CHHOTA BHEEM : REINFORCING THE STEREOTYPES

Chhota Bheem is a popular Indian cartoon series telecasted in Pogo TV. The title character, Bheem, the protagonist, is a 10 year old extremely brave, strong and intelligent young boy. He often manages to solve everyone's problems which endears him to the townspeople of Dholakpur. He is accompanied by his friends- Chutki, Raju and Jaggu the monkey.

Although this is popular cartoon series tends to reinforce several wrong notions and stereotypes. Since the target audience of the show is children, this is could influence them in a bad way. 

COLOURISM

 

Colourism is basically the prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

In this cartoon, dark skinned characters are portrayed as bad and fair skinned characters as good guys.

Raju, Chutki and Bheem himself are fair skinned and they are depicted as epitome of goodness. Whereas Kalia, who is not-so-fair is often portrayed as a bully, but again not-so bad boy. 

In the same way, Kichak, the character who is considered as the real opponent for Bheem, has got darker skin tone than Kalia. Well, he is an arrogant, mischievous and jealous of Bheem.

And finally, the villain of Dholakpur, Daku Mangal Singh, a bandit, is more dark skinned than the rest of the characters.

So basically, in this cartoon series, skin colour determines whether a character is good or bad.

REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE CHARACTERS

The major female characters in this cartoon are Chutki and Princess Indumati. Both are presented with their feminine charm and loveliness.

Even though Chutki is a friend of Bheem, her role in the mission are often negligible. Her actions in the show are limited to cheering Bheem, adoring him, carrying and feeding his favourite laddoos. She always carry a bag with laddoos to feed Bheem whenever he asks. 

In the case of Princess Indumati, despite being the princess of Dholakpur, she never had an opinion of her own. Nodding the head to whatever Bheem says and adoring him becomes her only actions. 

By the way, both are fair skinned, so they'll only act like "good" girls. 

"AYYOO... AYYAYYOOO..."

I recall watching an episode, in which Bheem and his friends visiting Kerala. The episode beautifully presented the cultural aspects of Kerala, including Kathakali and sadya. 

But still, there comes a stereotypical Malayali character. 

In the episode, Bheem meets a Malayali boy named Unni. He would say "ayyoo...ayyayyoo..." "Oo raama..."  before and after every sentence he uttered. Also the accent of that character was terrible. 

So What I'm Trying to Say is...

The target audience of this show is children. So the creators should be more responsible and try not to propagate false and regressive ideas among children.