"Dora the Explorer"

I used to work with preschool children in my last job. It was very common for them to come to school and say or act out things that they had seen on television shows. I watched quite a few of these shows so I would know what the children were talking about. One of their favorite shows was “Dora, the Explorer”. Dora is a Hispanic girl who lives with her parents and her twin brother and sister. I am not sure of how old she is. I am guessing she is about 6 or 8 years old. Her best friend is a monkey named Boots. Some of her other friends are a bull named Benny, an iguana named Isa, and a squirrel named Tico. The “bad” character is a fox named Swiper. He always tries to steal Dora’s things. However, they are never aggressive or physical with each other. Instead, Dora uses her words. She says “Swiper no swiping” three times and that always seems to resolve their conflict. In each episode, Dora and friends go on different adventures, such as returning books to the library and rescuing Boot’s toys from a Gooey Geyser. At the end of every episode, Dora and her friends are successful in accomplishing their tasks.

Dora is the nicest child you could ever meet. She is friendly, polite, honest, smart, helpful, and considerate with her friends. She is also very nice to her family. She always does everything right. She gets along with all her friends who are all different from each other. In a certain way, she even gets along with Swiper. It is good to see a cartoon that teaches children about family values, friendship, diversity, and acceptance. These are great messages to be sent to children. However, we cannot forget that “Dora, the Explorer” is a very lucrative brand. Dora is a Hispanic girl. She caters to the Hispanic community. Their children watch the show and buy its products because they can relate to Dora. In addition, because Dora is such a nice character, she also caters to children from any other ethnic group. I have been thinking about the show’s creators and their goals. Are they really concerned about the negative messages in children cartoons so they decided to make a difference by creating Dora? Or are they opportunistic in the way that they saw a profitable market and took advantage of it?

Taciani D.