different message, a better message, for the girls on your list this holiday giving season.

Images of women we would like to see more often in marketing

2011-11-02T13:08:00.006-04:00

Got off my bike to snap this one. Because it made me happy.

Nothing on my blog gets more hits than this one: Research shows positive media images do a world of good.

People searching on “positive images of women athletes,” “positive images of women,” and “sexualized female athletes” find this post.

Coming in a close second: More positive images of women athletes.

Marketers of beer, athletic gear, and also LL Bean, please take note.
Women and girls want positive images of strong confident women and girls.
Women and girls do not want to be objectified, sexualized or pornified.

This photo comes from Values.com, which to me is kind of a mysterious organization as there are no names on the site to explain who is behind it. Positive media seems to be their thing.

Violent airplane movies and traveling with children

2011-10-25T09:42:00.000-04:00

This is what US Airways thinks is ok for children of all ages to see while riding in its planes. That is someone's head he's got the gun held to. The movie contained this and many, many other images of violence. Also a provocatively dressed woman tied up. But that goes without saying.

Here's what US Airways has to say about its movies, from its website:

Most movies have been edited for general audiences and do not necessarily reflect the views of US Airways. Some material may be considered objectionable to some viewers.

So that's their paltry weasel excuse. And how can parents shield their children from these images for two hours during a long flight when the images are on numerous overhead screens all down the middle of the airplane? They can't. How do you get to Grandma's house on the other coast for holidays, without flying? You don't.

What to do when this happens to you? Write a letter to the company's CEO.

Why Media Education Matters

2011-10-03T15:34:00.001-04:00

Today's post is a reprint of a letter titled "Why Media Education Matters," written by Sut Jhally, founder and executive director of Media Education Foundation. This message explains the truly urgent need for media literacy education.

“We are a culture that has been denied, or has passively given up, the linguistic tools to cope with complexity, to separate illusion from reality.”
— CHRIS HEDGES

Dear MEF Friends and Colleagues,

The bottom-line pressures of our commercial media system are in the process of delivering a deathblow to American journalism. The demise of print journalism and the rise of the image have essentially forced the mainstream news media into the entertainment business. And the consequences for public discourse have been devastating. As author Chris Hedges has pointed out, the loss of independent journalism is “impoverishing our civil discourse, leaving us less and less connected to the world around us, plunging larger and larger parts of our society into dark holes and opening up greater opportunities for unchecked corruption, disinformation, and the abuse of power.” By filling the information void created by media consolidation and rampant commercialism with half-truths and ever more fantastic spectacles, corporations have built what Hedges has called an “empire of illusion.”

And in the empire of illusion, reality has met its match.

Climate change, resource and species depletion, domestic financial disaster, and shocks to the global capitalist system bring us face-to-face with what the philosopher Slavoj Zizek has called an “apocalyptic zero-point,” nbut the media-advertising-public-relations complex has been up to the task. In just one of many examples, upwards of 40 percent of Americans now disagree with the overwhelming consensus of international scientists who say that human beings are causing climate change, and that not changing course will be catastrophic, choosing instead to throw their lot in with the paid roster of corporate-sponsored "scientists," "experts," and politicians who have been offering up comforting illusions in the face of inconvenient realities.

The traditional intellectual function of colleges and universities seems more crucial than ever in this environment of mass denial and distraction. The work of teachers, researchers, scholars, and writers in many ways represents a last bulwark against the encroachments of commercial illusion that have spread across the wider culture. When I founded MEF 20 years ago, I couldn’t have known this. My primary goal was to distribute my first film, Dreamworlds, and to add my voice to the many others who were fighting for the legitimacy of popular culture as a field of study. I had no idea at the time just how important media education, media educators, and critical inquiry of this kind would become just two decades later: not only as a means of intellectual self-defense, but as a defense against threats to democracy and civil society.

Stuart Hall seems to me to have gotten it just right when he said that intellectuals have two primary responsibilities: to understand the world as objectively as it can be understood, and to communicate that understanding to the wider public beyond the realm of specialized intellectuals. On our 20th anniversary, with the stakes higher than they have ever been, I couldn’t be more grateful that MEF remains dedicated to exactly those goals.

