ANGRY BIRD

Peppa Pig for president! Our resident ranter and mother-of-two Michelle Harris won't hear a bad word against that porcine powerhouse

So, this week I got a little bit of rage on behalf of a cartoon pig. I blame four-month-old-baby-related sleep deprivation. I know what you’re thinking and next week I will attempt to hit the serious news head on - Libya, immigration, and that woman leaving Geordie Shore, whatever that is - but for now, a fictional swine is wrongly accused and I for one am not having it. Oh Peppa, you poor little sausage.

To begin with, a Peppa Pig Fun and Learn Tablet came over a little bit Tourettesy in Waterloo, and instead of saying “Find the odd one out” it inadvertently taught a small child the phrase “F*ck you”. Now I understand the parents’ outrage, I do. But it did not happen to me and my children and for that reason I am on the floor laughing with my feet in the air in the manner of Peppa, George and their mates at the end of every goshdarn episode. It’s funny. It is. If you don’t think so, then I sentence you to a week’s worth of Balamory. That’ll learn you.

Secondly, (and I am embarrassed to say I came across this on a Facebook share of a Daily Fail article) goody two shoes mum-journo, and probable Tory voter, Naomi Greenaway, proclaimed with vomit-inducing smugness that she was banning her kids from watching Peppa Pig because the cheeky little piglet was a negative influence and making them badly behaved. Apparently, “she [Peppa] stamps her feet, bullies her brother, makes fun of her parents, falls out with her friends, whinges when she loses, pokes out her tongue and generally displays copious amounts of antisocial behaviour” and it is banned forthwith “despite the backlash”. Ms Greenaway is anti-Peppa to the point of near hysteria, blah-ing on about ‘flawed heroines’ like an over-enthusiastic book club member after too many free Chardonnays. I think she is missing the point.

Peppa is a pre-schooler. And so is Greenaway's poor soon-to-be-Nick-Jnr-starved sproglet. And this is how pre-schoolers behave. They tantrum, they are mean, they push the boundaries. Sometimes they are little sh*ts. Other times they play nice with their friends and siblings and they are cuteness personified. Blaming your kid’s tanrums on the TV is like blaming arson on Naughty Norman from Fireman Sam, or world hunger on Mr Greedy – the fat bast*rd.

Your kid is not poorly behaved because s/he watches Peppa. Your kid is badly behaved because that is how kids learn. They don’t want role models in their cartoons, they want the effing Bing Bong Song, they want ‘dine-saurs’ and they want the most annoyingly catchy theme tune known to parents. I am glad us Brits retain some humour in our kid's TV, and leave the laid-on-with-a-trowel sanctimony mostly to the Americans. The Daddy Pig Fun Run episode still makes me chuckle and I have seen it roughly 287 times. Aside from this, should you want to nit-pick, I actually think that there are lot of positives to be had in the show; and I don’t just mean five minutes peace for an uninterrupted cuppa/phonecall/cry/crap* delete as applicable.

Daddy and Mummy Pig are in a happy co-habiting relationship and they manage to bring up two small piggies without turning them to crackling. They both work in jobs they seem to like. Daddy Pig plays sports with his friends and Mummy Pig volunteers for the fire service (go sista!) and doesn’t give a shit what she looks like in a bikini. Miss Rabbit has had numerous careers, and while she should probably have a word with her union about worklife balance, she’s pretty darn fabulous. Madame Giselle strikes a positive chord for immigration, and Grampy Rabbit is Brian blinking Blessed. Legend.

Peppa is learning as all kids do, what her place is in the world. She says please and thank you, she tries her best to tidy her room, she learns about interacting with her parents, her friends, her younger sibling, and she may not get it all right first time, but she’s bloody well trying ok? So let’s not judge her. It could be worse; she could be Tom or Jerry. Or Lola. Or blonde-bitch-demon Barbie. So how about instead of blathering on about how banning cartoons will improve our kids’ behaviour, certain quarters could instead think about teaching them, disciplining them, praising them and parenting them instead of hitching their skirts and shrieking ‘bad influence’ at the first provocation. My worst fear is not that my daughter grows up like Peppa Pig. It is that she grows up to write for the Daily Mail.