I’ve written a few blogs about the Penguins of Madagascar, to summarize:
* In the upcoming spin off movie (like so many spin-offs) there are even more males than in the original 3 (yes, 3) Madagascar movies which magnanimously included a Minority Feisty girl hippo, Gloria played by Jaden Pinkett Smith. “Penguins of Madagascar” coming out for Thanksgiving stars 4 brothers.
*In the preview for “Penguins of Madagascar” there is just one female voice who comes in at the very end, saying:”Where’s the sound?”
*The Penguins make sexist jokes as show in this video/ preview for “Madagascar 3” where one chides the others “You pillow fight like a bunch of little girls.”
Now, Mecano comments on my blog:
The Penguins of Madagascar TV show on Nickelodeon is esp annoying. In this the 4 male penguins live in a zoo along with many animals.Only one of the zoo animals is female (Marlene, a female otter) .She appears in many episodes (but not all) All other animals (around 20) are male.We also never see any female Penguins. What’s more one of the penguins,Rico, has a plastic doll as a “girlfriend” .He calls her “Mrs. Perky” .In some episodes this doll is the only female “character” we see! Just…sad.
Look at this image:
Mrs. Perky? This picture shows pretty much everything bad about gender and children’s media. I Googled “Mrs. Perky” and found this on Wikia.com (she is alternately referred to as Miss Perky and Ms. Perky):
The doll was given her name and temporarily a voice in the second season episode Hello, Dollface. But, by the end of the episode her voice-chip was removed.
I already hated these penguins, but WTF? And these guys get their own movie? Why doesn’t Gloria the hippo and her sisters get their own movie?
Do you want your children– girls and boys– to be entertained by sexist jokes? Do you want a new generation to learn to expect and accept a world where females are marginalized, sexualized, and sidelined if they get to exist at all?
It’s possible you may be suffering from a type of cognitive bias—a systematic error of inductive reasoning known as confirmation bias. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. A simple way to determine whether your theory (or any theory) is valid is that there should always be at least one solid answer to this question: What evidence would you accept that would prove your theory wrong? If you cannot conceive of such evidence, then your entire premise is purely speculation, if not bordering on apophenic delusion.
If you think the show is sexist in general, you should see the episode “Miss Understanding” where they think Skipper is female.
1. Skipper’s friends test to see if he is male or female by having him put a thumbtack on one side of a canvas blindfolded, where one side depicts a monster truck and the other depicts a pink unicorn. When he pins the pink unicorn, he’s assumed to be female. This suggests that all women subconsciously gravitate towards pink unicorns.
2. When Skipper thinks he’s female, he puts the other penguins in danger by doing stereotypical female behavior on missions and then deciding against one because he feels it’s not “ladylike” enough. This suggests that all women display that stereotypical behavior to the point of endangering other people on dangerous missions and that women would rather be stereotypical than do spy stuff.
3. Skipper puts on a pink bow when he’s thought to be female. Aside from the fact that no penguins, male or female, generally wear bows, not all female humans have to wear bows either.
4. When it’s revealed that Skipper is indeed male, Marlene is disappointed because she thought she and Skipper could be friends. There is nothing that prevents one from being friends with the opposite sex and there are many opposite-sex friendships out there. If anything, I might not want to be someone’s friend because they’re sexist.
I honestly hope that you are trolling with these blog posts. You can’t be serious. Do you really have nothing better to do than slander a children’s film? Really?
Regarding the gloria movie, it’s simply because the penguins are much much more entertaining and interesting than a hippo. Whether the hippo is a guy or girl, i think kids would want to hear more about the commando penguins that do cool stuff than a hippo with her friends. Also, ms. Perky? Rico is sooo in love with her, what’s your point?
I am a 13 y.o. girl that grew up watching and is super obsessed with the penguins of madagascar and all of its other franchises and i am pretty freaking sure that I am not sexist.
Excuse me but all this is not true first of all the feamle who said wheres the sound? If ypu look at the first clip of the penguins lf movie they are wondering where is the sound of the skype over there arch nemesis because his microphone was off duh, and another thing how is “you pillow fight like a bunch of little girls” sexist he is clearly saying that they are weak just because they r pillow fighting, and also maybe they have not gotten a female penguin its because they don’t want 1 since its just about them and them only, and as for rico’s doll of course they are going to make a doll because it fits his character simce he is crazy and psychotic and if she was a real normal penguin she would breal up with him, and of course they took off the voice chip because it was making rico go crazy over her like turming into a hippie even though skipper hates hippies and plus just because of that voice chip it caused rico to be devastated so yeah they had to take the voice chip off, i would advise you to see the episodes and the movie before you go off and judge things that are not true ??????
“Well of course we’re not sexist, Private. I love chicks as much or measurably more than the next woman.”
There are many,many episodes of the PoM show that are awfully sexist.Its hard to believe that the same network shows the excellent “Legend of Korra” (now in its fourth season).Yep a show about a strong,brave girl is a hit and has a powerful fanbase.