Best wishes for a productive academic year,
Sut Jhally
Founder and Executive Director

L.L. Bean, Land's End, dipping toes into pornification game

2011-09-28T08:54:00.002-04:00

I’m not sure the trickle down theory works in economics, but it sure seems to be taking effect in sexualized marketing. It starts with a drip, drip, drip. While sexualization creep touches girls at younger and younger ages, it also starts moving into new green territory. Parents who don’t want to expose their girls to “I’m too pretty for homework” t-shirts, could always turn to Land's End. Until this:

Thank to The Momalog for calling out Land's End on this pornified advertising for children. "What bothered me most about the photo," she says:

• The 9-or-10-year-old girl in hiked-up shorts, in a somewhat suggestive, leggy and adult-like pose, mouth open, licking a lollipop (prompting one reader to comment, “Who are they targeting? Little girls? Or pedophiles?”)
• Two boys flanking either side exchanging knowing hubba-hubba glances.

And now, L.L. Bean too has bought into the notion that all women really just want to be sex kittens.

And here we thought L.L. Bean wanted to outfit strong, active, hiking, biking, rowing, hunting, sailing, skiing sportswomen. Seemed almost as if they respected women. How naive we were. In this new catalog, “L.L.Bean Signature” almost all of the female models are posed with their mouths open. Where do you see women sitting around with their mouths open in real life? Um, nowhere? Although they do show up in porn. What does the pouty, slightly open mouth signify? Well, it signifies that these women are ready and available for sex.

Try it. Try posing during a typical day with your mouth open. Maybe while sitting at the next staff meeting, or while you wait with the other parents at school pick-up time. Feel absurd? At best, people will ask you to move farther away so they don't catch your cold.

Gotta love this tagline: “Authentic and original, inspired by our heritage.” Our heritage of sexy babes on the frontier? I read Little House on the Prairie. It wasn't like that.

Right, I know, what's the big deal? It’s not as blatant as the covers of the magazines at the newsstand, like this one:

That’s why I’m calling it the “trickle down” effect. It starts out subtle. So subtle, you hardly notice. Drip, drip, drip.

Rolling Stone wasn't always a purveyor of pornified culture, either. No, it used to be about music.
University of Buffalo researchers studying Rolling Stone covers found that "the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even “pornified.”

And the sexualization creeps steadily and stealthily from porn, to rock and roll, to those most prosaic of American companies, L.L. Bean and Land's End.

How the media train boys to be sexist

2011-09-20T11:05:00.007-04:00

Watch this trailer from the Media Education Foundation, which highlights the powerful messages boys are getting from current popular media. Or, as they put, "Takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women."
The issue with negative media messages to our children, as I see it, is not so much how those messages may harm our individual children, and what individual parents can or should do about it, but how these messages are changing the culture as a whole. This film sheds some light on just how the media is changing the culture, and not in a good way.

Here is how filmmaker Thomas Keith finds that media portrayals of men and women teach boys to be sexist:
Step 1 Train men to womanize
By showing constant objectification in the media – television, music videos, film.
Step 2 Immerse men in porn
"In the pornified world, which is the world we are in, boys and men learn that women love to be sexually objectified."
Step 3: Make rape jokes
Such as the ones on Fox’s Family Guy.
Step 4: Unleash the masculinity cops
Obey the code, or you are like a woman. And you don’t want to be that (see above).

Looking at ads on summer vacation

2011-09-14T14:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, I’ve been on a bit of a blog break this summer. So, in sympathy with the children going back to school, let’s do a “What I did on my summer vacation” entry.

There I was strolling along a busy city street in San Diego, enjoying the beautiful day, minding my own business, when I was rudely slapped in the face by a series of sexist marketing messages, right there at eye level. “She is a thing of beauty” – Stella Artois’s ads on large street level posters – all the way down the street. This is a beer that I used to buy, but buy no longer, because of the offensive slogan. So it brought a smile to my face when I saw this bit of counter-marketing. The big beer makers love to mock women or treat them like objects, clearly not considering them actual potential customers. And some chicks are not that happy about it.

Meanwhile, two women recently opened a craft beer store near my home. In the interest of scientific inquiry, I asked them about the ratio of male to female customers. They told me that women make up close to 50 percent of the clientele. So there is half of Stella Artois’s potential customer base, flocking to a place where they feel more welcome. More, in fact, like a person and not a “thing.”

Also, I took this photo in San Diego.

"Good government demands the intelligent interest of every citizen"

And intelligent interest requires that you be informed. And to be informed, you need quality journalism, not industry PR. So support journalism, which is critical to a healthy democracy. You could subscribe to your local daily paper, for example.

Just for kicks, a link to Sociological Images on the gendering of beverages.

Percy Jackson vs. Transformers 3: Media influences on your boys. Which message do you prefer?

