Skip to main content

Dora

I think most of you already know that there are kids constantly running around my house, so I have a halfway decent idea of what toddlers and young kids are interested in these days.  Cartoons are always popular, it's just a matter of which cartoon is popular at the moment.  Lately, that's been Dora the Explorer.  Boys, girls, barely walking, preschool age, it doesn't matter; they all seem to derive some enjoyment from Dora.

Now, if you didn't bother to click on the link, Dora is brown.  She speaks Spanish, and the show randomly throws in words in Spanish that little kids can learn.  Since I live in a state where Spanish is fairly common, most parents approve of their kids learning at least a few words.  It's a little surprising to me how popular the show is, but the kids that come here are from all kinds of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and they all seem to like the show.

Now, from a revenue-generating stand point, everyone wants to cash in on this idea.  People often say that there are no original ideas left in Hollywood, and apparently the same is true for children's programming.  Someone came up with a good idea, so the network tries to copy the idea to produce another winner.  Of course, you can't just flat out copy Dora (even little kids would notice), so instead, you get:
  • Go Diego Go.  Someone must have figured that if one brown kid teaching random Spanish words was good, then TWO of them was better.  I also suspect they were trying to corner more of the "males under 4" market, because Diego is all about trekking through jungles and what not to rescue animals.  None of this pansy "exploring" for him, it's all about defending the weak for him.
  • Ni Hao, Kai Lan.  Well, now that you've got the brown people covered, it's time to move on to the next minority: Asian people.  She has a animal side kick, just like Dora.  I've actually never watched much of this one, but I think they throw in random words/phrases in Mandarin, as well.

    (side story: Kai Lan actually sounds a lot like the name of a Chinese vegetable.  Because of this, things having to do with this show have been nicknamed "broccoli" at my house.  So when one of the kids asked for "Kai Lan music," we joked about "broccoli music.")
  • Maraka the Explorer.  Let's just say that this one isn't quite aimed at kids.
Given the pattern, I wouldn't be surprised if the next version that came out was about an Asian boy that traveled the world correcting the wrongs he came across.  Maybe he'd be some sort of environmentalist, teaching everyone the joys of recycling.

Really, it's just a matter of time before the networks come up with various different versions.  Sadly, I think that means that this lady wasn't actually racist, but slightly ahead of her time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Backlog

I am an information junkie. Always have been. I'm one of those people that cares far more about the storyline in a video game than the actual game play. At work, I will spend time researching things related to solved problems, because I want to know exactly why it failed in the first place. And if someone learns something new, I want to go see what it's about, because I want to know what they know. I know it's not exactly the average outlook on life, but it is what it is. Anyhow, this mentality leads to my habit of tracking various websites, blogs, and other internet web sources to keep my information flow constant. Doing all of this manually is tedious at best, though, so I use Google Reader  to organize all of these feeds. It just makes things simpler to have a single source of RSS feeds, so that I can quickly browse through items related to my interests. Given all of that, it should come as no surprise that I also try to keep up with my feeds on a regular basis. I ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Units of Measure

I mentioned it recently, but I have a bit of an opinion about valid units of measure. Specifically, I am a fan of the metric system when it comes to temperature . As I mentioned in that post, a system that tells me that the temperature is "negative four degrees" is much better at explaining that it is flippin' cold than one that tells me the temperature is "twenty four degrees." The negative sign matters. Now, as soon as I mentally conceded that the metric system made a ton of sense for temperature, I immediately started thinking that it probably makes sense for other units, as well. I mean, if I'm going to apply the whole "this just makes sense" standard to the ambient temperature, it makes sense to think about mass, volume, and length in the same general way. Why force people to remember that there are sixteen ounces in a pound? Or that, more confusingly, there are eight  fluid  ounces in a cup? The conversion rates just seem arbitrary at that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Moment of Truth

I forget where I first heard it (I think it might have been Descartes), but I have long been a fan of the notion that certain things just have a " ring of truth " to them. If you've never heard the idiom before, the basic idea is that some things are super-true. They are not just true, but they are so obviously true, that as soon as you hear them, you recognize the truthiness inherent in them. I usually get excited when I hear one of these, since it means that I am a tiny bit less ignorant from that moment forward. For the first time in memory, though, I experienced the ring of truth. First, let me paint the scene with a little bit of background. I'd made plans to have dinner with my friend, but we'd agreed to play it by ear. The end result was that we ended up settling on a pretty late dinner in a local spot. That worked out just fine, since we weren't shooting for gourmet, we just wanted to grab some food and catch up in the process. So, we headed out to ...
Post a Comment
Read more