The Power of The Cartoon – Who Was Your Childhood Icon?

NEW YORK - April 28, 2014 - PRLog -- We live in a world where pop culture reigns supreme and permeates our lives on a daily basis (think about the water cooler chatter the day after your favorite reality show airs, or the times you find yourself standing in the grocery line picking up that trashy tabloid). Pop culture’s affects run deep and make up a part of our personality DNA whether we realize it or not.

Knowing this, Gasm.org’s creative director, Krissy Eliot, wondered: do childhood cartoon characters help to create the person you are today? Did liking the heroine or the villain effect the traits you carried with you into adulthood?

In Female Role Models (Cartoon Edition), the latest offering from Gasm.org, Krissy Eliot (creative director) investigates female cartoon role models and how they influenced the lives of some very cool modern women. Through video interviews, Krissy investigated the cartoon characters that helped to mold these women into who they are today.

She-Ra, Sailor Moon and Jane Lane from Daria are some of the characters that resonated with the women when they were children. The women reveal that these cartoon characters became part of the blueprint for them becoming strong, independent and successful human beings.

Photographer; Ruzica Puskas-Ragontse highlights the iconic “Princess of Power,” She-Ra, as her cartoon heroine.

“I think every little girl wanted to be [She-ra],” Ruzica says. “She’s strong. She can lift mountains. But she never uses her strength. She uses her mind. It’s easy to beat people up.... But it’s not easy to outwit people.”

Ruzica makes several points about how She-ra was a great role model, and even muses on how watching the character as a child helped shape her strong mind today.

“I think every little girl wanted to be her. We didn’t look alike. I mean, she’s blonde and blue eyed, with long hair.... I guess now, thinking back, it would have been nice to have someone who looked more like me. But as a kid, I don’t remember feeling that way. It was more about the message, not about who brought the message,” Ruzica says.

Another strong, adult female is birth doula Heather Murray, who says Sailor Moon stood out for her as a young girl.

“My favorite thing is her magical powers. Also, she has this awesome girl power team of a bunch of other women that support her. She’s just really emotive and a lot of fun,” Heather says.

As a birth doula, Heather works in very emotional environments on a daily basis, and it’s her job to support the women giving birth. In many ways, Sailor Moon helped prepare her for that.

Throughout the research and interview process, Gasm.org’s Krissy Eliot saw an emerging trend in all the women she spoke to.  Each woman walked away from a childhood equipped with the tools necessary to become strong leaders in adulthood because they were effected by the cartoons they were exposed to.

Whether you watched the heroine, superhero, princess, or the witty comic characters as a kid – those cartoons played a part in who you are today.

“Cartoons aren't just silly things kids watch and forget as they age; messages from these cartoons are carried into the future,” Krissy says. “As a society, we need to recognize the power that these childhood cartoons possess — and focus on honing that power toward creating strong, dominant women for years to come.”

To view more examples of women and the influence of cartoon characters on female development, watch Female Role Models (Cartoon Edition), here: http://youtu.be/9isu-Upkx4s