Its been NINE YEARS and i still dont think anyone knows exactly why teen titans was cancelled
Same reason Young Justice and Green Lantern The Animated Series were canceled: Girls liked it. Bruce Timm finally up anâ said it out loud in an interview a while back when he was asked why in the hell GL:TAS had been canceled when it was doing so well on every front; DCâs animation department has institutionally decided that feee-males donât/canât/shouldnât like superheroes, so even if a show is drawing in great viewership numbers and has great toy sales, once they find out that itâs popular with women and girls, they pull the plug on it. Cartoon Network loved Teen Titansâ two million viewers for new episodes will do thatâ and wanted a Season Six, and the production staff was already in the planning stages for it; they were going to have a big arc about Terra and why she was Living Normal, and do a lot more with the extended Titans team members.
This is so fucked up.
To elaborate on this point a bit, the reason this happens is that modern television merchandising aims for total market segregation.
In a nutshell, itâs much more efficient to sell things to people if you can divide them up into tightly defined subcategories that have no interests in common; that way, you never risk accidentally competing with yourself.
This is why childrenâs toys (and toy sales channels) are actually much more strongly gendered these days than they were forty, thirty, even twenty years ago: one of the basic market segregation splits theyâve decided to use is âboys versus girlsâ.
Ever wonder why you see Avengers t-shirts that leave Black Widow out of the group shot, or Guardians of the Galaxy action figure lines with no Gamora? Thatâs market segregation in action.
The upshot is that shows with crossover appeal can actually be cancelled for being too popular with girls; theyâre viewed as âstealingâ the female market from the specifically girl-targeted media that rightfully âownsâ it.
This is the sort of thing folks are talking about when they say gender roles are socially constructed, by the way. The gender split in media merchandising? Itâs not just artificial, itâs deliberately imposed as a top-down marketing strategy. When folks try to justify it by saying âthis is the ways itâs always beenâ or âthis is just what the market wantsâ, theyâre lying through their teeth – this is, in fact, the merchandisers dictating to the market what it wants in order to sell stuff more efficiently.
(Interestingly, the reverse isnât always true: if a specifically girl-targeted show unexpectedly becomes popular with boys, sometimes rather than being cancelled, its merchandising will shift to court the male collectorâs market. TV execs are so sexist, even their sexism is sexist.)
IâM REBLOGGING THIS TWICE BECAUSE IâM SO ANGRY
Reblogging because âTV execs are so sexist, even their sexism is sexistâ is probably the best thing Iâve ever heard @prokopetz say.
For weeks now, Iâve been hearing my neighbors from across the ravine hollering to their young daughter, Natalie. Iâve never seen these people, but the sound carries pretty clearly.
âNat, get out from under the car, itâs time to go.â âNatalieee! Donât go peepee in the road sweetie!â âOh my god, Joshâget Natalie! Sheâs running after a deer.â
Iâve been over here like “Holy crap, this kid is wildâŚboldâŚfabulousâŚâ
I finally went over to the other side of the ravine today, and in doing so I discovered that Natalie is, in fact, a beagle. Iâm crushed.
[Caption; A series of tweets by josie duffy rice/ @jduffyrice
Now that weâre all on twitter because of this game, I am making a public service announcement: PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING. The outrage Iâve seen is the result of a total misinterpretation and could SERIOUSLY threaten the children you want to save.
Before I get to it, Iâll answer the question that 99 million ppl will inevitably ask: I know this because Iâm a lawyer, i works on criminal justice issues (sometimes incl immigration), and 4 of my closest friends are immigration attorneys dealing with this EXACT THING.
There are two things going on. 1) HHS doesnât know where 1500 unaccompanied minors are. 2) we are separating parents and children at the border.Â
These are different. The kids in 1) were not separated from their parents at the border. They crossed the border alone* or arrived here without a parent.
Thatâs not really the point I want to make, though it is important.Â
These kids were dealt with by ORR, the office of refugee resettlement. They were released into the care of people that almost always fit within one of these three categories:
1) immediate family 2) extended family 3) other people that the child has a pre-existing relationship with. If none of these categories apply, then the kids normally stay in a shelter.
(After a number of children were trafficked in 2014, these restrictions got tighter.)
So those kids are released and then they are no longer ORRs responsibility or problem. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
One analogy I heard from my dear friend who I wonât tag without her permission, is that ORR is basically a jailer. Do you want the jail keeping track of where every former inmate is?
Now I have more to say about that but before we do that, letâs talk about the word missing. Basically by all accounts HHS did a cursory reach out to check on these kids, and couldnât find out where they were exactly.Â
When I say cursory I mean cursory. Weâre talking about phone calls. Phone calls! Like, no door knocks. No checking school records. They called. They didnât find answers.Â
There are so many reasons why people wouldnât answer. Maybe these kids are living with someone undocumented. Maybe they arenât but their sponsor is (legitimately) completely scared of immigration authorities in trumps America.
They arenât missing! They are almost certainly living with family members who almost certainly donât want to interact with the government and WE SHOULDNâT ASK THEM TO
ORRâs job is NOT to track and monitor these kids, and it shouldnât be. As my friend said, if there were an issue- abuse, or other wrongdoing- it should go through the appropriate agency: childrenâs services or what have you. It SHOULDNâT GO THROUGH HHS/ORR or DHS/ICE
When your school loans provider canât reach you, are you missing? No. When your boss canât find you on a Friday night, are you missing? No. They arenât missing. Some unanswered phone calls does not a missing child make.
Now, I started out identifying two things that were happening. The second- the separation of children and their parents at the border- is goddamn unconscionable and sickening.Â
But DO NOT confuse the two. The potential for it backfiring is real. What weâre demanding is that ORR, which works hand in hand with ICE, âkeep better trackâ of kids they basically would like to deport if giving the chance. We donât want that!!!
Youâre asking immigration authorities IN TRUMPâS AMERICA to BETTER MONITOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. You donât want this. I promise you donât.
I get it. It sounds awful. But at WORST itâs benign. At best, itâs a GOOD thing that ORR doesnât know where these kids are. Thereâs a reason. We actually now have pretty strict requirements before we release these kids. They arenât all being trafficked. They arenât dead.
It doesnât mean life is easy, but life wonât be easier if ORR starts tracking them. Trust me. And trust my brilliant friends who know about this shit and have warned me and are now warning you. DONT conflate the two things.
AND because some people are obviously taking this as an opportunity to exonerate the president- NO. Trumps immigration policy is disgusting. His separation of kids and parents at the border is SICKENING. Heâs a tyrant. Just donât conflate them.
Man oh man I forget that at least 50 percent of people on twitter refuse to learn basic reading comprehension. Tonight should be fun!
] *[Also it says âalienâ up there where it should say âaloneâ, cool, autocorrect.]
*corrected autocorrect/typo in my transcription for the sake of being less confusing, especially for anyone listening to the text rather than reading it visually.
Since I reblogged a post about this issue, here is a correction.
so im at work and bagging for this lady and her little kid and the kids askin me about what its like being a big kid and all that so he goes âdo you have a girlfriend? is she pretty?â and i live in a pretty liberal area and it was pretty quiet in the store so i just calmly responded âactually i have a boyfriend, but heâs fairly prettyâ and the mom just kinda pauses on her phone and looks down at her son like please dont say anything bad please dont embarrass me but he just gets so fuckin excited and is like âyou can do that ???? i didnt know boys were allowed to have boyfriends!!â and hes turns to his mom and is pulling at her phone trying to get her attention and is just really excited like âmom did you know that ? can i have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend ??â and she just started laughing and was like âif you want sureâ and they took their groceries and left and im just standing there like
DID THAT JUST HAPPEN
THAT WAS SO CUTE
The purest post.
OMG
That is so cute and that mother!!!!! Good job mom.
While sitting in his high-chair, your baby drops the spoon. You get up, pick it up from the floor, give it back to Baby – only for him to throw it away on purpose.Â
If this scene sounds familiar to you, you might wonder why he does that. Is he rebellious and tries to upset you on purpose? Does he have a really silly kind of humor? No and no. In fact, your baby is busy conducting his very first scientific experiments. His brain is starting to understand two important concepts.Â
The first one is called âCause and Effectâ: When i throw away the spoon, mom picks it up. When i do it again, she does it again. Oh, yay!
The second is called âObject permanenceâ: When i throw away the spoon, it disappears – No, it doesnât, mom picks it up! Itâs still there, even when i canât see it!
To fully grasp these concepts, your baby needs to repeat those experiments again and again and again. Thatâs annoying to you – but try to smile at your little scientist!Â
Kids really are born scientists. Most things that babies and toddlers do are part of how they discover how the world works.
wupacing 