2011-07-08T16:10:00.000-04:00

I came across two reviews of current media offerings directed at young boys, from the perspective of what they teach children about gender and stereotypes.

The difference is stark.

At Achilles Effect, Crystal Smith finds the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, shows boys a positive male role model, along with a portrait of gender equality.

On the surface, says Ms. Smith, it seems like a story with many of the usual tropes: boy doing poorly in school, an absentee father, and the dramatic separation of a boy from his mother.

However, she says, often when the boy is separated from his mother in stories, he is then surrounded by male mentors. But Percy encounters both male and female influences.

Also, as a male role model, Percy is a good one: “He worries about crying and showing emotion or fear in front of others, but the reader is privy to his inner thoughts and sees him admit to being scared, react happily to hugs from his mother, and show empathy for others…”

Meanwhile, Transformers 3 teaches your boys that degrading women is funny and female leadership is a joke, according to Caroline Heldman writing at Sociological Images.

Transformers 3, which is rated PG-13, is “pitched as a ‘family movie’ and the film studio carefully disguises it as such with misleading movie trailers showing a story about kid’s toys,” says Ms. Heldman.

There are only two main female characters in this movie, she notes; one a sexual object and the other a “caricatured mockery of female leadership.”

Here’s what your little boys will see in the first scene of this “family” movie:

This is the woman as “object:” Carly, the one-dimensional, highly sexualized girlfriend of the protagonist. She is compared to an automobile, ogled constantly by men and robots, and threatened with sexual violence by a machine. In the opening scene, above, she is portrayed as merely a body part. That's objectification.

According to this analysis, the character of Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing, meanwhile, is “a caricature with 'masculine' leadership traits – arrogance, assertiveness, stubborness, etc. – who is ultimately put in her place at the end of the movie with a forced kiss." Her authority is challenged by virtually everyone she encounters and finally evaporates, when another agent comments, “...moving up in the world, and your booty looks excellent.”

I didn’t care for the first movie in this series, in which the main female character was nothing more than the love interest, the scantily-clad prize for the nerdy guy who becomes a hero (another trope). Looks like the series hasn’t improved much.Take a look at the full review to see clips from the movie the writer has selected to prove her point.

Another summer movie-watching weekend is coming up. Wouldn't it be great if a lot of parents decided not to support this movie when they decide what their kids see? Instead, perhaps they will substitute a trip to the bookstore to support positive media.

Violent video games, your children and your right to free speech

2011-06-28T07:25:00.001-04:00

What "Space Invaders" looks like today

The Supreme Court has struck down a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children because, they decided, it would violate the free-speech clause of the Constitution. You can read about the reasoning behind that decision elsewhere. What I’m thinking about today is just how far video games might someday go in depicting violence and allowing players to participate.

Already, parents need to realize that there’s quite a range of violence in today’s video games, that may go from cartoon characters that pound each other in Mario Smash Bros. Brawl, to war games involving shooting down enemy combatants, with bloodiness but not a lot of gore, to the opportunity to rip the heads off enemies with one’s bare hands, all in realistic high-def graphics.

Now picture a leap of technology similar to the one that took us from the original Space Invaders to the killing of aliens in Halo, where you move, virtually, through a three-dimensional world of brilliant and highly detailed graphics. Imagine that the technology advances so that you actually enter the game and the action takes place all around you. That technology is already under development. What if the action becomes so realistic that you can actually touch and feel the opponent as you rip its head off? Feel the blood splatter on your arm? Such video games may not be far off.

Many parents will decide that is too violent and realistic for their children. And some of those children will go and play the game at the home of a friend whose parents think it’s just fine. We are entering a world of technology that is getting more and more difficult for parents to navigate. There is evidence that exposure to images of violence in video games is harmful to children, and can influence them to do violence to others. It’s impossible to know what level of exposure to violence is going to lead to violent actions in individual children until after the fact.We may need to start thinking more broadly about how to protect our children and ourselves from the effects of violent images, while still protecting our constitutional rights.

Slather on some Positive Marketing this summer

2011-05-27T08:00:00.009-04:00

Today I am introducing a new series highlighting individuals who are creating media or marketing products with positive messages for children and youth, and individuals using their creativity to promote media literacy among the young.

Since we are here on the cusp of the official start of summer, and since The National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention has declared today “Don't Fry Day,” I thought I would start with TGR Body sunscreen, created by Tracee Sioux.

Tracee Sioux is a nationally recognized gender and parenting expert and writes The Girl Revolution, a website about parenting daughters.

