How does Donnelly express the dangers of gender stereotyping by

the media through visual and textual elements in this cartoon series?
Cartoon #1

Cartoon #2
Cartoon #3
 Liza Donnelly is an award-winning writer and cartoonist who creates a series of cartoons

that revolve around culture and politics for the New Yorker magazine. Through dense sketches,

scarce details, and a satirical tone, each cartoon that Donnelly creates criticizes the patriarchal

society that we live in and points out the minuscule, but very frustrating, microaggressions that

women often undergo due to gender stereotypes. This essay will explore how Donnelly’s

cartoons employ visual and literary techniques to expose how the media reinforces gender

stereotyping and its dangerous effect on women.

The caption of each cartoon is a shocking juxtaposition when put into the context and

tone that the drawing in the cartoon creates. In cartoon #1 and #2, the young girls are situated in

rooms that were intentionally illustrated as a typical little girl’s room with childish and feminine

aspects: the pillows that are lined with lace, the teddy bear on the bed, the innocent picture of a

unicorn on the wall, the flowers, frills and curtains are all basic but girlish visual aspects that

symbolize innocence and purity. In cartoon #3, the young girls are seated in a living room instead

but there is a common recurring theme; all of them are playing with dolls, which is generally

seen as a ‘girl-thing’ to do since they are associated with femininity. Thus, all of the cartoons

create a seemingly light and casual atmosphere as it simply illustrates young girls playing with

their dolls. However, the caption gives context and meaning to the cartoons. The captions are

intentionally placed below the drawing because it allows the viewers to look at the cartoon

before reading the caption, thus increasing the shocking effect of the juxtaposition. They are also

void of any added visual elements or graphology to strengthen its uninhibited simplicity and

impact. The caption in cartoon #1 utilizes amplification through simplification by stripping the

words “good girl” and “slut” of any sugarcoating to amplify its impact. The terms are

intentionally very black and white, which suggests that the media’s representation of women is
also black and white. The media’s simplified representation of women has created rigid gender

expectations and reinforced narrow gender roles that confine women to what they can become.

In this case, what they can become is confined to a “good girl” or a “slut”, which are both sexist

identities. A “good girl” constitutes what society expects a woman to be: a good wife and a good

mother, but not a woman who exists independently. The cartoon suggests that a “slut” is the

opposite: it is what society deems anything other than a good girl. The two overly simplified

terms mimics the problem being highlighted in the cartoon: the media’s over-simplification and

stereotypical representation of women is dangerous to young girls because it teaches them that

they can only be certain things. The caption in cartoon #2 has a similar pretense. The girl sitting

on the floor tells her friend that when she grows up, she wants to be “high-achieving,

hyper-perfect, and scripted” which is a representation of an ideal woman shown in the media.

The women are all unrealistically perfect due to the lack of diverse representation and are

completely scripted in a way that implies that women should have no independent thoughts that

can radically go against society’s ideal version of a woman. This suggests that the media’s

deceitful representation of women is dangerous because it pressures girls to become their version

of successful and ‘high-achieving’ which is not necessarily correct. In cartoon #3, the issue of

self-esteem is raised. The girl on the left asks her friend when she is “planning to lose [her] self

esteem.” The high degree of certainty in the question indicates that all girls lose their confidence

and self-respect at some point during their adolescence. One of the root causes of this lies within

the media’s lack of realistic representation of women. The constant exposure to the narrow and

stereotypical representation of women in the media gives young girls the impression that if they

don’t meet those beauty standards, they don’t fit into society, thus causing low self-esteem. All

of the captions are a shocking juxtaposition because in every cartoon, two young girls are
bringing up relevant aspects of feminist discourse which is off-putting to see because of their

youthly action of playing with dolls. By putting those words into children’s mouths, Donnelly is

speaking up about the dangers of such narrow and damaging media representations and how its

effects manifest at a young impressionable age.

In each cartoon, both of the young girls are playing dress-up with their dolls which is

symbolic of how the media views women as objects that can be molded and controlled to

conform to society’s ideal version of women. All conversations in the cartoons revolve around

the young girls’ identities in the future and takes place when they are casually playing with dolls,

thus labeling the characters as young and naive. In all cartoons, the tiny clothes for the dolls that

are scattered on the floor indicate that the young girls are changing their dolls’ clothes to

whatever they want, which is an action that subliminally shows what they want to be when they

grow up because they are discussing their future. The multiple clothing options suggests that

they have the freedom to choose right now, but the discourse about the future that is taking place

clearly states that they have a path set in stone that is waiting for them, whether it be to become a

good girl or a slut, being a scripted woman, or losing one’s self esteem. Donnelly uses the dolls

to symbolically illustrate the role of the media in enforcing this narrative by implying that the

dolls are miniature versions of the girls. In cartoon #1 the doll dressed as the "good girl" is

dressed as what society would deem appropriate: a conservative dress paired with heels. The girl

that is holding this doll is seated with her legs tucked beneath herself, in a proper manner. The

doll dressed as the "slut" is wearing a revealing bikini, something that the media would label as a

lack of self respect. The girl playing with this doll is sitting with her legs spread open in front of

her. In respect to gender expectations set by society, this is an 'unlady like' act. In cartoons #2 and

#3, the dolls have similar hair to each respective girl, which was intentionally drawn distinctly to
indicate that the dolls are replicas of the girls. By illustrating the young girls as dolls that have no

autonomy, Donnelly insinuates that from an early age, girls are indirectly told exactly what to be

and how to be it by the media and its precisely confined representation of women. That

prolonged exposure leads the impressionable youth to believe that they need to achieve the

superficial and edited lifestyle shown to them in the media in order to have a place in society.

This leads to the formation of the narrative that the young girls have a predetermined future that

has already been set for them and they are left with the choice of whether they will conform to

that and become society’s ideal version of a woman as shown in the media, or rebel against the

stereotype. Donnelly uses young girls as the victim of this to signify the dangers of the

stereotypical representation of women in the media by illustrating how naive and impressionable

the young girls are, who are simply playing with their dolls.

To conclude, Donnelly comments on the stereotypical representation of women in the

media and demonstrates its dangerous implications on young girls through shocking

juxtapositions, amplification through simplification, and the symbolic drawings of the dolls.

Donnelly shows how the lack of diverse representation of women in the media negatively

imprints on young girls and confines them to the ideal version of a woman in society. Through

this series of cartoons, Donnelly calls on the media to provide a more fair and realistic

representation of women and the oversimplification and stereotyping of gender roles should be

challenged and changed across the board.