I initially became aware of this book from articles online and a tv interview with one of the authors, Sharon Lamb, that I found ridiculous. I know that sometimes media coverage distorts things, so I wanted to read the book and give it a fair shake. While there was some distortion, the truth was as bad or worse in a variety of ways.
The intended audience for this book are parents of boys, which I am not (yet). I am, however, a boy at heart and still like most of the things I liked as a boy. I'm a science fiction novelist, a scientist (astronomy professor), and a consumer of products aimed at boys as well as older males, which the authors are definitely not. That objectivity can be an advantage, but they seem to have their own strong biases, that, coupled with a lack of intimacy with what boys like makes them seem extra clueless from time to time.
Their work is fatally flawed, both in execution and presentation. Everything they say isn't worthless, but this is too much money and too much time to spend to get out someone else's biased opinions about something to be scared about.
First, from my perspective as a scientist, I was very disappointed. The press release about the work told me they'd "surveyed 674 boys age 4 to 18, walked through malls and talked to sales clerks and came to understand what boys were reading and watching on television and at the movies." I learned less from the introduction of the book where the authors state that they're not presenting their survey or any of their results, or even what kids they surveyed and how they were selected. They filter their data and just give your their conclusions, without the opportunity to review the material for yourself. I might not minded so much except that they have a lot of conclusions they totally fail to justify, and the biases revealed while reading the book failed to inspire credibility.
First, I don't know if most of the kids are 4, 18, or something in between. I don't know if they're white, black, rich, poor, urban, or country. I don't know how they were chosen to take the survey. How about an appendix? A weblink? It's sort of criminal not to tell the reader if the surveyed kids are like your kid, and there's essentially no information about this later. Also, the term "boys" is used as a moving target, sometimes referring to young children, sometimes older teenagers, which is also not helpful.
The authors simply assert, without justification, that media (which includes toys, movies, tv, books, marketers of all types, etc.) gives boys role models that fall into these stereotypes: Player. Jock. Slacker. Competitor. Superhero. Goofball. And these are all bad, because all stereotypes are bad, because limiting boys' choices is bad. And some of these would be bad even if they weren't stereotypes. They don't explain how they reached this conclusion, and seem to be able to force every character into one of these five, whether they really fit or not. Surprisingly, Michael Scott of The Office is a "slacker." I don't think so. They either don't know what a slacker is, or they don't recognize that Michael Scott, as screwed up as he is, isn't one. He's a complex character of the type that isn't supposed to even exist.
The authors also have a list of good messages and bad messages, which they never explicitly state, or justify, but you can figure out after reading a few hundred pages. These arise out of a combination of a particular flavor of feminism and political correctness, never quite spelled out, along with a conviction that anything stereotypical is bad. Teamwork is good, self-reliance bad, for instance. Competition and winning is bad (because most boys will be losers). Consumerism and materialism is bad (even when research has shown not having enough money leads to unhappiness). Not all boys have an interest in sex (yeah, some of the boys pre-puberty). There's no list of these, again. They're just apparently obvious and indisputable and rarely supported with citations. Another fatal flaw is that there's little in this book to show that these messages actually have negative impacts on boys. I can believe some do, but I'd feel better if the research was there to show the effects of different messages. There is research, for instance, suggesting that some forms of aggressive play are healthy for boys.
Another fatal flaw is the assumption that commercial interests have consciously conspired to push these messages, with barely even lip service to the truth: there's a complicated give and take between our culture and boys' interests and the messages they see. Honestly, if switching up the message would let a company invent and sell mass quantities of a new product, they would do it. Advertisers and movie makers use test audiences and see what their markets respond best to. It isn't a one-way street. There is something fundamentally clueless about the authors' whiny over-the-top lamentations about commercial interests and the repeated rhetorical questions about why, oh why, don't they give boys more options? The obvious answer, which seems to elude these well-educated folks who have spent years wondering, isn't a conspiracy, but economics. They believe they'd lose money, or at least not make as much. And they probably regularly test that belief.
Another fatal flaw is they're not trying to give an unbiased view of all the messages being sent to boys. They're specifically looking for messages they think are bad. This means that they scrutinize things that are pretty good overall to pick at one small thing they don't like. For instance, they say positive things about Spider-man, but ultimately focus on his choice at the end of the first movie to push away Mary Jane and go it alone. Doing things alone is a bad message, so Spider-man is problematic. Even though he gets with Mary Jane in the second film, which they ignore.
Even when something isn't bad for the appropriate age group, as labeled by a rating, the creators are blamed when younger children are disturbed by inappropriate violence. Parents, the target audience, get a free pass for taking their 6-year old to a PG-13 movie because Iron Man and Batman products are also marketed to younger kids. There's an agenda about whom to blame, and it's never parents.
In the spirit of the book, now that I've been very critical I'll backtrack and say, oh, it's not so all so bad. They got some things right, too. What are the things I think are probably right and problematic in one way or another? Dads are often portrayed as buffoons or villains in tv shows or movies, I agree. There is a big cultural issue among boys not wanted to look like "fags." The overt and realistic violence of tv wrestling probably isn't the best example for boys. There's also an unfortunate culture of violence and degradation of women associated with rap music. Female characters in comic books all have giant boobs. Yeah. I would never have realized these things without this book (that kind of sarcastic aside is very much in line with how the book reads).
The best things about the book could be covered in a single chapter. The authors recommend that parents be aware of what their children are consuming and discuss some of the messages they're getting and make sure they realize they have options. They also give some lists of good movies, books, etc., that they think aren't too compromised by bad or stereotypical messages, and some of them are quite good in my opinion, e.g. the movie October Sky.
I collected dozens, maybe more than a hundred, examples of things I thought were mistakes, clearly biased, unsupported, or otherwise questionable. This book is not worth that level of critique, but I want to share a few funny things.
There's a discussion of listening to the "silly" music of Phish with your son. There's no mention of the marijuana culture associated with this band at all! I can just see this scene acting out in real life between a son and a clueless dad (potentially as awkward as that scene in American Pie with the porn magazines).
When talking about essentially everything, the authors don't seem to understand that "all" means "all" and overgeneralize to an embarrassing amount. For instance, one sentence states that "all" superheroes go it alone...then a few sentences later they mention Fantastic Four, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There are plenty of superhero stories (lets add X-men, Justice League, etc.) that stress teamwork, but they're conveniently ignored. Likewise when talking about toys, why are they "all" cars, airplanes, and trains? Well, in the next paragraph building sets are discussed, and then also action figures. So they aren't "all" the same, except when they want them to be. And there's a lamentation that a toy truck doesn't include a driver figure, thus denying boys the opportunity to imagine his day, what he's thinking and feeling while driving, etc.
In a discussion of movies like James Bond and Wanted, somewhere between Superhero and action movies, the authors comment on two instances where female characters are assassinated in creative ways...and simply must point this out as a message that "killing women is fun!" A different brand of feminist would be happy to see that both sexes are getting killed (men are killed 95% of the time in tvs and movies), but these authors simple can't resist the sexist jibe. I'm not comfortable with this type of sexist telling anyone what is healthy for boys, or for society as a whole.
In a discussion of a Halo novelization, they point out all the specific detail given to the military equipment in the opening pages.
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