"I started the TGR Body company," Ms. Sioux told me, "because I've been writing The Girl Revolution for five years and the thing I hear over and over from women is that they carry incredible body pain. Pain about how they look, how they never feel they measure up to advertising on beauty products, pain that their bodies are traditionally objectified by marketing and media about beauty."

The labels on those products, she points out on her blog, can impart one message: “I am not good enough as I am, unless I devote a portion of myself to improvement with the products of this bottle, which might improve my flawed, imperfect self.”

Or, they can send a message Ms. Sioux prefers:
“I am a beautiful human being, which has a right to exist and be heard just as I am and seen as beautiful in the way I was made, by a miracle of birth and natural selection and holy creativity.”

I prefer that second one, too.

TGR Body labels feature girls being active: hiking, dancing, snowboarding, surfing, and include affirming messages. Also, since she is concerned about skin care products that contain substances which are suspects in the early onset of puberty in girls, her products contain no "craptastic ingredients."

Ms. Sioux sent me a sample of Natural Beauty Sunblock Mist, which features a silhouette of a girl snowboarding. I liked it a lot. It felt nice going on, didn’t leave an unpleasant film on the skin, and it wasn’t all perfumy. Now you might assume I was biased and wanted to like this product, and I was. So just to be sure I wasn't imaging things, I shared it with a couple of other people on a sunny, snowy day in February in Vermont. I didn't tell them anything about it. It got positive reviews all around. Certainly it’s worth a try – especially right now, since she’s offering free shipping.

The case for media literacy education in public schools has never been more clear

2011-05-16T09:42:00.000-04:00

It turns out the American Coal Foundation has been teaming up with Scholastic, a supposed educational publishing company, to insert its message into elementary schools by way of fourth grade lesson plans. Scholastic enjoys a reputation among parents as a trustworthy educational resources. The ACF used Scholastic’s credibility among schools and parents to lend a stamp of legitimacy to its propaganda.

Environmental groups and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood fought back and as a result the project was canned last week, when Scholastic suddenly seemed to come to its senses, after a three-year partnership, and released this statement (quoted on the CNN Money site): "We acknowledge that the mere fact of sponsorship may call into question the authenticity of the information, and therefore conclude that we were not vigilant enough as to the effect of sponsorship in this instance."

For some reason, Scholastic seems more than willing to sell its good name to the highest bidder. Ironically, Scholastic was heavily involved in the government’s media literacy education effort launched about a year ago – Admongo.

In other corporate PR news, there are now apparently three public relations types for every journalist in the US. While news outlets are underfunded and understaffed, industry publicity, marketing and lobbying groups are well-funded and willing to use any available avenue to get their message out, whether through school lesson plans or media such as this magazine produced by Red Bull, a product that is targeted to teens.

With emaciated newsrooms and beefed up industry PR on the prowl, the case for media literacy education in public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade has never been more clear. It's just critical that those media literacy curricula aren't written by major corporations.

Coal/Scholastic links:
New York Times

Mother Jones

CNN Money

Rethinking Schools blog

Here’s a blog post by Alma Hale Paty, executive director of the American Coal Foundation, describing the success of the program.

Questions about readily available soft-porn images and our little boys

2011-04-25T09:14:00.001-04:00

I snapped this photo at a local CVS drug store. This is a selection of the magazine covers displayed at the eye level of 6- to 12-year-old boys.

Pornography is said to be addictive and can cause changes in the brain, and has been found to cause sexual dysfunction in teens and young men. Meanwhile, soft porn and sexy images are constantly on display and just about impossible to avoid. So I'm wondering what effect the frequent viewing of images like the one above – which are so readily available in the environment of pre-pubescent boys – might be having on their developing brains and bodies. Any thoughts or concerns out there?

A reading list from the @mktgchildhood Twitter timeline

2011-04-21T10:32:00.001-04:00

Time again for a roundup of interesting reading I have found and posted on Twitter with a focus on the topic of selling our kids to the highest bidder.

(Do you follow me on Twitter? If you are interested in the topics we talk about here, then please follow me @mktgchildhood. Every day I scan through the Twitterverse, blogs and news sources to find the most thoughtful, well-researched and thought-provoking writing, images and videos on the topic of harmful media messages to children. I only tweet links that I have read or looked at, and that I think are worth your time.)

