• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.112-120
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• 2022

In order to examine the cultural vicious cycle of gender representation in online educational content, this paper reviewed the top five popular webtoons of inamootoon (EBStoon), Korea's first children's webtoon platform. The patterns of appearance representation that distinguish character's gender, the desire and psychology of characters according to gender, and their functions in the work were critically analyzed from a feminist perspective. In most of the works, the appearance of characters often follows gender stereotypes. It appears that women have long hair and wear dresses while men have short hair. On the other hand, the gender characteristics in terms of psychology and function show the aspect of breaking gender's cliche. The gender proportion of the protagonists is almost the same. Regardless of gender, they function as solvers or rescuers, bravely and wisely overcoming the problem situation. By the way, it is interesting that in representing the main character's gender, the weaker the gender stereotypes, the more popular the work among the readers. This fact suggests that the critical acceptance and choice of young readers can break the cultural vicious cycle of gender representation.