Influence of Television Shows on Children

Over the years many iconic television shows have been created, to make our childhood Saturday mornings special. Sitting with a bowl of your favorite cereal in front of the television watching Kim Possible saying, “what’s the sitch?” or seeing SpongeBob Squarepants flipping Krabby Patties at The Krusty Krab. Many people can say the shows the watched as a child influenced their lives as they got older. While it may be true that these shows have played a part in how people act when they are older, it can truly affect kids at a younger age.

These shows children watch daily can affect their, behavior, their views about racial and sexual stereotypes, cause them to lose interest in school activities and learning, and create low quality health habits and attitudes. Looney Tunes, well known animated series, was created in 1930. With its characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, and many others,they all played a part in what makes the television series so engaging. However it is seen as one of the most controversial cartoons because of its excessive violence displayed throughout every episode. Gun showdowns, sticks of dynamite, and mallets, is just a few of the many weapons used by the characters to inflict pain on one another. The definition of the shows name “Looney Tunes”, is described as meaning crazy or demented. Although Bugs Bunny carried out some very violent actions he was never to be mean-spirited in any way. It was considered a critical quality in the making of the character. “It was very important that he be provoked,” said Chuck Jones in a 1998 interview in the article, “What Gives Bugs Bunny His Lasting Power?” by Katie Nodjimbadem, “because otherwise he’d be a bully and we didn’t want that.

We wanted him to be a nice person. ” So even though the show was intentionally meant to be violent, they wanted to make sure it was conveyed that it was just in retaliation. Though that could be seen as an excuse for their actions, shows similar to this subliminally encourage children to carry out violence. In one study, children from the ages of 5-9 watch three and a half minutes of a television show called the “Untouchables”. This is show is about Al Capone, a legendary crime boss and the corruption of the police force that is trying to take him down. The kids exposed to the show were classified as more violent than the kids that just watched normal shows. (Zuckerman). Although the “Untouchables” is considered to be an adult show, Looney Tunes has many of the same characteristics. Meaning that if the same experiment was conducted with “Looney Tunes” you would face the same outcome of the children as the children who watched “Untouchables”. The only difference is that there happens to be cartoon talking animals instead of people. It is also been seen that many children’s television shows have the tendency to influence kids racial and sexual stereotypes. The are a lot more women and ethnic roles in the more recent years of television.

There is now a 1:3 ratio of women in television, compared to the past years when the ratio was 1:6. Also there has been an increase in African Americans in television based of a study from Gilbert Mendelson and Morissa Young. Out of 1,500 characters 5. 6% of them are African American and 11. 6% of them are Asian American. (. . . ) However over 60% of the television shows had no trace the minority race characters. But with this small amount of racial and sexuality representation of the minority groups, it brings about stereotypes. Total Drama Island, is a viable example of the stereotypes some children’s shows often portray.

The synopsis of the show is that it is an, “ animated satire of survivor reality shows featuring random teenage archetypes vying for the final prize by any means necessary. ” ( The different stereotypes portrayed are the geeks, the athletes, the goths, the nature lovers, the popular mean girl, and the “ghetto” black girl. Although these stereotypes mays seem honestly harmless, kids are known to soak up information like a sponge. So shows like these set up many children anti believe that anyone that the people the seem are automatically to be put in one of these categories.