Cartoon Stereotypes

By Franz Brotzen

While the literature on the effect of televised violence and advertising on children is extensive, there has been relatively little attention given to the effect of racial stereotypes on young viewers.

Rice senior Alicia Burns-Wright aims to correct that with her award-winning paper, “Bratz: Friend or Foe to the Movement Toward Racial Equality.” The paper, which emerged from the Race and Ethnic Relations class taught by Michael Emerson, the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology, analyzes the four main characters of the Saturday morning cartoon show “Bratz.”

“Racial stereotypes in cartoons are particularly interesting because they are shown to children, particularly young children, who are still developing their sense of the world and their sense of identity,” Burns-Wright wrote. “By influencing children and their perception of the world, cartoons may have more power to shape the future than society realizes.”

Burns-Wright determined that three of the four main characters in “Bratz” clearly fit racial and ethnic stereotypes. She found many problems with the racial representations of the Bratz characters on their TV show, but added that “progress is being made by simply including a cast of multiracial characters.”

The paper took first place in a national paper competition sponsored by the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), and Burns-Wright presented it at the group’s annual conference in New York City last August. The trip was underwritten by the Chandler Davidson Fund. It was Burns-Wright’s first such experience outside the classroom. “It shows how the Department of Sociology helps support studies in race,” she said.

Another senior sociology major, Alicia Lyles, took second place in the same competition with her paper, “EthniCities: Whites’ Perception of Black Discrimination in Houston, Texas.” She began the paper in a class taught by Jenifer Bratter, assistant professor of sociology, and revised it for Emerson’s class on Race and Ethnic Relations. Making use of data from the annual Houston Area Survey produced by Rice sociologist Stephen Klineberg, Lyles looks at the growing spatial and racial divide occurring between blacks and whites in Houston.

Lyles, who also presented her paper at the ABS meeting, found that residence, income and education “have virtually no impact on perceptions of discrimination.” However, “the ethnicity of the respondent surfaces as the most telling variable as to whether or not an individual acknowledges black discrimination.”

Emerson, who directs Rice’s Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life, said that as he read each woman’s paper, he knew it was something exceptional. “Placing first and second in the national competition tells us just how special both the papers and these students are. It has been a gift to have ‘the Alicias’ here at Rice.”