Heteronormative Assumptions Embedded in the Cartoonworld and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter explores the cartoonworld’s potential to expand understandings of heteronormativity. It uses well-known cartoons and other commonalities in U.S. children’s cultures as vehicles for reflection to achieve greater inclusivity of individuals who remain underreported and/or under-recognized as being marginalized and affected by heteronormativity. One aim of the chapter is to serve as a call for social education research to be more inclusive of underreported groups and individuals who may themselves be unaware of the marginalizing affects that heteronormativity imposes on their lives and their relationships with themselves and with others. Another purpose of the chapter is to encourage self-exploration through products of the cartoonworld as to how heteronormative assumptions have shaped our identities. The final goal of this chapter is to elevate children’s cultures as ideal social education research grounds that are intrinsically juxtaposed to and intertwined with other fields of critical study such as feminist and queer theories of knowing