Heternormative Effects in Children Shows

Sometimes I wonder if heteronormativity is established with our age. For example, parent’s and media might have taught kids the “norm” but how many of those kids actually understood why things are the way they are? I feel like they don’t understand what they are being taught until they are older.

I have two brief examples of television shows that have characters in question. The first, a lot of us might have watched as a child is, The Power Puff Girls. There is a villain named Him. If you don’t remember, Him was the red devil like creature with lobster hands. As a child, I never questioned his appearance clothing wise. But if you look at a picture of his character, Him is wearing a “Santa” similar dress with black high thigh heels, pink rosy cheeks and long eyelashes. He also has masculine voice in the show.

I never thought about Him being possibly contradictory with his character, it was just something subtle in the show and not very questionable until I became older and saw the stereotypes of LGBT in media and how the LGBT community “should” act and appear.

However, a noticeable questioned character for many of us was Tinky Winky in the Teletubbies. He was purple and carried the red bag similar to a purse. I was never really sure what the genders of the Teletubbies were, I had thought they were all male, except for LaaLaa. Maybe that is why I questioned Tinky Winky in the first place, but I never thought the show sent out subliminal messages. For me as a child, the show was not based around his character, so I didn’t spend too much time thinking about why he had a purse. I am not going to lie that I was fascinated with the show. I still know every single word to the theme song. My favorite part of the show was the characters were always making a mess and NooNoo, (the vacuum,) had to clean up. To me the show was harmless. However after research, others disagreed. It turns out that there are two female and two male Teletubbies. Many thought of Tinky Winky as being a homosexual figure for kids and that he promoted homosexuality because he was purple and had a triangle which both could represent the gay pride symbol. After revision of the character Polish politician, Ewa Sowińska (who is not for homosexuality), determined that the character was harmless to children, he simply promoted happiness. In conclusion, I think that heteronormativity effects older people and young adults more than children.