Advertising in schools, on school buses
1. On School Buses, Ad Space for Rent (New York Times)

“I have a 5-year-old who doesn’t understand what ads are,” says Megan Keller, 30, of Provo, Utah, who says her son Collin, a kindergartner, sees seductive posters for sugary cereals every day in the lunchroom of his public school. “I don’t like that he thinks, ‘Oh, this is good because it comes from my school,’ and I’m having to explain to him why that’s not true.”
Because Utah will soon start selling ads on the sides of school buses, Ms. Keller has decided to transfer Collin to a nearby charter school that has sworn off commercialism.

Go to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood campaign to see what you can do to oppose school bus advertising in your state.

2. "If Corporate advertisers don’t help fund schools, who will?" asks Lisa Ray, at Corporate Babysitter (with a list of sources of funding that don’t require advertising to children at school).

The Media Literacy Lineup:
3. "Is Your Armpit Unattractive? Dove Can Help" at Sociological Images:
Putting the lie to how much Dove (parent company Unilever) cares about your positive body image.

According to research cited on Dove’s website, 93% of women think their underarms are unattractive and thus may refuse to wear sleeveless clothing.
Libby Copeland at Slate sums up what’s going on here: "Dove’s empowerment-via-shame marketing approach for Go Sleeveless has its roots in advertising techniques that gained popularity in the 1920s: a) pinpoint a problem, perhaps one consumers didn’t even know they had; b) exacerbate anxiety around the problem; c) sell the cure."
Ladies, it’s not enough to shave and deodorize your underarms. They need even more prettification than they’ve been getting. How this deodorant does that, I don’t know. But it does. You’re welcome.

4. At Jezebel, How To Manufacture The "Career Women Love Housework" Story

In short, a PR project for a cleaning products company issued a press release with dubious methodology which was then recycled into a pseudo-news item for a news wire, which was then sexed up into a convenient report on how you can't pry the broom away from working women's hands. If it's any consolation, so far no U.S. news organizations appear to have picked up on the "news," though Internet chatter knows no borders. It's a rather convenient conclusion, no matter how sketchily achieved, so set your clocks until someone tries to use it in an argument about women's progress.

And these:
5. "Gender Imbalance in Media, Geena Davis, Broken Models of Masculinity & Femininity," at Thompson on Hollywood at IndieWire.

What disturbs Davis the most is that in G-rated films, female characters wear the same amount of revealing clothing as in R-rated films. The most common occupation or aspiration of female characters is to be royalty, and their goal is to find romance.

6. Yoni Freedhoff, MD, at Weighty Matters, points out negative messages in a children’s TV show that teaches kids to make fun of the overweight.

7. At Beauty Redefined: "Porn and Pop culture, a deadly combination"

This is not just a feminist argument calling out all the harmfully objectifying messages we are exposed to every day in the name of female equality. This is a fight for male and female mental and physical health, for safety, for meaningful relationships, for women’s worth, for the power to recognize and reject these proven harmful influences if we want to. The power of pornographic images — presented to us as normal and natural in the last decade of our lives – is REAL and is worth fighting against.

Movie Review: Winter’s Bone

2011-04-19T13:32:00.001-04:00

I highly recommend Winter's Bone–with its excellent messages about female strength and courage, as well as the damaging effects of illicit drugs–for older teens.

What’s with movie ratings? Apparently any mention of illicit drugs earns an R, but you can have just about any level of gratuitous sex, violence, language or gruesomeness and end up with a PG-13. And no level of sexualization of women and girls will push you out of a G-rating range, Geena Davis has found.

I recently watched the Oscar-winning Winter’s Bone. It’s a movie about a 17-year-old girl who must act to protect her family – two younger siblings and a withdrawn and depressed mother. The undercurrent is drugs. The movie features a strong female protagonist. She chops wood and teaches her younger siblings how to shoot squirrels and cook them for survival. To save her family, she does what she needs to do, and goes where she needs to go, even though it’s dangerous and she’s afraid.

As if that weren’t enough of a reason to recommend the movie for both boys and girls as an antidote to the sidelined and sexualized females in movies – it also delivers an excellent message about the damage drugs do to a community. She is offered drugs, which she rejects. And the look on her face tells us that she finds the offer repellent.

This movie should not be exempted from teen viewing due to its rating. There is no gratuitous violence, sex or language. A modest amount of violence and language is completely understated and appropriate to the context. There is no nudity, sexualization or sex. There’s just a young woman who goes on an important, difficult journey and succeeds. Awesome. Yes, it’s dark. Older teens – 15 plus – can handle it. It’s probably not for younger teens – primarily because I just don’t think the subject matter will interest them.

