Disney Launches Channel for Boys

Disney XD, a new Disney offshoot channel that is targeted directly at young boys, launched last week to soaring ratings. Of course, anything that attempts to tell either sex what it should (and thereby should not) be interested in watching/doing/being instantly gets my attention, so I decided to check out the programming. The shows on the station are all about active, adventuresome boys. Aaron Stone is a show about a video gamer who becomes a real crime-fighting character. There’s a show about two teenage boys who set out to become the world’s best skateboarders, a number of animated adventure shows featuring boys who fight alien cats, battle with robots and become dragons, plus plenty of other “male-oriented” shows and movies.
This new station has been touted as being something good for boys. To give them something of their own among the “fantasy princess” majority of Disney’s programming. While I haven’t watched the shows on this station yet, the branding of it plays very much into the masculine stereotypes: rough, dirty, outdoors, active, aggressive. None of the shows seem to focus on emotional development, friendship, or anything outside the realm of what society has deemed is okay for boys to be interested in. Does every young boy only care about sports, comic books, video games and fantasy adventures? No. Just like all girls don’t just care about shopping, beauty, boys and home décor. This seems like it could have been an interesting opportunity to give boys some variety of programming which might encourage their creative, emotional or giving instincts. Instead, I think it is going down the same path that later in life leads to Spike TV and the Playboy Channel.

What this does is simply put boys in their place, which is no better than telling a little girl she should only be interested in baking and princess dolls. In fact, one might argue that it’s worse, because men have more power in a patriarchal society so the more misogynists we raise the worse the situation for women of future generations. Boys who might be interested in things that are not considered worthy of a boy’s attention are shunned from this channel. What if a boy wants to be a dancer but finds nothing on this new station “just for boys” that speaks to this desire for physical creative expression? Wouldn’t this serve as a subtle reminder that his desires are wrong and should be avoided?
In my own personal experience growing up as a girl, I was given some pretty mixed messages having watched way too much television (but that’s another post!). My desires to have an exciting career as an archeologist were encouraged – to a point. By the time I was 13 and really starting to think about what I wanted, I “wisely” chose a more suitable career for a girl: teaching. I thought it was me who made that decision, but looking back I realize that it was made an impossibility for me by the things I watched every day. I think that our children deserve a vision of a world where whatever they feel they want and need to do with their lives is not just okay, but something to be celebrated. It’s a shame to think we might be boxing in yet another generation.