| Childrens' TV: Report Card |
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Childrens' TV: Report Card
> Preschool
> Handy Manny
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Handy Manny
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| NAME: |
Handy Manny
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| NETWORK: |
Playhouse Disney
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| GENRE: |
Educational |
| SHOW DESCRIPTION: |
Handy Manny chronicles the adventures of Manny Garcia, a bilingual Latino handyman, and his talking tools. The show teaches preschoolers beginnings of Spanish and the importance of cultural diversity.
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Representation |
Does the show use a balanced ratio of male and female characters? |
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Appearance |
How characters are portrayed in terms of their appearance. Does the show use color to identify gender and are broad ranges of features used to illustrate characters? |
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Communication/Interaction |
How characters are portrayed in terms of their communication styles and interactions with other characters. Do they display characteristics such as assertiveness, confidence, sensitivity, kindness, adventurousness, etc.? |
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Leadership & Independence |
How characters are portrayed as leaders or followers. Do they act independently, initiate conversations and actions, show respect for others, etc.? |
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Activites |
How characters are portrayed in terms of their activities and physicality. Are characters portrayed doing only stereotypical activities (girls cheerleading and boys playing sports, for example) or are there a broad range of activities for each? |
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Skill & Intelligence |
How characters are portrayed in terms of their intelligence and abilities. Do they show aptitude with science, technology or math as well as art, dance or music? |
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COMMENTS: Handy Manny is a sweet and funny show featuring Manny and his tools and their efforts to be of help in the town of Sheetrock Hills. While the show features culturally diverse characters and situations, where Handy Manny lets us down is on the lack of strong female characters and its inability to break away from traditional stereotypes of girls and boys. The tools, which are all either female or male, tend to be gender-identified by their color. Kelly, the one female character that breaks out from stereotypes, is very underused and could be a lead character with Manny to show preschoolers an example of a women running a business - a hardware store - and show her saving the day rather than calling on Manny to do so.
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