Emma Lalaian

English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
A Common Villian Sterotype
In the article “Why Do Cartoon Villains Speak In Foreign Languages?” Isabel Fattal

describes a study that was conducted to show the connection between dialects and children

shows. Isabel Fattal is an assistant editor at The Atlantic. When The Lion King came out, a

sociolinguist by the name of Calvin Gidney observed the accent of each character and soon

noticed that all the bad characters spoke in a different accent than an American English accent as

the good characters did. Calvin teamed up with Julie Dobrow who studied the issues with

children and media. They studied thirty different shows and characters to find a connection

between characters and their accents. It's believed that children take these biases and evil

characters speaking in accents into the real world and possibly perceive different as bad. The

intended audience of this article is both parents and show makers. Parents need to be more aware

of what they are showing their children and use this as an educational tool. Writers need to

realize that tv has a big influence on children and how they view the world so it’s important to

rethink how we create villains. This article uses many different forms of rhetorical strategies to

show that most villains speak in different accents and how this can be harmful to children.

The first rhetorical device the author uses is logos, this article focuses on the study and

relies on it rather than opinions. According to Fattal “Their findings suggested that lots of kids’

shows use language to mark certain traits in a given character.” In the study done by Gidney and

Dobrow, after studying a few shows they found that a character was shown to be different

through their accent and what language they spoke. This study found that most villains tended to

speak with either a German or Slavic accent but never American English. The only time they

found American English was used for a villain it was an accent that would be associated with

lower-class people. The author shows logos when trying to understand why these are the chosen
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
accent, it was believed that they were used because of the current political climate with Germany

through world war two and the hatred for them. But, the study showed this was wrong, Gidney

and Dobrow noted that, “contrary to what researchers might have expected, children’s TV today

is no more likely to use, say, Middle Eastern or Korean accents for villains than it was in the

past. Slavic accents and German accents are still the voices of choice for “bad” characters.”

When children are seeing that people with different accents are bad characters, they view people

in the real world the same way and figure that anyone who speaks in a different dialect is an evil

person. For example we often stereotype people who speak russian as hit men or that they do bad

things. On the other hand we associate a British accent with intelligence and being classy.

The author also uses pathos as a rhetorical device, “Since television is a prominent source

of cultural messaging for children, this correlation of foreign accents with “bad” characters could

have concerning implications for the way kids are being taught to engage with diversity in the

United States.” ( Fattal) this shows pathos because it appeals to the emotions of parents. Children

are often taught from a young age that being different isn’t a bad thing, but there is a worry that

movies and shows are changing this. In the study they state that children are developing a

correlation between good and evil and being foreign. This can have a negative impact on how

they treat either themselves or how they treat others. Recently in Hollywood, we saw a shift with

movies like The Black Panther and Spiderman into the spider-verse, people of color are being

portrayed as the heroes, and children of color are finally feeling represented and proud of their

color. According to Lippi-Green who is another writer, children learn through repetition. “You

show them a pattern, you keep showing them that pattern … of course they’re going to assimilate

that,” Children are constantly being shown and taught that a different accent is bad and they

internalize it. When children are constantly shown something they tend to believe it, and it
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
becomes a part of their identity causing a decrease in self-esteem and self-respect. With films,

children see how the people that look or sound like them are treated or act and this shifts their

thoughts about themselves. This rhetorical device is how the author shows her intended audience

by wanting parents to be aware of shows and for writers to be aware of how they are affecting

their audience.

Lastly, the article uses ethos as a rhetorical device. By using a study to show that dialect

is usually how a character is described, gives the article more credibility to make an

informational piece. The author also states who the researchers are and why they studied this,

“Gidney, an associate professor in child study and human development at Tufts University who

specializes in sociolinguistics” “Julie Dobrow, a senior lecturer at Tufts who specializes in issues

of children and media” By showing their credentials people are more likely to listen to their

study results and believe it. Because of Gidney’s background when he saw The Lion King he

became very concerned since the movie could be described as “the ‘natural order of things,’” he

said. “I thought it was disturbing that it was necessary to ‘take back the jungle’ from the British-

sounding evil lion, plus the African American-sounding and Latino-sounding hyenas.” (Fattal)

These people have studied the connection between films and children for quite a long time so

they have background knowledge in order to say these things.

