According to new data, boys today want to see male characters in TV series and films shift away from tired tropes of hyper-masculine bros to embrace vulnerability, connection and love.

The Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA shared these findings and more on Wednesday as part of a Kidscreen Summit panel called “Better Stories for Boys: Building audience. Building character.” In her presentation, CSS founder Dr. Yalda Uhls discussed data that was gathered in an August 2025 survey of 1,500 10- to 24-year-olds in the US.

Producers who want to reach boys in this age range need to give them what they want to see, which is more affectionate fathers who show love and enjoy parenting. This is especially true for young boys, but even older teens and young adults want to see nurturing, emotionally available men who can positively model masculinity.

More than half of kids ages 10 to 14 also want to see more men taking care of each other, men asking for help, and men seeking mental health care.

The big takeaway: Throw out the stoic alpha-males and toxic providers, and focus on imperfect men who are working on repairing themselves, said fellow panelist Caroline Hayes from gender equality-focused non-profit Equimundo. She called for the industry to focus on showing “what repair looks like in relationships”.

Graph shows the percentage of youth who want More/Much More vs. those who want Less/Much Less by age group. Courtesy of CSS at UCLA.

Slow progress

The kids industry as a whole has been making strides to move beyond gender stereotypes, but there’s still a ways to go. Retail, for example, still relies on the blue for boys/pink for girls branding that’s gendered toys for decades. And the panelists called out The Breadwinner, an upcoming live-action family-friendly comedy film from TriStar Pictures, which features a stereotypically bumbling dad who has to figure out how to care for his three kids while his busy wife pursues a business opportunity.

Back in 2018, kids media researcher Maya Goetz raised the alarm bell over boys stuck watching an outdated model of masculinity. And CSS was already addressing some of what boys wanted in 2020, when it released a tip sheet that encouraged writers and producers to evolve their portrayals to show boys and girls playing together, “tough” males being vulnerable to other men, and boys playing with traditionally girl-skewing toys like dolls instead of trucks. And this new CSS data confirms that kids are desperate for change.

“We believe the audience is hungering for less bumbling representations of fathers, for less absent fathers,” Uhls said during the panel. “They want to see fathers who love them, enjoy parenting, and may not do it exactly like mom does, but they do it really well.”

Good role models

The panelists cited Bluey (pictured) as a good example of this in action on screen. And then there’s Finding Nemo, in which father Marlon starts out “emotionally restrictive,” but in the end is at the heard of “a story about repair and a father-son bond that shows courage and bravery through emotional growth,” said Hayes.

Another new example is the animated series Messi and the Giants (2027 on Disney+), which panelist Guy Toubes is an EP on. At its core, the show for six to 11s is about love, family and friendship, which are all important to the soccer superstar Lionel Messi, said Toubes. “[Messi said] ‘I’d much rather be remembered for being a good person than for being a great soccer player.’ And he really lives that out. He’s a family man. He is usually able to keep his temper on the field. He has a great relationship with all of his teammates. And on the show, we portray him [like that].”

Taking on gender stereotypes might seem like a daunting process. Toubes experienced this first-hand as a writer on a show called T.O.T.S. It revolves around two boy birds who deliver babies, and he says there was a lot of pressure to change them into girls, since it’s traditional for girls to be the ones taking care of babies. “I’m proud to say that we were against that,” Toubes noted, eliciting applause from the Kidscreen Summit crowd. T.O.T.S premiered on Disney Junior in 2019 and ran for three seasons.