The favored British kids’s present “Peppa Pig” has launched its first same-sex couple — two lesbian polar bears — following years of requires extra LGBTQ characters on the present.
In an episode that aired Tuesday on Channel 5 in the UK, Penny the Polar Bear tells foremost character Peppa Pig that she has “two mummies” and attracts an image of herself holding palms with them.
“I stay with my mummy and my different mummy,” Penny says within the episode, which is titled “Households.” She provides that one in all her mothers is a physician.
The cartoon present, which facilities round a 4-year-old piglet and her household, has been translated into 40 languages and broadcast in over 180 nations and territories, together with the U.S., based on its manufacturing firm, Leisure One. It’s been known as a “world phenomenon,” although it has additionally confronted some criticism for reinforcing gender stereotypes by showcasing a nuclear household construction with a dad who works and a stay-at-home mother.
A petition was first circulated in 2019 calling on the present, which has aired for almost 20 years and received three BAFTA awards, to characteristic same-sex mother and father. The request garnered almost 25,000 signatures over the previous few years.
“Youngsters watching Peppa Pig are at an impressionable age, and excluding same-sex households will educate them that solely households with both a single father or mother or two mother and father of various sexes are regular,” the petition says. “Peppa Pig isn’t just for leisure, kids are inevitably studying from it too.”
The brand new storyline comes amid scrutiny in latest months over LGBTQ illustration in different productions catered to kids. This summer season, plenty of Muslim-majority nations banned Pixar’s “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear” from theaters over a kiss between lesbian characters. A theater in Oklahoma that was displaying the movie additionally posted a warning check in June saying staff would do “all we will” to fast-forward via the scene. On Tuesday, Gulf Arab nations requested Netflix to take away any “offensive content material,” showing to reference packages with LGBTQ characters.
A consultant for Leisure One couldn’t be reached for remark, and License to PR, the general public relations agency listed for “Peppa Pig,” didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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