The Presentation Of Gender Stereotypes In The Jetsons

Although animated cartoons have long been associated with children’s entertainment, the content of many cartoons suggest they are for adults as well. From character portrayal to perceived gender roles, cartoons such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby Doo both reflect societal values from their time periods as well as perpetuate the developed stereotypes. Cartoons produced more recently such as The Simpsons start to challenge these stereotypes instead of following blindly. Comparing the earliest popular cartoons to more recent productions, shows progress towards a less stereotypical character portrayal in regards to gender.

In North American culture, watching television is as much part of regular life as eating supper. In an age

so heavily dependent on technology, newer additions such as Netflix enable society’s massive consumption. In a New York Daily News article, David Hinckley reports American viewing statistics from a Nielson study done early this year. Children in between the ages of two and eleven are consuming more than twenty-four hours a week while adults over the age of sixty-five are more than doubling that. Teens between the ages of twelve and seventeen are averaging twenty hours a week; the lowest reported of all age groups. According to the study, the average American watches more than five hours daily. With such a high consumption, it can be inferred that television has an impact on our society, especially in young children. In their formative years, children are learning and developing their identities, and these statistics suggest that television is a part of their development.
First airing in 1960 produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones quickly became a very popular cartoon among audiences of all ages. Although the original target audience was adults, The Flintstones is commonly associated with children’s cartoons. The Flintstones were The Simpsons of their era (Heintjes). Throughout the show’s six seasons, the recurring characters are Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma Flintstone, and their neighbours Barney and Betty Rubble. Even thought it is set in the Stone Age, The Flintstones examines many of the ideals present at the time of production including gender expectations in the home life.
In the 1962 episode “The Happy Household”, the presented problem is that Wilma and Betty are shopping too much and spending all of their husband’s hard-earned money. To counter their husband’s qualms, the women decide to get jobs, and Wilma becomes the host of a talk show called “The Happy Housewife Show”. At first Fred and Barney are thrilled that their wives have jobs to pay for their excessive shopping, but this quickly diminishes as they realize just how much their wives used to do around the home. Both women end up quitting their jobs to return to cooking and cleaning for their husbands. Reflecting on this episode over fifty years later, the gendered stereotypes are easy to spot. This episode along with many others enforces these stereotypes by emphasizing that household duties belong to the women and jobs are for men. Gender stereotypes are also perpetuated in The Flintstones through the portrayal of the characters.
Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble are the main female characters in The Flintstones, and they are both portrayed very stereotypically for the time period.

Both women are very thin and constantly in a dress with their hair perfectly done. The women have no occupations and are instead in charge of the cooking, cleaning, and child care. Apart from this, their singular hobby is shopping. The male characters, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, are portrayed in a similar fashion. Both men are large, rough, and seemingly dim-witted. They both hold respectable jobs and are the providers for the family. While in the time these stereotypes were very factual, The Flintstones did nothing but encourage them. With a similar overall concept, The Jetsons also portrays similar gender

stereotypes.
The Jetsons first aired in 1962 for a total of three seasons with the last airing in 1987. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Jetsons shares a similar concept with The Flintstones. Set in the year 2062, The Jetsons contains many futuristic features such as flying cars and robots. Despite being set in the future, The Jetsons reflects gender values consistent with the time of production (Lamb). The main characters are George Jetson, his wife Jane Jetson, and their two children Judy and Elroy. Also seen throughout the series is the Jetson’s live in maid Rosie the Robot. While the nuclear family has an equal portrayal of male and female characters, the show as a whole contains fifty-one males to a mere twenty-six females. The cast is only 33.7 percent female (Eick).
Jane Jetson, Judy Jetson, and Rosie the Robot are the female characters most frequently seen throughout the entirety of the show. Jane and Judy are portrayed as the ideal feminine women both in the way they dress and how they spend their time throughout the episodes. Jane Jetson is a full-time housewife whose side hobby is shopping. She is always seen wearing a dress, high heels, and perfectly done hair. Judy is shown as a typical teenage girl who loves shopping and boys. She is seen either in a dress and high heels, or a tight-fitting spandex aerobics jumpsuit. The only non-stereotypical feature to either of the Jetson females is that Jane does not take pleasure from her roles as a homemaker. This is seen through the existence of Rosie the Robot. Rosie is a robotic maid that the Jetsons purchase from a maid agency specializing in all female maids. Rosie’s main role in the series is to accomplish the tasks originally assigned to Jane.
The shallow depth to the female characters is seen by the contrast of the male characters. Elroy Jetson is Judy’s younger brother who enjoys superheroes and working with computers and other technology. The differences between Judy and Elroy illustrate the imbalance in character development. While Judy is seen as a silly girl who is only good at spending money and fawning over boys, Elroy is portrayed as a genius that is smarter than his older sister. Elroy’s interests are much more developed than Judy’s, which suggests that he is more important or more useful. His knowledge of computers and other technologies is useful to the conflicts and resolutions within the series while Judy’s hobby of shopping is just to keep her busy. This gender imbalance in character is also seen in Scooby Doo.
Scooby Doo, another Hanna-Barbera Productions cartoon, was first aired in 1969, and has since developed into a massive franchise featuring several movies and spin-off cartoons. The original cartoon entitled Scooby Doo, Where Are You! lasted for only one season. Throughout the franchise, the various shows have kept a consistent character base with the main protagonists being Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville “Shaggy” Rogers. The recurring characters have an equal gender representation, but the overall series does not. From a sampling of episodes, there are thirty-five males to twelve females setting the female portion of the characters at only 25.5 percent (Eick). In over forty years of Scooby Doo, the characters have not changed noticeably. The female and male pairs are portrayed as opposites to each other. Daphne and Fred are used to portray hegemonic masculinity and femininity in relation to Shaggy and Velma.
Daphne is portrayed as the perfect hegemonic female through her clothing and position within the cartoon. Daphne is extremely thin, pale, has long hair, and delicate features. She is always seen in a pink and purple dress with high heels. As for her position in the cartoon, she is relatively useless to the actual plot, and instead is there to look pretty and act as a love interest for Fred. Velma, on the other hand, is of a stockier build, has short hair, and wears thick-rimmed glasses. She is seen in a red and yellow dress with knee socks. Unlike Daphne, Velma has a useful role in the story line because of her immense knowledge. Despite having a superior personality, Velma is rarely ever portrayed as desirable to any man, and is often mocked by other characters for the way she looks and for her intelligence. Similarly to the female characters, Fred and Shaggy are portrayed as contrasting characters. Fred is the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity. He is tall, muscular, popular, brave, and athletic. To contrast this, there is Shaggy who is also tall, but skinny, unkempt, lazy, and cowardly. Fred’s role in the story is to be the group’s leader, come up with plans, and be popular with he female characters. Shaggy, in contrast, is the comedic relief. The representation of these characters enforces stereotypical opinions on how one should perform their gender.
The appreciation of hegemonic masculinity and femininity is outlined in Scooby Doo through the treatment of Daphne and Fred.

