Realm of the Mad Pig

Описание: In Spring 2018, there was a brief flurry of media coverage focusing on the unlikely figure of Peppa Pig, the lead character in a popular British children’s cartoon. ‘Why is Peppa Pig banned in China and Australia?’ asked the Metro newspaper. As it turned out, the story of a ‘ban’ in Australia was a little overstated: it related to just one episode in which Peppa had made friends with a spider – not a good idea in some parts of Australia. However, videos relating to Peppa had indeed been removed from the Chinese video-sharing site Douyin, apparently on the orders of the government. According to the Metro, there had been over 30,000 clips uploaded to the platform using Peppa Pig hashtags. In fact, the concern in China was not to do with any potential risks to children. Rather, it seems that Peppa has become a subversive icon for what the government sees as undesirable elements. To some extent, she appears to be following in the footsteps of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh, who has also been banned by the Chinese government after images of him were used to ridicule their leader, President Xi. In the case of Peppa, the subversion was a little less direct. According to the website Sixth Tone, which specializes in reports from China, Peppa has become a ‘street couture icon’ for Chinese celebrities and young people – and for what the state-run newspapers call ‘unruly slackers’. Chinese companies have produced a range of unlicensed Peppa Pig merchandise, including toys and clothing, and there are apparently plans to open theme parks in Shanghai and Beijing in time for the Year of the Pig in 2019. However, young people have also taken to sporting Peppa Pig tattoos and haircuts, and there are a great many fan videos, chat stickers and artworks circulating online. At least some of this imagery portrays Peppa as a ‘gangsta’, wearing ‘thug life’ shades and apparel, while some of it borders on violence and pornography. Meanwhile, in the UK and the US, Peppa had also become caught up in a wave of public concern about inappropriate content seemingly targeting young children on YouTube. Late in 2017, a long article on Medium by James Bridle described how the platform was being used to circulate material that would ‘systematically frighten, traumatize and abuse children’. Bridle drew attention to the massive popularity of channels that feature the ‘unboxing’ of toys and Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs, along with versions of nursery rhymes and re-edited mash-ups of cartoons – all seemingly targeted at very young children. Such channels feature hundreds of videos, and have millions of subscribers; and the titles of the videos are often long lists of brand names and terms designed to ‘game’ the search algorithms. More disturbingly, Bridle also pointed to the prevalence of videos featuring characters such as Peppa that include violent and horrific content. Apparently videos in which Peppa is seen (for example) eating her father or drinking bleach, or where the characters are wielding knives and guns, are widely available, and can easily be accessed via simple search terms. The material Bridle described was not a new development – the UK tabloid The Sun had reported on it more than a year earlier – although the controversy raised by his article seems to have provoked YouTube to address the problem: many of the videos he mentions have since been taken down, although it is still very easy to find similar clips online. A poster for Peppa Pig, the Movie: Kingdom of Evil sits alongside a screenshot from a game walk-though entitled Killing Floor: Evil Peppa, featuring an image of the character brandishing a knife and splattered with blood. As Bridle describes, the prevalence of such material is partly a consequence of the technology of social media: the people who produce it are exploiting the potential of algorithmic automation in order to generate clicks (and therefore income from advertising). [I’ve removed some of the images that I originally used to illustrate this page, but if you want to see some examples of what I’m talking about, you could look at James Bridle’s original article; or alternatively you could search for ‘Evil Peppa Pig’ or even ‘Peppa Penis’, if you are so inclined. While some adults might find this stuff amusing, you might not want your three-year-old looking over your shoulder…] However, this material also points to some broader questions about children’s media, and how adults relate to it. The Peppa Pig gross-out videos are, one assumes, largely parodic: they play with the idea of childhood innocence, undermining and subverting it with obviously ‘adult’ material. .