America is right – Peppa Pig sets a dreadful example for our children
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‘Peppa is a Brat: Parents Turn on Cheeky Preschooler Pig.” That was the headline this week in no less an organ than The Wall Street Journal, one of the USA’s most esteemed newspapers. American parents, it reported, no longer wish their children to watch Peppa Pig, because they consider this popular British cartoon to be a bad influence. The title character, they complain, is “rude” and “unkind”, and therefore sets a dreadful example to the young.
Instinctively, we in Britain might feel an urge to defend one of our country’s most successful TV exports. How dare these whining, over-sensitive Yanks call for a boycott of a mere children’s cartoon? Haven’t they got anything better to worry about?
The problem is, though, that they’re right. As a British parent, I can’t deny it: Peppa is indeed a loathsome, insolent little brat. Especially when it comes to the way she treats her father: poor, long-suffering Daddy Pig.
In episode after episode, Peppa remorselessly bullies him over his weight. The taunting is often downright vicious. “You’ve got a big tummy, Daddy,” she sneers, in one episode. “Is there a baby in there?”
In another adventure, Peppa does a mocking impression of her father, which consists of her putting on a stupid voice and groaning: “My tummy is too big because I eat a lot of cookies.” On yet another occasion, she announces that the secret password to gain entry to her treehouse is “Daddy’s Big Tummy”. When Daddy Pig objects to this, and humbly requests that she choose a less hurtful password, Peppa refuses. Defeatedly, poor Daddy Pig accepts his daughter’s decision, recites the existing password – and then gets stuck in the treehouse door. Because, of course, he’s so disgustingly overweight. Naturally, everyone present – including Daddy Pig’s own wife, Mummy Pig – guffaws with mirth at his public humiliation.
The show is full of scenes like this. What is really striking about it, however, is that it is only ever Daddy Pig who gets fat-shamed. Never Mummy Pig – even though she’s the same shape he is. As, come to that, is Peppa herself. To my knowledge, there has never been an episode in which everyone cruelly laughs at Mummy Pig’s doomed efforts to get “beach body ready”, or jeers at her cellulite. (Do pigs get cellulite? Must ask our health editor. Or possibly our farming correspondent.)
Anyway, on behalf of slightly overweight fathers everywhere, I condemn these appalling double standards. In my view, it’s time for everyone to start treating Daddy Pig with greater sensitivity – and, while we’re at it, to ask ourselves how he got to be overweight in the first place.
A study published this week says that married men tend to be significantly fatter than single men. Dr Shiwen Quan, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, seems to think this is because married men just can’t be bothered to stay in shape. “Those seeking a partner are motivated to control their physical health,” he argues, “while those already married may be less inclined to do so.”
Perhaps. But there is an alternative possibility. Which is that married men are so miserable, they resort to comfort-eating just to get through the day.
For all we know, Daddy Pig is secretly very unhappy in his marriage to Mummy Pig. And frankly, I don’t blame him.
