Reliable Women on Nick Jr.

's Children Series

Rina Sari Kusuma
Communication Department
Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta
Surakarta, Indonesia
Rinasari.Kusuma@ums.ac.id
Hanifah Nurjati Pambudi
Communication Department
Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta
Surakarta, Indonesia
hanifah.pambudi@gmail.com

Abstract—Nella The Princess Knight is a children's
television series produced by Nickelodeon Junior. This princess
series tries to change the portrayal of woman character who has
been constructed by Disney since the past. Women were initially
considered weak, dependent on men and incompetent. However,
the series of Nella The Princess Knight can change the
stereotype through the main character, namely Nella. Nella
described as a very active, strong and more dominant young girl
in the series. This study aims to find out how the depiction of
women characters is implied through Nella's character. This
research used qualitative content analysis approach by using
documentation technique as its data collection. The sample in
this research is Nella who acts as the main character in this
series. Using first six episodes, this article result in three
categorization: friendship over romantic relationship, women to
the rescue, and armor not ball-gown. It can be concluded that
Nella as Princess depicts women as an independent and reliable
person.
Keywords—media, television, woman portrayal, content
analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
The portrayal of gender in media has always been an
interesting focus to study. The late 1960s is characterized as
a "new beginning" for the women's movement and rising
concern about how the women shown in the media. A variety
of media content analysis leads to the same result. There are
three themes in describing how the media represents gender
[1], namely: women are underrepresented with men are the
cultural standard and women are the parties who are not
important or not noticeable. Second, the men and women
portrayed in a way that is stereotypical to reflect and maintain
social views about gender. Third, a picture of the relationship
between men and women emphasize traditional roles and
normalize violence against women. All forms of media
communicate an overview of gender roles which often
emphasizes the view that unrealistic, stereotypical and
limited. As an effect of cultural, textual effects, and effects in
the history of philosophy phallocentric, gender is defined by
its internal instability [2].
Television as a mass media become a part of the learning
environment which is very close to the children. Television
became a first and dominant storyteller for a wide range of
images in popular culture [3]. Television became one of the
agents of socialization, besides family, school, playmates,
and religious institutions. Socialization related to gender
roles have become a focus of various disciplines, such as:
sociology, social psychology and even communication.
Socialization, as a social process where people learn about
the culture, values, beliefs, perspectives, and social norms,
being showed in a wide variety of television programmes.
One of them is a cartoon series. It can be a fun source for
children learning. No wonder if many television channels are
compete to win the attention of children with programs
designed specifically for them, such as: Baby First, Duck TV,
Disney Jr, and Nick Jr. The characters that usually contained
in the cartoon series consisting of men, women, and animals
[4]. However, the man characters are shown more than
females. Based on the research report in 1981, Barcus show
that 75% of the characters in the children series are man and
the rest is women. The reason why the number of man
characters is greater than women is because many cartoon are
watched by boys. It confirms the lack of portrayal of women
characters in children programme.
Disney, as the most prominent children-oriented narrative
producer, impacts many aspects of society, including how we
define gender roles. During the years 1937 to 2014, there are
684 stories of which 11 of them are labeled as a story about a
Princess [5]. Fairy tales transported us into a world full of
imagination, simultaneously providing us with our
introductory lessons in the understanding of societal norms
and gender roles.
One of the reasons Disney is very successful in
influencing gender roles is its ability to sell the product
simultaneously with the films. Based on Forbes 2011 the
most sold character is the Princess Disney that reaching until
the 1.6 million dollars. This is what is referred to as self-
socialization [6]. In his research, Maccoby see that the
parents play minor role in the development of behaviors
related to the socialization of gender. On the contrary, child
individual play has an important role in adopting behaviors
that are associated with gender stereotypes [7]. Disney
continually pushes the product sales of Disney themed while
creating a story that can imitated through play, which has
great impact for young generation.
Over the last few years, Disney began to change the
character of the Princess they to adjust the time in which the
film was released and the culture [8]. Changes in the
character of the women or Princess Disney are divided in
three periods: Pre-Transition, Transition and Progression [5].
Pre-Transition period covers the years 1937 - 1959, a period
which is defined as the first wave. Disney's developing three
princess, namely Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora. This
period is characterized by the portrayal of princess
stereotyped as a home worker. The role of gender affirmed
through the behavior of every princess and shows the period
where Disney adapts to the expectations of the patriarchal
society. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White
is portrayed as a naive princess which relies on her seven
friends and a prince. The story that should talk about the
search for a young girl transformed into a depiction of women
domestication; cleaning the house and the need of true love's
kiss from a men to be able to live. Similarly, Cinderella and
Sleeping Beauty also needs prince heroism than other hero
that contribute to gender stereotypes rather than encouraging
equality of women movement.