They are the two most popular characters, and they also end up together romantically. The differences between Fred and Daphne highlight the difference in ideals for enacting hegemonic gender portrayal. Fred is intelligent and praised for it, while Daphne is rewarded for being clueless. All four characters demonstrate the different gender expectations present at the time of production through their similarities and differences. Fred is the hegemonic male while Velma expresses her femininity in a more unconventional way, yet they share many similarities. Both are useful characters to the plot, and both are portrayed as being the most intelligent of their sex in the group. This similarity illustrates the different perception of certain characteristics due to the gender of the individual displaying them. The stereotypical gender roles portrayed in Scooby Doo are mocked throughout the popular television show, The

Simpsons.
Produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company, The Simpsons first aired in 1989 and has since become one of North America’s most beloved cartoons still producing new seasons. The Simpsons has tackled a range of topics including infidelity, adoption, religious differences, political views, sexism, and modern feminism. The show operates around a nuclear family that has seemingly stereotypical gender roles but mocks traditional and unrealistic family ideals. The main characters are Homer Simpson, his wife Marge Simpson, and their two children Bart and Lisa. Throughout The Simpsons, the female characters consistently challenge the developed societal ideals for women and young girls.
Marge Simpson is the stereotypical homemaker, but with a twist. While she has no formal job, Marge tries out several part-time jobs throughout the seasons. Marge is portrayed as very knowledgeable, and the voice of reason in the Simpson home. In flashback episodes, the viewer learns about Marge’s life as a teenager and young adult, and it is implied that she was part of the feminist movement. In the 1991 episode “The Way She Was”, Homer and Marge recall how they met. Homer first met his future wife while she was at a feminist rally, burning her bra. Marge is also seen holding a copy of Ms magazine. While Marge was very forward in her youth about her feminist views, in present time she challenged gender roles in a much less dramatic way. In the 1995 episode “The Springfield Connection”, Marge applies to the police academy and becomes the first female police officer in Springfield. By taking on a traditionally male role, Marge challenges what society says women can and cannot do. While Marge is for the most part accepted by her community in this role, it is her husband who takes the most offence to her new position. Homer feels threatened by Marge in a position of power and several times expresses this. Homer sees it as Marge taking on the male, dominant role leaving him to be responsible for a more feminine role. Marge’s beliefs and views on gender are clearly also present in her daughter, Lisa.
Lisa Simpson is a modern day feminist who fights the gender expectations of society. Lisa is only eight years old, but is academically gifted beyond her years. She is in constant search of knowledge and is very enlightened for a person only in elementary school. In the 1994 episode “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy”, Lisa is excited to get a brand new talking doll but, upon acquiring it, is extremely frustrated by the sexist phrases. Such phrases include “Don’t ask me. I’m just a girl”. Bart’s flippant response, “Right on! Say it, sister”, to such phrases launches Lisa into a passionate speech ringing with undertones of her feminist beliefs (Henry).
It’s not funny, Bart. Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act, that they can never be more that vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband.
This episode is a somewhat covert jab at the popular Barbie brand that at the time had just come out with a talking doll. After voicing her concerns to Bart, Lisa brings up her concerns with her classmates. To her surprise, none of the other girls seem to be bothered by what the doll says. Lisa’s experience within this episode highlights the issue many feminists face: getting others to see the problem. Lisa was not taken seriously by her family or peers, and instead told she was overreacting. This kind of response is a product of the sexist gender stereotypes that are driven by society and various forms of media. Compared with cartoons such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Scooby Doo, The Simpsons is extremely progressive in terms of addressing issues surrounding sexism and feminism within society and cartoons.