From Thompson on Hollywood at IndieWire:
“… where are reality-based female characters who aren’t self-loathing and desperate, hypersexualized or entirely devoid of femininity?”
Answer: Winter's Bone. Trailer here

Mainstream retailer questions the gender police. I feel giddy.

2011-04-14T18:41:00.001-04:00

Is J. Crew a subversive company that questions the cultural paradigm? Or was the decision to publish a photo of a mother painting her small son’s toenails hot pink a deliberate business decision designed to generate controversy and therefore free publicity? Or, maybe both.

I called retail marketing and product development consultant Michael Saylor at ADIG in San Francisco to ask him if this was a brilliant move on the part of J.Crew to get attention. “I wondered if that was subliminally what they had in mind,” he said. Mr. Saylor tended to believe the decision was not “premeditated” to create a stir, though.

I asked J. Crew, but they’re not saying. Heather Lynch McAuliffe, vice president of public relations said, “We’re not participating in any stories.”

But I have no doubt that the decision was made intentionally. This was not just an innocent photo that the company decided to put into the catalog showing a candid moment between mother and son. Marketers need to get attention. That’s the whole point of what they do. And controversy gets attention. So what can get attention in the whole pink is for girls, blue is for boys marketing milieu? Put a boy in pink. I think it was a pretty remarkable decision.

Mr. Saylor said J. Crew had certainly gotten a lot of attention from consumers who may have forgotten about them, not unlike the recent controversy generated by Abercrombie Kids over a push-up padded bikini top for little girls.

For J. Crew, he said, “The net effect will be positive.”

But unlike the Abercrombie stink, this advertising goes under my heading of positive media. I think J. Crew deserves the attention, because they generated controversy for a good reason – by questioning the gender police. It’s a good bit of subversive marketing. And it’s directed at adults, not children. So, good for them.

In fact, I find it kind of amusing that there is a petition at Change.org to thank J. Crew for this ad. Now that’s a retail marketing campaign of a different stripe.

(For the record, I think the key to not giving your children hang-ups about their sexuality is to not make them question it at five years old. If the mother had said, like certain commentators apparently think she should have, “No, you can’t have nail polish because that’s for girls,” wouldn’t that be more likely to lead to psychotherapy to undo the damage, since you’ve essentially told your tiny, innocent son that he has deviant ideas about his gender? There is no way I would have said that to my sons when they were five years old. No way.)

Update: There have been many excellent blogger responses to the controversy. I wanted to add this link to a mommy blogger who suggests that those who appreciate what J. Crew and Jenna Lyons have done write to them in support, to counter the negative responses. I love that idea. I often promote letter writing to companies or government bodies to let them know what we don't like. Here's a chance to tell one of them what we do like. Positive feedback!

Sarah Hoffman: J. Crew, I Love You and Thank you, Jenna Lyons

No, your baby can't read: Deceptive and unfair marketing to new parents

2011-04-14T11:02:00.002-04:00

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is taking on Your Baby Can Read. The company tells parents in infomercials that their baby can learn to read from watching the company's videos, which are similar to flashcards. This is deceptive marketing that preys on vulnerable new parents who just want to give their baby the best possible start in life. The company lies to sell its product.

It doesn't work and, in fact, there is growing evidence that putting babies in front of videos can delay language development - especially when it means reduced face-to-face time between parent and baby. For example, recent research reported out of the University of Washington found that every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos (Time magazine). The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for babies before the age of two.The best way to teach a baby language is to talk to the baby. It doesn't cost a thing and works best.

It appears that included in this company's expensive package are also flashcards that a parent can also use to teach a baby to read. This package is expensive nonsense. Research also shows that babies learn through creative play. Not rote memorization of flashcards.

The CCFC is the organization that forced Disney to give refunds to people who had purchased Baby Einstein videos when the Federal Trade Commission found they had engaged in deceptive marketing. Help them out here and send a letter to the FTC:

Go here to support the CCFC effort with a letter to the FTC.

(As a matter of disclosure, I have supported the work of CCFC with financial contributions since my children were infants.)

Marketers gone wild

2011-04-13T07:30:00.034-04:00

A nice special-occasion dress for sale last weekend in Harvard Square.

I stopped in a few clothing shops this weekend, and was, I have to say, dumbfounded. There were logos on the outside of everything. Everything! Sure, I couldn’t find a pair of flip flops without a logo, no surprise there. But then I went into a boutique, and there were designer labels on the outside of dresses! And a leather jacket. Would you spend a few hundred to advertise someone else's business? I'm thinking someone will. Almost every article of clothing in this store had a label on the outside. And they are still in business. People will get used to anything, apparently.

