No one makes cartoons for girls anymore
I need to preface this by explaining that I pretty much grew up on “boy” and game-related cartoons (which probably explains why I’m willing to spend four hours on a Saturday morning with Magi-Nation and the majority of the 4Kids line-up). In fact, I’m pretty sure the only “girl” cartoons I watched as a little girl included Rainbow Brite (which didn’t run long where I was living), Star Fairies (which was similarly short-lived), and Wildfire.
In the past couple of years, I’ve been aware of six deliberately “girl” cartoons, two of which I actually watched because I found the others all wretched.
It completely fair to say that I’m probably biased because I never fell in with the “girl” cartoons to begin with, but it seems to me no one really makes good cartoons for girls. I think this is why so many of my middle school and high school girls tend to be anime fans. They can’t find cartoons that fit with their needs in the American-made ones. (That said, it’ll be interesting to see how the balance shifts once more of the Canadian titles come into the United States.)
Given how many of the cartoons I watch right now are based on games, I started poking around, trying to figure out why certain girl-led video games were never made into cartoons. (A Metroid cartoon was made years ago…without Samus. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that one.) I still need to poke around and do some serious research (in my free time) on this one, but my preliminary surface research is pretty interesting.
I think I’m going to start paying closer attention, see what I can find. I’d love to see someone build a cartoon around Bella Sara and its values. It would be interesting to see how it would play out, and how it would be received.
For now, though, my “boy” cartoons beckon.
