Yes I do fully understand the need to shield our offspring from the greater evils of the surrounding world. However I find the hypocritical outcry over a poor choice in an aired television film distasteful.
When the viewing habits of most families consist of soap operas; which are renowned for their 'groundbreaking' and frankly shocking dramas of rape, murder and generally disgusting portrayals of human nature. Let's say these people also watch the news (in order to further their over inflated egotistical views ); they are happy to expose their children to murder, rape and mass genocide (When the bigoted media chooses to pass on the information). On the same note perhaps I should avoid mentioning the spam of programs of such educational nature as 'The Jeremy Kyle Show', 'The Only Way is Essex' and 'X-Factor'.
On this great weekend we chose to celebrate an outdated fairy tale of murder and religious persecution (Ohh spot the topical re-run of history, different when the western world is on the other side isn't it?).Channel 5 decided to take advantage of these aforementioned fantastic parents preference for plonking their school children in front of the idiot box to alleviate boredom. To this end they chose to air a marathon of childrens animated movies including;Snow White, Inside Out, Frozen, Toy Story, The Jungle Book and the ominous Watership Down.
The quaint film from 1978, responsible for traumatising many children over the years caused great concern from these adults whose childhoods had obviously already be ruined by this film. Perhaps in hindsight the choice of this film was a little strange in comparison with the others. But maybe someone hadn't actually seen the film and honestly though any further than 'Oh, a bunny that'll be great!'.What really is the outcry about? Snow White ran away as a to live in the woods with a bunch of men. Inside Out has started the global excuse for bad behaviour 'It wasn't my fault it was Anger'. Frozen is a tale of sisters lying to each other and a lack of trust. Toy Story could be considered creepy by any child with toys in their room. The Jungle Book is a child struggling to survive amongst wild animals and vicious humans. These films were all judged as suitable viewing.
Watership Down has an epic music track, and is a simple tale of a family fleeing persecution (perhaps the scheduler had a more pointed reason), and fighting for survival to reach safety and a place they can call home. I will grant there are some pretty horrific moments but they are completely in context. In addition the film has been around for so long there is very little chance that parents are unaware of the content. In reality, it is the parent's job to police their child's viewing not the channels.
Lets also consider that Easter isn't meant to be about bunnies and chocolate eggs. Spring is a time for rebirth and Easter has been tied into the religious world. The bible has Christ's character giving his life for the future of mankind and includes a story of resurrection and afterlife, both which also occur in the film. If this film is inappropriate for Easter then the other ones aired should also be slammed as being nothing to do with this holiday!
Perhaps 'The Passion of the Christ' would have been a better choice for these doting parents. A touch sarcastic but we live in a world where alleged Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Joey Essex are considered better role models and certainly more news-worthy.
But who am I to judge, people will always find something illogical to complain about.
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