One more snorting menace

Why does anyone care about Peppa Pig’s new baby sister?

Praise be, Peppa Pig’s parents have welcomed a brand new baby! Is it possible for anyone of sound mind to be able to contain their joy upon getting word of this auspicious occasion? Perhaps not – but let us see if we can carry on amid all this excitement.

For those of you who do not keep up with important global current affairs, the announcement of Evie Pig came on May 21, with the proud new 2D animated parents posing before the real-life Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital. As Kate Middleton has exhibited on three separate occasions throughout her parenting career, this particular private maternity wing is the one favoured by the poshest of the posh, so Mummy and Daddy Pig must have climbed up the social ladder in secret when no one was looking. Things are truly looking up for them.

Who on earth cares?

It transpires that a mystifyingly large number of people care, as was evidenced by the fact that the BBC saw it fit to cover Mummy and Daddy Pig’s exciting family update. One anonymous poster on Soul Sisters Pakistan even pondered over what sort of delivery Mummy Pig endured. Of course, there may be some of you out there hazy on just who or what Peppa Pig is. If you are amongst this blissfully unaware crowd, do not tamper with that bliss by peering down this awful rabbit hole. Flee now and never return.

The rest of us will at some point have been duped into believing that five-minute segments of this British preschool television show centering on a young family is a reasonable exchange for a quick shower. On the surface, a few minutes of Peppa Pig appears to be a harmless way of washing your hair in peace.

Here is a family-friendly show where the children bond with their parents, go to school, make friends, and go to the park. Plot-wise, with sports day races and car keys falling down gutters, it is as edge-of-the-seat stuff as it can be for its demographic of preschoolers. As a survey by entertainment consulting firm Parrot Analytics demonstrates, since debuting on May 31, 2004, Peppa Pig is now the world’s fourth most popular children’s television series. Ergo, do not be consumed with guilt if you have fallen prey to Peppa’s dubious (or rather, non-existent) charms. You are not alone.

So far, so normal

Like so many animated fictional characters – SpongeBob, Dora, Mickey Mouse – Peppa has remained immune to the march of time. The only hint of any sort of clock in her universe is the arrival of baby Evie. For now, Peppa remains frozen at age four, ostensibly providing comfort for the next generation of frazzled parents of young children, but really only perpetuating her love of muddy puddles and bratty behaviour until someone tapes her mouth shut.

If there is one thing people know about Peppa Pig, it is that she and her parents are drawn to muddy puddles like a lioness without breakfast is to a herd of mouth-watering, unassuming impala. They see a puddle, their brains command them to go and jump. The subtext is that yo-yoing in puddles with reckless abandon is the very essence of a happy childhood. Perhaps Mummy Pig is also secretly in cahoots with makers of detergents – except that science has not yet invented a detergent potent enough to eradicate all the mud Peppa encourages those in her orbit to accumulate.

It would be somewhat acceptable if Peppa’s errant behaviour was limited to dirty laundry, but her problems run far deeper. Unlike SpongeBob, who can inexplicably light a fire underwater, but at least cherishes a noble goal as he eyes the dizzying heights of retail management, Peppa has achieved what very few understand to be possible: she has become more irritating than Dora and Mickey and his cohorts combined. Having witnessed Dora’s ruler-cut fringe and nails-on-a-blackboard voice, you may scoff at the prospect of Peppa (or literally anything) outranking her. You could not be more wrong.

Does she deserve the hate?

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. This is not just because she is of the porcine orientation and often communicates via the medium of snorting. Although having said that, Reddit forums illuminate the existence of Muslim Pakistani parents grappling with the fear that introducing their children to Peppa Pig will segue into an undying love for pigs.

However, these parents can lay those fears to rest: whilst there is no denying that their Peppa-addicted children may develop an affinity for pink snouty farm animals and take to random snorting, they are hardly likely to hanker after a haram bacon sandwich or an equally haram pork pie, which is the real underlying cause for aforementioned fears. At least, not unless Mummy Pig reaches the end of her tether and her parenting takes a very dark turn.

Fears of bacon sandwiches aside, a lesson that desi parents very quickly learn is that whatever entertainment surveys show, Peppa should be kept very far away from their precious offspring. Classics such as Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes have come under fire for promoting unrelenting violence, but at least Tom, Jerry, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck used such ludicrous means of revenge (hurling a grand piano as a weapon, using giant U-shaped magnets, and so on) that no human – adult or underage – can hope to emulate, no matter how much they may yearn to.

Peppa’s sins, on the other hand, are far more achievable for the average child seeking fresh ideas for bad behaviour. She is prone to frequently calling her father ‘silly daddy’ (a verdict that yields tears of unstoppable mirth from the surrounding adults), bullies her brother George with ruthless tenacity, and has no idea how to offer a sincere apology to any of her friends.