This article shows the connection between dialect and characters and makes an argument

for how this can be harmful to children. The author uses rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos,

and logos to show how different accents shape people’s views of different languages. The author

clearly shows that the main difference in cartoons is how they speak and people pick up on what

the sound of the villain and the good guy is. Children are constantly being shown movies that
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
reinforce stereotypes and this can be very harmful to a child's view of the world but also their

view of themselves.

Word count: 1065

Work Cited

Fattal, I. (2018, January 04). Why Do Cartoon Villains Speak in Foreign Accents?

Retrieved November 12, 2020, from

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/why-do-cartoon-villains-

speak-in-foreign-accents/549527/

Peer Review Comments

"correction" should either be connection or correlation. I would've given more

information on the author rather than just the short sentence. How she addressed the topic of

the text was very good wording Explaining all the uses of Rhetoric was nice, however I

wouldn't have added as many quotes as there are, and instead summarized them. I feel she may

have over summarized the text. It's a very straightforward give away as to what the text is,

rather than leaving context to the imagination of the reader. The thesis statement was good in

terms of not reciting what the text issue is, and rather the text at hand. The conclusion isn't

what I expected it to be, as the work was very strong, yet the conclusion was a few short, and
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
rushed sentences. I like the organization of the essay as it flows nicely. She uses statements

from the text to back up what was written very well, but again I would've summarized the

quotes.

ALYSSA SOTO, Nov 2 at 8:29am

Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:31 AM Today This doesn't flow very well. You can create

a new sentence or construct it better to fit. Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:32 AM Today not

sure what this means. Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:46 AM Today Saying "When children are

seeing that'' would help the sentence flow better. Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:47 AM Today

I would add a comment to break up this sentence. Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:49 AM Today

You can rearrange this to "for example we often stereotype people who speak Russian to doing

bad things or hitmen'' Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 9:52 AM Today add comma Karsyn Hardy

Karsyn Hardy 10:02 AM Today I would add a comma, or create a new sentence. Lots of hands

in this sentence. Karsyn Hardy Karsyn Hardy 10:04 AM Today Could say " the author uses

rhetorical devices such as ethos pathos and logos to show how different accents shape people's

views of language" 1. This rhetorical analysis was very good! One of the best parts was the one

where it was talking about pathos and the children, this was a very good point and the way you

explained it was great! 2.The introduction had all the right details. 3. I think maybe a little bit

more context could be added at the start of the analysis 4. The thesis statement is how this can

be harmful to children. I think that this is good, and overviews exactly what this article is

talking about. 5. The first one was the study, the second is the childrens effect with self esteem,

and finally it talked about the researchers and how they got the date. 6. I think that the three

claims used were great, but I think it could be effective to use a counter claim to increase the

power of the document. 7. the conclusion could have more detail to go back and revisit what
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020
was talked about. 8. I feel like they are all used, I think the one that is most emphasized is the

audience. 9.This essay flows pretty well, there are some sentences that I left comments on that

were a little confusing. 10. There were not any major spelling changes that needed to be made,

just a few sentences that needed to be worded differently. 11. There were no questions that

needed to be answered 12.no

David Grow 9:08 AM Nov 10 There should be a (,) here. David Grow 9:04 AM Nov 10 You

should have started the quotation marks after that.David Grow 8:37 AM Nov 3 This sentence

was just cut in half and you probably hit enter on accident. David Grow8:34 AM Nov 10

Repeated. David Grow 8:34 AM Nov 10 Repeated quote to the one above.David Grow 9:07 AM

Nov 10 I don't really understand this quote and what is the lines after pattern. David Grow 8:38

AM Nov 3 Cut in the middle of the sentence. Some of the main strengths of these assignments

are the quotes. It means you have read through the article thoroughly and picked out good quotes

that help in the explanation of forene accents. But in the third paragraph you used the same quote

twice on that one so maybe combine your ideas into one so you don’t have to repeat the same

quote. But this analisis does help us notice that we do make other cultures the villains and make

ourselves the heroes in a lot of the movies. So it does help us realize that we probably should

stop becoming so biased and putting stereotypes on other cultures, especially how we perceive

Russians. I have noticed that in myself. I think this essay really does flow really nicely, hardly

any mistakes but there have been some random cuts in the middle of sentences. But for some

adults that don’t really notice this you might just want to write down some more harmless

cartoons that follow these stereotypes like Phineas and Ferb and shows that everyone has seen.

Also do any other countries do this too and have these stereotypes about us.
Emma Lalaian
English 1010
Dr.Haslam
11/13/2020