Lisa Ray, founder of Parents for Ethical Marketing, was flabbergasted when she ran into Disney-branded paint, at the hardware store this weekend. But why would you not brand your products, and miss out on these golden marketing opportunities? It works for sneakers and jeans. Why not everything else? Seems like not too many people are objecting, so... let's take it a little further.

There's the designer logo embroidered on the outside of the waistband with gold thread.

Leather jackets with logo sewn onto shoulder

I find it very hard to find outerwear already because I refuse to be a walking billboard. I chose a cross-country ski jacket based on whether I could snip off the logo on the front. (Okay, but I've compromised here and there. It's cold in Boston.) Lately I've noticed the manufacturer of my favorite wool socks have started putting their name across the toe, the better for anyone else to see when I've got my shoes off. I filled in the white lettering with a permanent marker, with some success. Am I the crazy one? My kids think so, yes. But just a few weeks ago, Morgan Spurlock's logo-emblazoned suit jacket looked like satire. Today, well...

Morgan Spurlock dressed for success.

Spurlock, maker of the hilarious and eye-opening documentary about McDonald's , "Super Size Me," is now making a film about product placement, and has actually gotten companies to fund it. Check out the website of his major funder, Pom Wonderful.

What do you think about logos and labels on clothing? Do you refuse to buy? Cover it up? Cut it off? Buy despite the intrusive marketing? Or is the label the reason you bought the thing?

Media literacy success in middle school

2011-04-08T12:27:00.001-04:00

One discussion about media literacy can benefit hundreds of children.
Join the conversation, spread the word, help kids stand up for themselves.

It was just a year ago that I talked with my son’s fifth grade teacher about the need to help children navigate through all the media messages they see every day. That teacher was inspired to create a three-part lesson for her students on deconstructing advertising, using materials and resources online through the Media Awareness Network. In class, the kids loved talking about a subject that was so relevant to their lives. They were fully engaged in the activities and discussion, at a time – near the end of the school year – when it would otherwise be difficult to keep their attention.

In the fall, that teacher and I talked about what next steps we could take. We decided to apply for a grant to the local education foundation to bring in more formal training so that teachers could learn to integrate media literacy into their own classrooms. I did the research and she built support among the staff and administration and brought in the school librarian, also a passionate supporter.

Yesterday, the three of us learned we had won the grant. The training will go forward just before the next school year. What a happy success!

What started with a 3-unit class for 25 fifth graders, will now grow to a 12-unit curriculum that will benefit all of the fifth graders, and will continue to benefit those kids throughout their lives. It will also be sustainable in that the teachers will have gained critical new knowledge that they can use in their classrooms to benefit all their future students, and can pass along to other teachers.

This particular curriculum has a health focus, and teaches children about the media messages they are receiving about tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food and bullying. I learned yesterday at the ACME conference that the research shows very clearly that children who learn to deconstruct alcohol and tobacco advertising change their attitudes and expectations about smoking and drinking.

It is so important for all of our children to have an opportunity to learn about how they are being targeted and exploited by media messages, and to give them a fighting chance to stand up to those messages. It’s only fair that children aren’t sent out into that battle unarmed. It all started with a conversation between a parent and a teacher. And now hundreds of children will benefit. Please join me and start talking to build support at your school.

Media literacy education conference, Boston

2011-04-05T13:09:00.001-04:00

This week I will be attending the Action Coalition for Media Education conference on April 7 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

BOOK – Gender stereotypes: How boys are harmed by the media's twisted portrayal of how to be a man

2011-03-16T09:01:00.005-04:00

Book Review
The Achilles Effect: What Pop Culture is Teaching Young Boys about Masculinity

My son picked up my copy of The Achilles Effect, by Crystal Smith, and started reading aloud about toy action figures that have bulked up to superhuman proportions. I hadn’t started reading it yet, so he regaled me with the discussion of one particular Wolverine action figure that, if he were an actual 5’10” man, would have biceps that measured 32 inches around – just one inch less than his waist. The author tells us that even wrestler Hulk Hogan, with the help of steroids, has biceps of only 25 inches.

We laughed together over how difficult it would be just to move around with Wolverine’s gigantic arms. If you tried to lift your arms, “your shoulder would hit your neck,” he noted. And you wouldn’t fit through doorways.

