Cynical Cartoons and How They Portray Women Athletes

Cynical Cartoons and How They Portray Women Athletes

Cartoons such as The Simposons, Futurama and Family Guy are watched for a good laugh and pure entertainment. Often they carry with them little, if any, expectations but the ability to keep viewers amused. So when the writers of these, sometimes risky, cartoons portray minority groups, based on their ethnicity, social orientation or gender, condescendingly it is hardly noticed. One Family Guy episode in particular exploits women in the WNBA. Brian is discussing how much he hates Texas and how it’s even worse than the WNBA. The scene then pans to two male commentators reporting the game. They report the score as 16-9 at the top of the 2nd half (in which we all know would realistically be much higher) and how the leading scorer only has 4 points. When showing the players, they look disoriented and miss shots. The commentators go on to say they make $7,000 a year (while the NBA players make millions) and in instead of making the sport look easy with their talent, they make it look “difficult”. The commentators then ask, “is this minor skill worth being so unattractive? That’s for the fan to decide” and the camera pans to an over weight male with what looks like a fruity drink. This also implies that males are the only people who watch sports and obviously don’t follow or even pay attention to women athletes. They are repeatedly made fun of and not recognized for their hard work or talent; only used for a way to keep cartoon viewers amused and laughing.

Janet P.
Women In Sport
TTh 2:00-3:15

The clip (sorry for the quality) is embedded: