What are specific examples of children's tv show episodes that feature bullies?
Asked by
morf (
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October 5th, 2011
Outside of iCarly’s character “Sam,” I’m looking for concrete examples of bullying/violence in live action kid’s television programing. I’m doing a project with my 4th grader’s class and I’d like to have tv clips to show them so that we can look at the unspoken messages. Commercials with unchecked bullying/violence would also be good. If you could provide links – even better!!!
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18 Answers
Do the shows have to be current, or can they be older?
There was a Brady Bunch episode if I remember correctly.
Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver was a pretty good example of a perpetual bully.
Not a TV show, but a movie, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, show’s the older brother of Greg (the wimpy kid). The bully brother is named Rodrick.
And Glee, although it is for slightly older kids (I think a lot of 4th graders watch it) has a number of bullies. Most of the football team (the ones who aren’t in glee club) regularly make snide comments and throw slushies at the members of glee club. And one guy on the football team, Dave Karofsky, made all sorts of bullying comments and physical altercations and threats towards Kurt (played by Chris Colfer). Curt is an openly gay member of the glee club, and Dave Karofsky was a very mean, closeted gay football character.
A recent made for TV movie, called “Cyberbully” starring Emily Osment (who plays Miley Cyrus best friend on Hannah Montana) was all about mean girls and boys posting inflammatory remarks on Facebook to the point that Osment’s character attempts suicide.
The older brother, Reese, on Malcolm in the middle is a pretty bad bully.
And of course, in the movie Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy is a very bad bully.
It isn’t a TV show, but the movie “Mean Girls” has a lot of great examples.
Tawni on Sonny With a Chance
Amanda on True Jackson VP
Not sure if these are what you are looking for. I noticed that Nickelodeon refers to Jade and Amanda as a “nemesis”.
Almost the entire show on any given episode advocates some kind of bullying.
*I think with the new cartoons, they are aiming for desensitization.
The regular show (New cartoon) is not only completely bizarre, it is chock full of all of the different examples of bullying you might want, socially as well as individual one on one.
It’s lovely… needless to say my kids aren’t allowed to watch it.
Nelson on The Simpsons is a recurrent character and major bully.
Sam is not a good example of a bully. She is more like a tough girl who will jerk people around for fun but knows her boundaries. She doesn’t want to hurt the individual (at all) but she hates to get all ‘mushy’ with the person to show her love. In fact Sam is most likely to be the person who will stop a Bully.
Modern day bullies have no boundaries in my opinion and they will fall to any means neccesary to harass and even kill (forced suicide) the person they are targeting. An example of this is probably the mean girls movies although I haven’t seen all of it. Another: I once saw a CSI episode where a few 16 year old girls falsely accuse their teacher/instructor of molesting them.
On the Disney show “Phineas and Ferb” there’s a bully (Buford) and nerd (Baljeet) pair that is handwaved by the other kids on the show. The most alarming part of that relationship, to me, isn’t just that the Buford is a bully, it’s that the show continuously makes jokes where the two act like a couple, which gives the unfortunate impression that Buford is a domestic abuser in the “relationship.”
Mean Girls is not the right example (what was I thinking). I don’t think any TV characters represent that form of bullying let alone cartoons. There are probably documentaries about it however. “It’s a Girl’s World” http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=51404 is a good documentary about such affairs.
“pair that is handwaved by the other kids on the show.”
I’m really not familiar with exactly what “handwaved” is supposed to mean in this context. Could you clarify that please? Is handwaving a positive or negative thing?
I’ve honestly never encountered this word in anything other than describing the synchronized actions of a crowd at football games, “the wave” or telling little kids to say goodbye to someone. “Wave bye bye to Mommy” for instance.
So I’m curious :)
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@Buttonstc Haha, in hindsight, I may have used the incorrect word. What I meant is that the other children on the show kind of just ignore it or explain it away: According to most dictionaries, the definition is somewhere along the lines of “Usually insubstantial words or actions intended to convince or impress.”
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