Transition period represents the after effect of second
wave feminism, around the years 1960-1970, which indicates
a new step towards changing the definition of gender roles,
especially in America. In the second wave, the main concern
is to documenting the role of gender in public and private and
providing a critique of the gender pattern socialization, where
women want to be free from the society bonds. At last, the
happily ever after ending depends on the role expected from
a woman, whether she will be a obidient princess or
submissive wife.
The first film in a period of transition is The Little
Mermaid, which tells the story of Ariel, a sixteen years old
mermaid princess, who are curious about the world outside
of his kingdom in the ocean. The nature of Ariel is curious,
the desire for adventure, and his courage represents the
progress of Disney in the role of gender self-sufficient. But
the film is finally back on the plot of the princess need a
prince that is very familiar during the first wave feminism.
Three years after the Disney attempt to make a progress, in
1991 Beauty and The Beast also failed for the same reason,
the prince becomes a hero, not a women protagonist.
Although third wave feminism began in the mid-1990,
Disney does not break the princess pattern until finally Brave
released in 2012. Brave offers a new version of a female
protagonist and break the pattern of a fairy tale princess who
depend on men to end happily ever after and marking the last
period of Disney's transformation, progression. Merida,
princess of Clan Dunbroch, is a smart girl and refused to
remain imprisoned by the bonds of marriage or drape her
destiny on other people in athletic competitions (I'm Merida.
Firstborn descendents of Clan Dunbroch, and I'll be shooting
for my own hand"). In Brave, Merida learns what is important
for her own life. Merida heroism marks the turning point of
Disney, no longer became the studio that accept and
encourage the social norms, but rather labelling Merida as a
true hero who does not have to rely on men.
This Disney transformation then being followed by other
production house, like Nickolodeon Jr. There are children
series that accentuate women character as dominant, strong,
and be able to solve problem without men dependency,
namely: Nella the Princess Knight (2017), Shimmer and
Shine (2015), and Little Charmers (2015). Especially for
Nella, as an eight-years old princess who saves the citizens of
her parents' kingdom by turning into a princess knight
whenever there is trouble, traditional women stereotyped no
longer attached to her. Though she goes on missions with
Trinket, Sir Garrett, and Clod, Nella is the one who lead and
cleverly find a way to fight difficulties. Commonsense media
[9], age-based media reviewer, give five stars for Nella for
being great role model for preschoolers. Rated for age 3+,
Nella reminds the audience that we are not defined by how
we look but by what we believe we can do, that their potential
knows no bounds.
In this article, we want to deconstruct the depiction of
princess character in Nella the Princess Knight as the first
princess of Nickolodeon. Using qualititave content analysis
(QAC), we take the first six episodes with total ten different
title to answer the research question: Episode 1 ("Knighty
Knight Dragons" and "Inside and Seek"), Episode 2 ("Sir
Clod" and "Up All Knight"), Episode 3 ("Princess Nella's
Orc-hestra" and "The Blaine Game"), Episode 4 ( "New Kid
in the Kingdom" and "Big Birthday Surprise"), Episode 5
("That's What Best Friends Are For" and "In Hot
Watermelon") and Episode 6 ("The Dragon Bully" and
"Royaliscious Plumberry"). Content analysis is a widely used
research method for examination of communication content.
QAC require a similar analytical process of seven classic
steps, including formulating the research question to be
answered, selecting the sample to be analyzed, defining
categories to be applied, outlining outlining the coding
process and the coder training, implementing the coding
process, determining trustworthiness, and analyzing the
results of the coding process [10].
From the analysis process, inductive category
development resulted in four categories: friendship over
romatic relationship, independent princess, women to the
rescue, and armor not gown.
II. FRIENDSHIP OVER ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
A Prince is a princess's destiny. Every princess movies
plot revolved around romantic relationship that signified the
happily ever after ending. In contrast, there is no romance
plot in Nella; more focused on interpersonal relationship.
On the first episode entitled "Sir Clod", despite being
threatened by the fact Nella, Sir Garret, Trinket and Clod
cannot attending the delicious Royal Breakfast due to Clod
(Sir Garret's horse) that lost his invitation, they choose to
search it together into the wood and up to the mountain. Nella
said, "We’re friends, and friends stick together”.
In That’s What Best Friends Are For, Nella and Trinket
that preparing for The Besties Day Parade found shocking
fact that Trinket got a flu and can't be participate in the
parade. Despite being sad and hopeless, Nella designed the
cart in order to accomodate Trinket being able to join the
event with Nella.
Friendship is the main plot in Nella the Princess Knight,
relationship between Nella and Trinket, Nella and Sir Garret,
Sir Garret and Clod, Trinket and Clod. This friendship is
belong the reciprocity friendship that characterized by
loyalty, self-sacrifice, mutual affection, and generosity. A
friendship of reciprocity is based on equality: Each individual
shares equally in giving and receiving the benefits and
rewards of the relationship. Just like what Thomas Aquinas
said "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than
true friendship."
Romantic love is often accused of being accomplice in
men's tradisional dominance over women in intimate
relationship [11]. It is assumed to handicap women in the
competition for power. The scenario of romantic or non
romantic love in our culture and the social structures built
around it constitute one of the main forces keeping women
tied into traditional gender roles and subordinate to men.
The absence of romance plot structure eliminate the
imaginative expectation about "The One" or Disney usually
called it Prince of Charming. Man considered as the
supplementary element of women though princess' love
stories usually are problematic one. Snow White and
Cinderella who just met the prince once directly decided that
they are in love at the first sight while the healthy romantic
relationship should be based on trust and respect. It is also not
romantic when someone, without your consent, kiss you
while you are sleeping, like in Sleeping beauty. This action
can be considered as sexual assault.
III. WOMEN TO THE RESCUE
Damsel in distress is a young woman in danger. The term
often refers to princess who is rescued by a prince. Women
usually stereotyped as physically weak and intelectually
poor, so she must need men to help her get out of problems.
In each of the Princess movies, there is a scene where a
princess will be in trouble and faced with a problem. An
example is the Disney movie, Snow White. It shows the hero
in the figure of men than women. Snow White is portrayed as
a figure of innocent female who depend on the seven dwarves
and a prince to solve the difficulties that she faced, rather than
trying to fix it herself. The same thing happened with
Cinderella. As a stepchild that is always treated
inappropriately by her stepmother and half-sisters, Cinderella
will not be able to escape from her condition if not married to
the prince.
Nella is not just an ordinary princess. She called "a
princess" really just because she is the daughter of Castle
Heaven's King, not just because become the main heroine of
the movie. She possesses the royal qualities of a princess, like
compassion and grace, while also embodying the courage and
determination of a brave knight.
Nella has power that none other princesses has. She has
weapons like sword, shield, magical rope that can help her
fight difficulties and help the other. This suggests that a
woman should not wait for a hero to save her life. She is the
one who will determine her own fate.
Nella is the Hero of the series. Just like in Royaliscious
Plumberry, Nella saved villagers from impkins' (a kind of
monkey) raid. She finally can figure out the reason why
impkins try to grab everbody Plumberry ice cream and find
the solution. In Sir Clod, Nella helps Clod to find the
invitation of the royal breakfast of hers. Nella do two rescue
at once, first, when Nella and her friends stuck in the Gotcha
Falls, with a shield that she had, they finally could across
safely. Second, Nella doing the rescue in Sudsycano, a
mountain that burst so many bubbles. To coming down from
the summit of the mountain, Nella drew her arrow, that turn
into purple ribbons, to a tree, finally Nella and her friends
could come down from the mountain with the slide and
holding on to the tape.
In The Blaine Game episode, her character shows that she
is not only clever and quick thinking, but also can compete
with her male friend. Nella and Blaine are racing to found and
watch Pink Polka-dotted Mountain dragon hatched in order
to win very special dragon medal. She rescued the egg from
falling of the hill with her magical shield and rope, and also
help Blaine from tripping in the river.
During this time, women usually depicted as passive,
sexual, and has a role that is less active than males [12],
assisted and ask for help, be rescued [13]. Women were
considered not to have competence and intelligence on a par
with men. With the intelligence and courage that is owned,
Nella does not need the help of a hero to solve the problem
that he faced. Nella also dare to compete with Blaine, a man
who is very confident with his ability. Nella can use his
intelligence to utilize everything possible to achieve victory
but with a fixed priority of justice. The female characters
currently depicted as more independent, assertive, intelligent,
competent, and responsible than the stereotype of the
previously attached [13].
