SOLD SEPARATELY

Here's a radical approach to children's TV—from an academic who doesn't see it as the root of violence, hedonism, and low reading scores. Seiter (Telecommunications/Indiana University) has good credentials, not least of which is that she's the mother of two young children and wages her own battles over TV and requests for the advertised toy du jour. Here, however, she argues cogently that watching Saturday cartoons isn't a passive activity but a tool by which even the very young decode and learn about their culture, and develop creative imagination as well (a conclusion at odds with Stephen Kline's Out of the Garden—reviewed above). Bolstered by social, political, developmental, and media research, Seiter ties middle-class aversion to children's TV and mass-market toys to an association with the ``uncontrollable consumerism''—and hence supposed moral failure—of working-class members, women, and ``increasingly, children.'' In fact, though, the ``alternative'' market of nonsexist, nonviolent educational toys is equally as commercial and manipulative, exploiting theories of child development that set appropriate toys for each stage. Greater than the danger of breeding insatiable consumers, Seiter says, is the sexist and racist view of the world that children's TV presents. With few exceptions, the shows are dominated by action-oriented males, usually white. The author offers an interesting, if overly detailed, critique of the plots of boy-oriented shows like the cartoon version of Ghostbusters, which emphasize destroying the villain, and compares them to girl-oriented shows like My Little Pony, which stress reforming the villain. No apologia, but some positive guidance for parents uncertain of the role of TV and TV toys in their children's lives—and some encouragement to consider deep-seated changes in the culture that TV portrays. (Sixty-three illustrations, mostly of print ads and TV scenes, that hammer the message home)