Dull Cartoons = For Girls?

Just for ‘fun’ – and because I’ve never actually seen it - I looked up a cartoon called ‘Lady LovelyLocks’. It’s supposed to be an essential for girls’ cartoons everywhere. My impression? Dear gawd, that was worse than watching paint dry. (At least paint gives you those nice spirit-lifting noxious fumes.) This show was boring, contrived, overly moralistic and just plainly lacks replay value except for those with ‘the blinding light of nostalgia’.. I can’t believe they expected anyone to watch that drek!

Moving on, I tried to look up some lists of ‘girls cartoons’. All I really found were ‘hot girls’ lists created by boys. One list that attracted my attention was ‘5 80s Girls Toons That Boys Secretly Watched’. I gave it a look. Some of those list members completely confused me.

Care Bears is a girls’ cartoon? I’ve honestly always thought of it as a gender-neutral toon for the younger sets. In fact, it seems that most ‘little fuzzy animal’ toons are placed into the realm of ‘girls toons’. The Wuzzles, Popples, and Pound Puppies are just a few of the shows given the designation of a ‘girls cartoon’. The cast seems diverse enough that it should be a gender-neutral show, at least, in my personal opinion.

Now, one remark on the previously mentioned list did catch my irritation. The list creator mentioned that he watched G1 My Little Pony. As a hasty side note, he added “That’s the original My Little Pony, not Pony Tales! That was definitely for girls!”

So are you telling me that basically any cartoon which is low-key or boring is automatically a ‘girls cartoon’? Anything that doesn’t involve a world-altering consequence, big-issue conflict or smash bash action is obviously a show ONLY designed for girls? Are you saying that girls shows are required to be dull, cutesy drek?

“Oh, that’s dull. Must be a girls’ show!”

Thankfully, we have seen some companies attempt to break this trend with shows like the PowerPuff Girls and Kim Possible. Results have been mixed at best. Quite frankly, Japanese animation has done a far better job of bringing respect to a ‘girls show’ with shows like Slayers and the, parody-enriched, Excel Saga.

It’s sad to think that 91 years after women acquired the right to vote in America, the designation ‘for girls’ still implies a vastly inferior product to the designation of ‘for boys’.