How To Watch Television

6. Phineas & Ferb: Children’s Television

56 6 Phineas & Ferb Children’s Television Jason Mittell Abstract: While critics often condemn children’s television as a hyper-commercial and lowbrow electronic babysitter, they often neglect to analyze how such programs actually engage young viewers. By looking at the narrative structure of Phineas & Ferb, Jason Mittell suggests that children’s television can engage its audience with more sophistication and intelligence than might appear at first glance. One of the primary ways that people think about television is in comparison to other media, with television typically serving as a cultural “bad object” when viewed next to literature, film, or other media regarded with more respect and legitimacy. When held up to such cross-media scrutiny, television is frequently dismissed as crass, hyper-commercial, formulaic, and catering to the lowest common denominator. Of course, those who make such dismissive generalizations rarely take the time to look closely at television programming, differentiating among distinct shows and genres that might challenge such conventional wisdom . Instead, television is regarded from afar and painted with a broad stroke using the framework that was most famously articulated by FCC Commissioner Newton Minow in 1961: television is a “vast wasteland.”1 Within the television medium itself, some genres themselves function as bad objects, derided in comparison with more respected genres like serious dramas, sophisticated comedies, informative public affairs programming, or legitimate sports broadcasting. Daytime soap operas, trashy talk shows, and exploitative reality TV are all placed on the low end of cultural hierarchies that help legitimate television’s more respectable programming. But probably no genre has been the object of more moral hand-wringing and cultural scorn throughout the medium’s history than children’s television. Countless books and editorial columns have decried the perceived damage that television has allegedly inflicted on generations of children, and such lamentations have fueled policymaking aimed at protecting Phineas & Ferb 57 kids from the worst of what television might do to them. Such condemnations treat children’s television as an undifferentiated mass of lowbrow shows aimed at turning already slack-jawed, zombified kids into brainwashed consumers, junk food eaters, and cultural illiterates. Are there programs that warrant such condemnation? Certainly there are many horrible children’s programs—just as there are horrible primetime dramas, news programs, and documentaries, not to mention films, novels, and works in every other creative medium. It would be easy to redeem the genre of children’s television by highlighting the exceptional examples of shows that succeed in educating their young viewers and appealing to parents as well, as with groundbreaking educational programs like Sesame Street (PBS, 1969–present) and Blue’s Clues (Nickelodeon, 1996–2006). But the bulk of children’s programs, especially those aimed at school-age viewers, aim to entertain far more than to educate, so to complicate these blanket condemnations of the genre, we need to look closely at a show whose goals are more commercial and entertaining than educational. To understand how children’s television operates on its own terms, we need to ask what appeals to kids and to take into consideration how they engage with popular programs. Thus, let’s take a close at one of the most popular children’s shows of today: Disney Channel’s Phineas & Ferb (2007–present).2 At first glance, Phineas & Ferb seems to live up to the most dismissive caricatures of children’s television. The show is incredibly repetitive and formulaic, with nearly every episode offering only a slight variation on the main plot structure . The characters are broad caricatures, with unsophisticated animation highlighting hyperactive dialog and action rather than nuanced visuals. The content is fairly crass, focused on children breaking rules, contentious sibling rivalry, and clichéd espionage action. And Disney has capitalized on its success by extending the brand through licensed merchandise, including numerous CDs, videogames, DVDs, clothing, websites, and enough action figures to fill a toy-store aisle. In short, when critics dismiss children’s television as mindless, formulaic, hypercommercialized pap, Phineas & Ferb seems to fit the bill as a prime example. However, we must go beyond the first glance—Phineas & Ferb’s young fans certainly do. Just as soap operas make little sense to novice viewers glancing at a random episode without the benefit of serialized backstories and relationships, a show like Phineas & Ferb becomes much more complex and nuanced once you can appreciate it in the context of an ongoing series. Children typically watch their favorite shows regularly and repeatedly, viewing the same episode frequently within the multiple times that a show may air on a...