Maybe I was wrong, but I though “politically correct” was when people complained and whinged when someone else said something innocent that offended them. Now it seems it is politically correct to show, err, gay people exist. It is such an “issue” that it should be never mentioned to children until their parents can choose the proper time to “explain” these, gosh, homosexuals. I’m sure the children that saw that shamless example of social engineering (half way down) are confused and hurt. I can imagine it now,
Children: We’re watching television…
Television: Gays exist!
Children: Oh no! We are hurt by this shocking revelation! We will now steal and take drugs. And be gay.
Okay, that was over the top. But it just pisses me off. Homosexuals exist. So what if, on a segment of the program designed to show off the diversity of the world, it mentions it? Would it be an issue if it showed people with darker skin than the norm? What about dinosaurs? Should they be banned from children’s television? I’m sure creationists would not like their choice taken away to explain that dinosaurs are an evil satanist lie.
I would say the Australian Government ministers are the ones being politically correct here. They don’t like their kids knowing that homosexuals exist. Well they should stop being so god damn sensitive and stop whinging.
I dunno, Playschool can be pretty hardcore. What about when they made those little penis-people and then said “We’re making babies!”? (I’ve seen that clip a couple of times on The Panel, does anyone know if it’s online anywhere?)
And I would seriously doubt that the target audience for Playschool (3-6 yr olds) would bat an eyelid at the notion of a kid having two mums. I can’t imagine kids that age having much of a concept of what an ‘acceptable’ family structure is to know that Brenna’s family were unusual.
They might ask questions later, perhaps around the age of 10 or so, but prior to that (IMHExperience) kids don’t give a shit. They would have been more interested in the outing than who attended.
It’s the pollies and the right-wing lobbyists who are being juvenile.
Does anybody remember that episode back in about 1984 when John and Noni were crawling around the floor pretending to be doggies, complete with ‘woofs’ and ‘waggling tails’?
THAT one raised a few eyebrows (and started a few smutty jokes) in our household.
A friend and I were discussing this (I haven’t seen the clip personally), and we don’t understand how the audience knew that Brenna’s two mums were lesbians. Couldn’t they be her biological mother and adoptive mother, or bio mum and step mum?
Not that it matters what their relationship to each other was. Families don’t all look the same and pretending that every family has a mum and a dad doesn’t help those children who aren’t from a “conventional” family structure. I cannot believe people are upset about this.
I haven’t seen the clip, but I’m sure that they portray homosexuality in a neutral-positive manner. Now, there are a large number of people who believe that is a sin; to deny them their airtime to express their worldview would be to give preference to the people shown.
Naturally, if they have a bit showing people about how terrible it is that gay marriage is not legal, without rebuttal, that will be clearly tendencious.
People complain and whinge when someone else says something truly offensive, as well.
PC is perfectly acceptable, and is a mindset where you don’t tolerate hateful or bigoted speech. There is nothing wrong with being PC. What is laughable is when PC goes too far, such as to insist that a snowman be called a person of snow.
Are the parents complaining about this planning to ensure that their kids go to straight only schools, pre-schools and childminders?
Because Brenna’s classmates in school are going to be “confronted” with her 2 mums whether their parents want them to be or not.
The parents better get them used to the idea that some kids have 2 mums, and some kids have 2 dads early, otherwise PTA meetings might become a little fraught.
Gay families exist, your kids will probably know at least one child with gay parents in their school or neighbourhood. Deal with it.
Erroneous and kambuckta’s posts reminded me of an mpeg I found years ago. It’s supposedly an episode of Rainbow (UK programme) and was particularly funny to me as I remember the show, although not the episode, from when I was a kid. Unfortunately, when I found this link to it, the illusion was shattered. Still, it’s pretty hilarious. I just hope posting it is not one of the oldest, most done jokes around.
Mr. Howard added his views on the issue in an interview with Laurie Oakes today. They further showed just how conservative he is. A transcript will be forthcoming.
This would seem to imply that we only just started mocking you lot. Mocking Aussies is our favourite hobby and you just keep giving us good material
Seriously though, I am deeply disapointed by your govts nutjobs . I always thought Aussies were far more liberal then this. I would imagine that the majority of kids watching didn’t even notice there were two mums they would have been more interested in the going to the fair thing, 2-4 year olds have one track minds.
I’m not disappointed at all by the conservatism coming out in all this broo-ha-ha. Australia, of course, is a country that still has a conservative party called the Liberals (NZ used to, back in the day).
Plus, as I was advised last year by friends, and have since seen evidence of – Australians have a conservative streak underneath all that mythos of being rebels against oppression, defenders of the little guy, etc. etc. They can be extremely fixed in their ways, and surprised when someone disagrees. It is folk such as these who voted Howard in, and probably (sadly) will do so again.
I’m with cazzle on this one. There could be many scenarios as to why Brenna was on an outing with two mums. Playschool IIRC has always portrayed a wide variety of family situations on its show, I really don’t think this is anything new and see absolutely no problem with it.
The sort of thing that Play School is portraying is reality - not reality TV ‘reality’, but the stuff that happens out in the real world ‘reality’.
If John Howard cannot deal with reality he should not be a leader of a country…hey wait … this is the pit … yay…and the little fucking cunt should take a flying leap of South Head.