I’m glad that at age 15, he can laugh about the absurdness of images marketed to children. But at a younger age, children are not so able to critically analyze the messages around them. They just take them in, and those images become a part of their developing psyches as they seek to make sense of the world. The Achilles Effect is full of many more specific examples of what young boys are taking in about masculinity in the cartoons, movies, book and toys they see daily. Ms. Smith has produced a well-researched and powerful resource that will alert the parents of young boys to the messages in specific popular current TV shows, movies, books: The messages that tell boys that to be a man requires toughness and aggression, all the time, and any show of vulnerability is too be avoided at all costs. The gender stereotypes that are so prevalent in the media set limits on young boys just as they are seeking to explore and discover who they are.

I can’t represent this review as entirely impartial, since the author thanks me for my support in the preface. But the reason I support this book is because I believe parents need to be aware of the insidious and exploitative nature of the media today. There is so much in here that I have been thinking about since my boys were young. We are not all experts at decoding media. And I found that this is an accessible book that helps to alert parents to such issues, and the risks. It also provides lots of suggestions for positive books, television shows and movies for elementary school boys.

There are in fact real risks. For example, studies are starting to show a rise in body image issues among boys; and along with that, eating disorders and depression. You can see how the images of cartoon superheros with unattainably huge biceps – which are not limited to that Wolverine figure but are actually very prevalent – could influence a young boys perception of his own body. Adding to the problem, according to Ms. Smith, parents are less likely to be attuned to body image issues in sons.

[Read an excerpt on Google books]

One of the issues that Ms. Smith discusses is the sexist language used in young children’s media, something that especially irks me. Even superhero women get objectified in our pop culture media, and there is a ridiculous focus on the sex appeal of female characters in shows intended for 6- to 10-year-old boys. For example, she writes:

Emma Frost is looked up and down by Angel when she first appears in Wolverine and the X-Men. Thief Gambit notes the beauty of his client Zane on another episode of the same show. Booster Gold hits on the “beautiful” scientist he rescues in an episode of Justice League, referring to her as a “damsel in distress” and a “hot doctor.” The League is also the home of Flash, who is regularly shown making moves on women. Over on Super Hero Squad, all of the men gush over Black Widow, and Iron Man tells the evil Enchantress that “even in defeat you’re a striking woman. What’s say you and I have a little dinner.

And again I ask: Who the heck writes this stuff for little boys? Who? I tend to believe it’s someone socially stunted, immature and seriously lacking in creative ideas for children. Why are they pushing this stuff on boys from a young age? This is not what little boys are interested in. And then who approves it? There must be someone along the line who actually has kids. Where is that person?

It will be clear after you read this book that many, many producers of media for children are not interested in presenting healthy, positive, quality stories that will contribute to our children’s development. Crystal Smith, a passionate and smart parent, lays it on the line, and shows us just exactly how those media producers are harming our boys.

You can buy it online at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Also check out The Achilles Effect website.

Ads on school buses, ads on thighs: This week in the world of media

2011-03-09T09:05:00.004-05:00

I have learned this week that a lot of people are interested in positive, non-sexualized images of female athletes. I’m glad. What else? Read on:

These states have legislation pending to allow ads on school buses:
Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington.

"Currently, only Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and New Jersey allow advertising on school buses. But eight more states are considering overturning their long-standing prohibitions on school bus ads in a misguided attempt to solve their budget deficits. The financial plight of schools is extremely worrisome, but turning school buses into traveling billboards for everything from fast food to violence
and sexualized media is not the answer." – CCFC

Go to the link to find out what you can do about it in your state.

This is the 20th anniversary of Thelma and Louise and, “It feels like we have spent the 20 years since losing power for women onscreen.”

On that note, ABC is launching two shows that use the word "bitch" to refer to women in the titles. Also, one of them seems intended to denigrate people of a certain religious faith. I think the whole thing is nasty and offensive. The Parents Television Council is right to call them out on it.

On the other end of the spectrum, lots of people love the idea of a science show for children featuring a girl as the main character. These one will be seen in Ireland, but maybe someday here in the United States?

The innovation of advertisers is unlimited. This company puts raised ads for short shorts on bus benches so people sitting there, wearing short shorts, will have the ad imprinted into their flesh. Should we be "impressed" by these ingenious ads . . . or horrified?

The FCC may overhaul television ratings. That may be a good thing, since they are so inconsistent right now.

We’re in danger of turning our babies into those blobs that ride around in lounge chairs in the movie WALL-E due to lack of tummy time.

But, kids will choose healthy cereal if there’s no cartoon character involved.

There is no gender gap in math, an international study involving nearly half a million children finds.