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Sunday, December 31, 2023

Waking From the Peppa Pig Nightmare

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However Peppa by no means does. She isn’t condemned for her unhealthy behaviour. Her cruelty to George goes unpunished. No person ever calls her on her bullshit, least of all her wetwipe mother and father. The present imparts no ethical critique. 

The closest she involves getting her comeuppance are episodes like ‘Whistling’, the place she is embarrassed as a result of all people can whistle besides her, or ‘Bicycles’, the place she is embarrassed as a result of she is the one one whose bike nonetheless has stabilisers. However even there, she doesn’t study any form of humility. On the allotted time, when the episode must wrap up, immediately she will be able to whistle. Out of the blue she will be able to trip a motorcycle with out stabilisers. No emotional or moral journey is articulated. As with all of the present’s makes an attempt at drama, issues are simply form of solved by default. I’m not asking for excellent Aristotelian unity from Peppa Pig, however come on.

And are available the next episode, Peppa is again to her outdated self. Mocking her child brother, boasting about how good she is at every part, lording it over her pals, fat-shaming Daddy Pig (we’ll come to Daddy Pig). She is a horrible function mannequin for youngsters. In truth, I wouldn’t be stunned if some older children realized some fairly unhealthy habits from her relating to how one treats a youthful sibling.

However in fact, like all youngsters, Peppa is a product of her surroundings. So let’s check out that surroundings.

The Ugly Moral Panorama of Daddy Pig

Daddy Pig is the pits. A buffoon, a blowhard, a risible determine. The proper cliché of the ineffectual sitcom dad. A person keen on declaring himself ‘a little bit of an professional’ at issues, then continuing to show that he’s at finest an beginner, and at worst dangerously inept. And does he ever study his lesson? After all not! No surprise Peppa is the best way she is.

However we should additionally really feel a measure of sympathy for Daddy Pig, piteous hog that he’s, as a result of he’s repeatedly, gleefully fat-shamed by his household, together with his spouse. This fatphobia is a part of a nasty reactionary streak operating via the present, which elsewhere manifests as aggressive heteronormativity (e.g. an episode whose drama hinges on Daddy Pig’s white soccer shirt turning pink within the wash, as a result of a person couldn’t presumably put on a pink shirt to play soccer) and anti-intellectualism (e.g. within the determine of Edmond Elephant, a precocious little one who is consistently dismissed – even by the narrator, the nominal ethical centre of the present – as a ‘intelligent clogs’).

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