Abstract
This article reports on a study that deals with how male gender is constituted in SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the most widely watched cartoons on TV in Brazil. By analysing three episodes, the research team sought to understand the effects of meaning related to masculinity and how this signification is constructed in the interplay between visual and sound systems. Another objective was to understand the significations children elicit from this syncretic text. Both the cartoon episodes and the children's interpretations were analysed based on the discursive semiotics theory, in studies regarding cartoons and contemporary studies concerning childhood and cultural production. The results indicate that discussing in school what is portrayed and how genders are represented in cartoons is a way of denaturalizing the process of the constitution of men and women in our culture.
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