The one that represents the character of the modern
princess in addition to Nella is Merida in "Brave". Different
with another Disney Princess, Merida is described as having
the soul of compete and free spirit. Merida is considered
against the stereotypical woman, even in the film shows
scenes of Merida climb a large rock to drink the water from
the Fire Falls waterfall where not everyone even men can do
it. Then, Merida also shows the competing side when
challenging princes from another kingdom that uses the
archery competition to determine who has the right to ask for
her hand. Firmly and loudly Merida said, “I'll be shooting for
my own hand!”. Merida's arrows managed to penetrate and
splitting right on the arrows that have been fired by the
pelamarnya in the competition. In line with Nella, the
Princess Knight, Nella, have the brave souls and strong also
not hesitate in taking the decision to determine his own fate.
Various scenes rescue depicted in this series shows that
women can have strong and courageous side. Nella can
complete a wide variety of problems, difficulties and take a
decision with confident of herself. Nella break the stereotype
that a women should depend on men to get out of any problem
in her life.
IV.ARMOR NOT BALL-GOWN
In all episodes of Nella The Princess Knight, Nella always
turns into a Princess Knight to rescue. With the initial
sentence pronounced "My heart is bright, time to be a
Princess Knight!", Nella immediately changed from the one
that originally wore a dress intended for a princess turned into
a knight who wore an armor. Armor is a chain clothes worn
during the war in ancient times. In addition, Nella also has a
shield that can turn into anything, and a sword that can turn
into a bow.
Armor used by Nella managed to distinguish her from the
princess from the previous period. Nella changed the
stereotype of the traditional beauty of a princess who must
always wear a dress at every opportunity. Nella proves that
women can also wear armor, not only men.
In the whole era of Disney princesses that have been
described by Garabedian [5], not a single princess has used
armor to support her appearance. Even though Merida in
Brave and Anna and Elsa in Frozen were portrayed as
powerful women, none of them wore armor like Nella used.
This shows that Nella is really consistent in her role as a
woman who is multitasking. By using knight's clothes, Nella
made it easier to move freely to support her in carrying out
rescue missions.
Nella's knight attire that made her different from
princesses in the previous period implies the message that
women can fight patriarchy by aligning themselves with men.
Besides Nella, another female heroine wearing an armor is
Joan in The Messenger: Joan of Arc. Joan is a female knight
from France who died at the age of 19. Joan was very loyal
to her king, Charless VI, but the king died and was replaced
by Charless VII, a very young king. In the end, Joan was
framed and put to death because she was considered a threat
to the king himself. Five hundred years after her death, his
name was cleared and she was crowned a Saint.
 Nella's overall appearance also changed when she became
a Princess Knight. Nella's hair was originally styled neatly
like a crowned princess being ponytail and without using a
crown. In addition, the background picture when Nella had
not turned into Princess Knight was originally pink, a color
that is usually associated with female nature. The color
changes to a green color that seems more masculine. In the
ranks of Princess Disney, there is no Princess who wears
armor on various occasions.
However, the concept of fighting patriarchy by not
looking properly like a princess will not be separated from
Merida character in "Brave". Merida is the first Disney
princess to deconstruct the concept of a princess or a beauty.
She is not only has curly hair that left loose, but she also
doesn't use makeup. Merida does not care about her physical
appearance and considers dressing up is a waste of time [14].
Merida is also the first Disney princess to appear with
realistic-looking hair by not combing her hair when she
wakes up.
IV.CONCLUSION
This study seeks to understand the female characters
depicted through the character of Nella in the Nickelodeon
Junior television series, Nella The Princess Knight. In the
midst of dominating the portrayal of female characters that
Disney has built since the past, Nella The Princess Knight
with the same market share of children, emerged as a
depiction of the figure of a heroic modern princess through a
television series.
From six first episodes, several categorizations were
found that describe the female characters in the series. Plot
that is not oriented towards a romantic relationship gave
women equal power to her counterpart. In doing so, women
also be able to save herself and also her surroundings by using
non mainstream princess costume, an armor. This result
shows that the female character through the main character
Nella, portrayed as an independent and reliable figure.
Women are no longer considered a weak figure, Nella shows
that women can be dominating. This is considered as progress
transformation from the traditional stereotype of a woman
who is usually portrayed as an incompetent figure. Future
research can focus on how the portrayal of female characters
implied through a children's television series can influence
learning of gender roles in children.
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