The Good, the Bad, and the Foreign: The Use of Dialect in Children's Animated Television

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of visual and behavioral representation of character and dialect in children's animated television programming. Trained coders analyzed a sample of a dozen cartoons, including those aired on cable, network, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Cartoons were coded for a variety of personality and visual characteristics as well as for dialect and foreign accents. Results indicated that children's animated programming continues to underrepresent people of color and women. Linguistically, gender and ethnicity were marked by use of dialect stereotypes. Notably, villains consistently used non-American accents.