File this one under: Don’t let your cranky, feminist mother watch your TV shows.
So, my three year old son was watching an episode (‘Super Bear’) of the Australian children’s show, Bananas in Pyjamas the other day and I walked past and caught a scene that began to irritate me. I was so bewildered by it that I ended up watching the whole episode again on iview to be sure about what I was seeing. Before I go on, let me say that generally speaking, I am sure Bananas in Pyjamas is a really great show and I have not watched enough of it to know if what I observed was a pattern or not.
The background and storyline is basically this – one of the teddy bears is a little boy and the other two teddy bears are little girls and all three are friends with the two Bananas, who are kind of like the adult figures. In this episode, the little boy teddy bear is a fan of a book called Super Bear and he buys a costume so he can play at being Super Bear. All very cute and typical of children’s television, so far.
But the little boy bear as Super Bear becomes trouble. He is so wrapped up in his imagination that he really thinks he does have super powers and doesn’t appear to notice the trouble he is causing or the danger he is to himself. The Bananas try to assist with the problem, a little, but they’re more like doting uncles who are not concerning themselves too much with the chaos because they’ll be going back to their own civilised house soon. (Bless). Instead, it ends up being the little girl bears who have to clean up things Super Bear is destroying while Super Bear remains oblivious, and at one point they even have to gracefully rescue him when he is wanting to leap off a ladder ‘to fly’. Tellingly, the little girl bears deal with these problems in a way that doesn’t involve Super Bear having to know about it because he would only cause more mess if he tried to help and because they do not want to hurt his dignity or spoil his fun. Worse still, his fun interrupts their own fun and plans and when they express some irritation about it all the Bananas encourage them to be careful not to ruin the boy bear’s illusion of himself as a superhero.
It wouldn’t have particularly disturbed me as a story if it was about a parent or uncle cleaning up after the little boy teddy bear (although I think it is good when even little people get a chance to take some responsibility for themselves), because really, this is pretty much what parenting toddlers and preschoolers looks like – they go about making ridiculous amounts of mess in the pursuit of joyful fun and you get to clean it up and if all goes well they never realise how tiring they are. But the sight of two little girls doing the cleaning up and taking care of, instead of having fun and adventures themselves? And the idea that the little boy got to experience the thrill of danger while the little girls got to worry about him? It all struck me as so, so wrong.
blue milk 
This was pretty much my childhood – oldest child, two younger brothers (18 months and 5 years between me and them). I was told I had to set an example, I mustn’t react when teased, I must be the peacemaker, it was my fault (for winding him up) when my youngest brother threw a tantrum, I should show sympathy to my brothers when they were upset by saying sorry to them. Basically I was expected to keep everything emotionally harmonious at my expense. When I was 12 I suddenly realised, “who are the parents here? Isn’t my brothers’ behaviour their responsibility?”. I think my parents were so stressed they tried to recruit me as back up parent. They were probably telling me to do what they subconsciously knew they should have been doing themselves. The criticism I have received as an adult for apologising all the time for everything is so ironic! I am pretty sure if I had been a son rather than a daughter they would not have demanded this from me.
You poor thing. As the eldest daughter of several siblings I was often recruited as an extra parent. However all my siblings were girls. Sometimes I wonder if this is more the curse of being the eldest child? Would be interesting to hear the experiences of any eldest brothers out there…
Interestingly, my partner was the eldest brother – he got in trouble for being a bit of a bully with his younger brother and sister, however he was just doing what his dad did to him! I think a lot of that kind of thing is about birth order, and number of kids, although I think it often manifests itself differently with boys being expected to be physically protective and help with traditional ‘man about the house’ kind of things, and girls getting the cleaning and emotional work.
With my partner’s dad, he treated all his children as support servants to his wife – at least my partner came ready house-trained! He now seems quite surprised to see my partner readily picking up the housework I can’t manage with a wee baby and urges him to make sure he gets out as much as possible (to maintain his sanity – apparently a new baby is quite a challenge to a man’s sanity but we don’t need to worry about the mothers, it all comes quite naturally to them haha – my tongue gets sore from biting around the defacto in-laws….).
I really hope I am clear sighted enough to at least ask myself where my children might have picked up behaviour I disapprove of, or to ask an honest friend (it seems so easy to see patterns like this in others, and so difficult to get the same insight into my own situation!).
Thank you for your insight Sarah (and sorry am only replying now, only just worked out notifications on this app…)
[…] blue milk blogger saw her three year son watching the Australian animated show for toddlers “Bananas in Pyjamas.” She blogs: […]
Ugh. So it is not just the music that is annoying about this show.
An ex-writer of Bananas in Pyjamas has joined the discussion over at Hoyden and it is worth seeing his comment.
I haven’t watched this episode, but from the post I agree that this seems like a wrong message to be sending out. I do find though that a lot of things in children tv which passed me by as a child (or perhaps were only assimilated subconsciously) are glaringly obvious (and worrying) now I’m an adult.
I haven’t seen the new (animated) BiP, but I used to watch the older version a *lot* – where the bears and bananas were played by people in suits. In those episodes it was pretty clear that neither the teddies nor the bananas were adults.
Those older episodes didn’t have any worrying patterns of gender stereotyped behaviours as far as I recall. All the characters would do silly things / make mistakes or messes on occasion, and they would all pitch in and help each other sort things out / clean up. The idea that everyone should balance some basic chores with lots of play was pretty prevalent throughout, which I always thought was a pretty good message for kids of all sexes.
I get really frustrated by a lot of contemporary children’s television in general. I haven’t seen Bananas In Pyjamas in years (my sisters used to watch the live-action version), but man, this episode sounds super annoying and problematic.
The Play School toys appear to have a 6:2 male-to-female ratio. Not sure this is entirely relevant but I only noticed it today.
I’ve seen a lot of the animated BiPs, but had never paid attention to this.
Lulu and Amy are smarter and more mature than the other 3 main characters (Bananas and Morgan). They are generally quicker to understand what is going on (be that in the world or in other characters), to solve problems and restore order (They frequently plot revenge tricks on Rat). Lulu and Amy are not well differentiated.
They are clearly capable of doing anything that anyone else can do and will usually participate. But I think it is accurate to say a good deal of their time is spent attending to the Banana’s problems (largely from naive enthusiasm) or Morgan’s (as in the case you observed).
Not many episodes going to pass the Bechdel Test.
[…] parenting) The stubborn gender gap – the market is not providing by Julie at The Hand Mirror. Bananas in Pyjamas teaching you to like ‘bad boys’ and clean up all their mess by Blue Milk. It’s not the women that are broken, it’s the system – a counterargument […]