Are Girls Actually Taking the Lead? A Content Analysis of Gender Roles in Animated Netflix Originals for Children Daphne M. van Tongeren 12760196 Master’s Thesis Graduate School of Communication Master’s Program Communication Science: Entertainment Communication University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. M.E. Klijn June 26, 2020 Abstract Television shows for children provide their audience with displays of characters portrayed with personality traits and behaviours in line with or countering gender stereotypical representations of gender. This content analysis looked at behaviours and characteristics of female and male characters in animated Netflix Original shows for children and made a comparison between the display of behaviours and characteristics among shows from the category “girls take the lead” and shows that were not in this category. The analysis showed that there remain more male characters (65.0%) in the other shows, but more female characters (56.1%) were found in “girls take the lead” shows. Several gender stereotypes found in previous research were not found in the animated Netflix Originals. Moreover, “girls take the lead” shows were found to be somewhat less gender stereotypical, yet there remain many points of improvements. The results are discussed along the lines of cultivation theory and social cognitive theory, and the implications and possible future research directions are discussed as well. Key words: gender representation, stereotyping, children, animated Netflix Originals, content analysis 2 Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Literature review ............................................................................................................................. 6 Theoretical framework................................................................................................................. 6 Television habits of children ....................................................................................................... 6 Gender stereotyping in the media ................................................................................................ 8 Gender stereotyping and children ................................................................................................ 8 Methods ......................................................................................................................................... 17 Sample ....................................................................................................................................... 17 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Units of analysis ........................................................................................................................ 19 Variables .................................................................................................................................... 19 Results ........................................................................................................................................... 21 Demographic representation ...................................................................................................... 21 Physical character attributes ...................................................................................................... 22 Personality attributes ................................................................................................................. 23 Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Conclusion and implications ......................................................................................................... 28 References ..................................................................................................................................... 30 Tables ............................................................................................................................................ 38 Appendix A: Code book ................................................................................................................ 42 Appendix B: Coding sheet ............................................................................................................ 51 Appendix C: Netflix Originals episodes overview........................................................................ 53 Appendix D: Intercoder reliability ................................................................................................ 56 3 Introduction Gender stereotypes are part of the media people consume, influencing how people perceive the world (Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Signorielli, & Shannahan, 2002). Gender stereotyping entails portraying characters in stereotypical ways, with certain characteristics and behaviours typically assigned to male and female characters (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Research into gender stereotypes has been ongoing for different media (e.g. Aubrey & Frisby, 2011; Browne, 1998; Dill & Thill, 2007; Wallis, 2011). Previous content analyses focused on gender representation on television included findings that male and female characters are not represented equally in numbers, and that there are many stereotypes assigned to both genders (e.g. Aubrey & Harrison, 2004; Sink & Mastro, 2017; Thompson & Zerbinos, 1995). Little research has focused on gender representation in content for children, however similar findings were reported (Hentges and Case, 2013; Pila, Dobrow, Gidney, & Burton, 2018). Considering that media plays an important role in the socialisation of children (Prot et al., 2015) and the creation of their gender identity (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017) underlines the importance to increase the knowledge on gender representation in content currently offered to children. The negative effects of gender stereotypes in the media have come forward in multiple studies. The consumption of television with gender stereotypes leads to traditional gender role development (Freuh & McGhee, 1975) and gender stereotypical behaviour and attitudes (Oppliger, 2007). Many character attributes are often presented as stereotypically masculine, potentially giving children the idea that these are not achievable or desirable for girls, such as being adventurous, intelligent, and taking the lead (e.g. Hentges & Case, 2013; Thompson & Zerbinos, 1995). Furthermore, the representation of male and female characters with certain characteristics, or the lack thereof, can send out messages to viewers about what they should or 4 should not behave like or aspire to. Certain representations can also result in negative effects, such as aggressive representation resulting in aggressive behaviour (Bender, Plante, & Gentile, 2018; Paik & Comstock, 1994), or the recurring view of thin characters leading to lower body satisfaction or unhealthy dieting (Botta, 1999; Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006; Thomsen, Weber, & Brown, 2002). These representations will be considered, in addition to other gender stereotypical representations. There is a decrease in time children spend watching television and an increase in the time they spend watching video-on-demand services like Netflix (Ofcom, 2020; Lauf & Scholtens, 2019). This makes for Netflix to be an important source of media messages for children, and hence important as subject for study. Netflix organises its content for children in numerous categories. Despite the fact that Netflix has not publicly announced an agenda when it comes to producing content with characters that girls can aspire to, the category “girls take the lead” gives an impression of wanting to provide content with independent, strong female characters that girls can look up to. Netflix has created original content since 2013, which means all Netflix Originals have been created fairly recently. The purpose of this content analysis is to create an updated picture of how gender representation is depicted in animated Netflix Original shows for children. This is achieved by comparing shows sorted into “girls take the lead” with shows sorted into other categories. The insights obtained can guide parents and caretakers when regulating their children’s content and highlight points of improvement for producers. Content is examined in communication research as it is often seen as the cause of certain effects (Riffe, Lacy, Watson, & Fico, 2019), and is therefore important to be considered. Though no effects on children will be investigated, the findings will be discussed along the lines of cultivation theory and social cognitive theory, to underline the effects that gender representation in shows can have on children. The main research 5 question that will be explored is: How does gender representation differ between animated Netflix Original “girls take the lead” shows and other animated Netflix Originals for children? Literature review Theoretical framework Cultivation theory and social cognitive theory help understand the possible effects of the representation of gender in shows on how children perceive the world around them. The theories suggest that gender stereotyping on television plays a role