Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children's Entertainment Media

Current characters in children’s entertainment media illustrate a growing trend of representations that challenge or subvert traditional notions of gender and sexuality. From films to picture books to animated television series, children’s entertainment media around the world has consistently depicted stereotypically traditional gender roles and heterosexual relationships as the normal way that people act and engage with one another. Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children's Entertainment Media examines how this media ecology now includes a presence for nonheteronormative genders and sexualities. It considers representations of such identities in various media products (e.g., comic books, television shows, animated films, films, children’s literature) meant for children (e.g., toddlers to teenagers). The contributors seek to identify and understand characterizations that go beyond these traditional understandings of gender and sexuality. By doing so, they explore these nontraditional representations and consider what they say about the current state of children’s entertainment media, popular culture, and global acceptance of these gender identities and sexualities.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Looking Past Stereotypes of Gender Identity and Sexuality in Children’s Media—CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, Christopher J. Olson, and Susan G. Kahlenberg Chapter 1: SheZow: Costume Changes and Gender Non-Conformity—Rebecca Feasey Chapter 2: A Little Queer: Ambivalence and the Work of Gender Play in Children’s Literature— Jennifer Miller Chapter 3: Hungry for Change: Analysis and Application of The Hunger Games—Chrys Egan Chapter 4: “I’ll Show You What a Girl Is”: Analyzing Non-Stereotypical Representations of Gender on Liv & Maddie—Nancy Bressler Chapter 5: “She really knows her stuff”: Counter-hegemonic Messages about Gender in Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins—Jerralyn R. R. Moudry Chapter 6: Female Gender Modeling Between Now and Then: Two Western Cartoons and Their Resonance with an Arab Culture—Fatima Q. Al Hattami and Richard J. Schaefer Chapter 7: Cold, Tactless, Brave, Heroic, Technowizards: The New Feminine of Mattel’s Fashion Dolls—Sara Aust

About the Author :
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard is associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Dominican University. Christopher J. Olson is Ph.D. student in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee with a media, cinema, and digital studies concentration.

Review :
This book challenges our thinking about gender fluidity, heteronormativity, and sexuality by showcasing their presence in innovative media content for children. The contributors’ in-depth, creative analyses of case studies can enable readers to understand how children’s screens have the potential to promote gender equity! As someone who studies gender, media, and children (and a parent of five kids), I really appreciated this book's focus on specific programs that depict positive messages regarding gender and/or sexuality. A great resource for scholars and parents alike. Two thumbs up! Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between includes exciting examples of how children’s entertainment media has become more inclusive, tolerant, and accepting of those who may not feel as though they fit in one of the heteronormative binary boxes. The book offers researchers and media developers the opportunity to see what strides have been made in children’s media and where improvements can be made.