Media gives us a large wealth of cultural materials to analyze and evaluate the norms, values, and much more of societies at a given time. In this essay, I take a look at the way cartoon programs that aired in the 1990s reflect contemporary attitudes regarding the topics of urbanism, suburbanization, and empowerment. While I was not expecting to find much regarding topics relating to the Community Power course, it turns out that cartoon shows like Captain Planet and the Planeteers and even Hey Arnold! speak volumes to the popular discourse surrounding these topics. These cartoons offer a a glance at a cultural microcosm that reveal how embedded ideals of environmentalism and multiculturalism become in the media of the late twentieth century. Check out the full reading, linked below:
3 thoughts on “Research Project No. 2- “Hey Arnold! vs. the Growth Machine: A Cultural Content Analysis of Cartoons and Urbanism””
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Its interesting how each cartoon explores a different kind of community. Ed Edd n’ Eddy always did it for me because it depicted the suburban environment in a way that did it for me as a kid, especially with the eerie wasteland-like abandoned construction sites.
I love the connections you made! I didn’t grow up with television so many of the cartoons I’ve seen have been as a young adult. It’s so fascinating to see how society and various environments are reflected in television and so often it seems as though the strongest ones are the cartoons. Also John Rowley thought it was a great paper!
I loved this. This was my favorite out of all the projects. I think that it’s so cool that these issues we learned about in class were on these shows. I think that its awesome and must have been so fun to do. I never would have thought I’d see these on cartoons!