In this episode, we chat with Diana Leon-Boys— Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Communication Arts—about her lifelong work examining the navigation of girlhood through a Latinx lens. Her book Elena, Princesa of the Periphery: Disney’s Flexible Latina Girl extends conversations about minority representation and the complex relationship it has with child development. We host a dialogue between Diana’s research and Henry’s observations about boyhood in his book Where the Wild Things Were: Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America. We discuss how both scholars pull from their own personal experiences growing up in America and how they interacted with their childhood media.
We explore how the proliferation and production of children’s and family media shape ideas of adolescence. Diana and Henry relate this back to their roles as parents within an ever-evolving media landscape where funding for educational children’s content is dwindling. They further discuss how representation within media has changed over time and minority groups’ relation to it. This is where Diana brings in her newer projects about depictions of Quinceañeras and Día de los Muertos in TV and films. We are left to ask what the politics of childhood are and what reforms can be done with current children’s media.
Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:
Academic Texts
Diana Leon-Boys:
Elena, Princesa of the Periphery: Disney’s Flexible Latina Girl
Quinceañeras: Latinidades and Girlhood in Popular Culture
Henry Jenkins:
Where the Wild Things Were: Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America
“Just a Spoonful of Sugar: Permissive Child-Rearing and Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins”
“‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’: The Whiteness of Permissive Culture”
Others:
Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life
Kids in the Middle: How Children of Immigrants Negotiate Community Interactions for Their Families
Latina Teenhood: Intersectionalizing subjectivities in the post-network era.
Crafting Public Opinion: The Effectiveness of China’s Media Control Policies under Xi Jinping
Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, 1830-1930
Advice Books:
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
People, Places, Toys, and Holidays
Raquel Reyes [American Girl Doll]
Samantha Parkington [Doll]
Shows, Films, and Other Media
Dennis the Menace [59-63’ show, Comics]
One Piece [Anime, Manga, Live Action]
Snow White [Animated, Live Action]
Little Mermaid [Animated, Live Action]
Chinese State Media sounded like Fox Media
Quinceañeras episodes
News
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