Yes, really
With all the verve of a Soviet commissar, the Daily Mail‘s Robert Hardman declares a cartoon pig is undermining our precious bodily fluids.
His full-page article today concerns the popular kids’ show Peppa Pig, which Hardman claims is a sexist cartoon. The Mail’s sudden concern about sexism might appear welcome, until you realise he means sexism against men.
The piece is headed:
“Sexist pig who’s made her creators £140m”
Perhaps worried the paper’s trademark money-porn left the article lacking umph, Hardman shoves in the sexism angle, laid out as follows:
“Some even accused the producers of being sexist. Which, indeed, they are — except that it is not feminists who have grounds for complaint. It’s us chaps.
I am all in favour of my children having wholesome female role models, but, after years of subliminal bombardment from the Pig family, it is hardly surprising that they view their father and his ilk as a breed of lovable blunderers to be mocked and pitied.
It is much the same, of course, with other dunderhead dads like Fred Flintstone and Homer Simpson. But with Peppa, they are being indoctrinated while they’re still in nappies.”
Yes, a columnist writing for a national newspaper is blaming the fact his children don’t take him seriously on a cartoon.
Whinging about anti-male sexism is especially rich coming from the Mail – a paper with a good claim to being the most sexist paper on the newsstands.
Television programmes and popular culture are certainly ripe for analysis and critique.
But among the problems with modern TV is not creeping feminism or an undermining of men in society.
After all, Peppa’s father can be ‘an obese serial incompetent who fails at every menial task and is a general disappointment to his litter’, and still be identified with by an national newspaper columnist.
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Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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8 Responses to “Daily Mail says ‘sexist’ Peppa Pig is indoctrinating children”
Patrick Nelson
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Patrick Nelson
Peppa Pig sexist? How? When? Where? Cobblers.
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Ryan Roberts
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