A girl-piglet and a boy-piglet, a mummy and daddy pig, no LGBTQ characters or focus on race or religion; Peppa Pig isn’t an obvious target for controversy or counterculture worship.
一个猪丫头和一个猪小子、一个猪妈妈和一个猪爸爸,没有性少数群体,也没有种族或宗教内容,《小猪佩奇》不是那种会引发争议的焦点,似乎也和反主流文化崇拜不搭嘎。
At first glance, it could be a pretty solid adult choice for boredom or sleep. Yet the Douyin video platform in China deems its influence to be a potentially harmful one, due to its growing popularity among the country’s shehuiren. That’s anti-establishment “gangster” internet users to some, or people who like memes and get tattoos of asinine cartoon characters because it’s a bit funny to others.
乍一看来,这个动画片适合无聊至极或睡不着觉的大人看。可中国抖音平台让它造成了有害影响,导致片子在该国的“社会人”中间越来越火。有人认为“社会人”是反传统的“流氓”网民,或是喜欢这种文化基因的人,他们把愚蠢的卡通人物纹在身上,因为这让他人觉得好玩。
正如那些大把时间泡在Tumblr、Reddit和4chan上的人,小猪佩奇粉可能不会对我们所知的人性传承构成一种威胁。
They might need tattoo-removal services at some point, but a government ban on the cartoons they like, as well as their associated hashtags, is a bit much. For many here in the UK, the ban in China has been taken as bizarre and hilarious.
他们可能在某时需要纹身去除服务,但不让他们看动画,热词也一禁了之毕竟有点夸张。英国人看来,这事很奇怪,也有点可笑。
Peppa as a figurehead for “unruly slackers”, a cult-like hero calling society’s disaffected to rebel? The cartoon? It’s always been a pedestrian watch, probably even for the generation of children it was designed for. To kids watching who come from single-parent families, have two mums, or are living in foster homes, Peppa Pig’s cosily conservative family set-up may be as otherworldly as talking pigs and rabbits.
“不守规矩的混子”唯小猪佩奇的马首是瞻,一头小猪成了邪教文化英雄,孤立社会不满者反叛?就这个卡通吗?片子根本就是个小儿科,即便对于儿童受众而言都是如此。对来自单亲家庭、有两个妈妈或住在寄养家庭中的孩子而言,小猪佩奇惬意而保守的家庭环境可能就跟谈论猪和兔子一样不接地气。
But despite Peppa being so safe – almost antiquated, even – all the sniggering about its ban from China’s media platforms is what’s truly bizarre. Because it shouldn’t be surprising at all. A group of adults using the creation or censorship of children’s entertainment to further their own political and moral values isn’t unheard of; it’s almost de rigueur, everywhere.
尽管小猪佩奇如此安全,如此甚至老套,对下架片子的所有嘲笑才真是怪异,原因是无需吃惊。成人用自己的眼光塑造儿童娱乐,以推动他们自己的价值观,这并非新鲜事,这几乎成了一种风尚,哪里都这样。
There have been understandable examples of censure, such as the episode of the 90s cartoon Gargoyles on gun crime, which was subsequently cut to remove the blood. Even though blood usually happens after a gunshot. And gunshots tend to happen in television episodes that have been commissioned to focus on guns.
有一些责难可以理解,例如九十年代的卡通片《夜行神龙》涉及枪支犯罪,后来把血腥画面砍掉了,即便开枪后通常都要流血,而且开枪会出现在有关枪支的电视剧集中。
An episode of TaleSpin was also taken off air, in this case because of its terrorism theme. Yes; the adults who created it animated Baloo to fight against terrorism. In a children’s TV show.
《航空小英雄》中有一集也被拿下了,这是因为主题涉及恐怖主义。没错,创作它的成人让巴鲁熊抗击恐怖主义,在一部儿童电视剧中。
Going further back, there’s 1818-47’s The History of the Fairchild Family’s subsequent fall out of regular circulation … because it included a gibbet-side lesson where a child is shown the hanged corpse of a criminal. Adults of the time wanted children to know that criminals deserved to be hanged.
在往前找,1818年到1847年连续出版的《法尔柴尔德家的历史》不让发行了……原因是有一场绞刑架旁儿童看到罪犯吊死后尸体的情节。当时的成人希望孩子们知道罪犯该被吊死。
If the adults in charge aren’t stealthily dripping their own politics into children’s entertainment, they’re banning it afterwards when it includes politics they don’t agree with.
如果管事的成人没在暗地里把自己的政治放进儿童娱乐中去,当作品包括他们不喜欢的政治时,他们就会一禁了之。
This is what media for children is, because it’s created, and censored, by adults for the adults they want to see in the future. It’s gentle (sometimes not so gentle) social conditioning, and always has been. Politics but, ya know, for kids.
这就是孩子们的媒体,因为那是被成人创造和审查的,给那些他们心目中未来的成人看的。这是一种温和的(有时不那么温和的)社会调试,一直如此。这就是儿童的政治,你懂。
The reporting of this ban with its undertone of “isn’t China weird and funny compared to us – how ridiculous” ignores all this; how politics are used during the creation of entertainment for children, and afterwards by politicians themselves. This isn’t even Peppa’s first foray into the world of politics; she was part of the promotion of the Labour government’s Sure Start programme back in 2010.
报道这一禁令时,言里言外那种“和我们相比,中国是不是怪葩,真好笑,太无厘头了”,这种态度完全忘了基本的事实,即儿童娱乐创作中是如何使用政治的,以及此后政客们是如何使用的。这甚至不是小猪佩奇头一回进入政治世界,佩奇是工党政府2010年“确保开始”早教项目的一部分。
One episode of the show was banned by the Australian Broadcasting Company for fear it would encourage children to interact with dangerous spiders. The columnist Piers Akerman even accused the programme of pushing “a weird feminist line”. So China’s ban is not unprecedented, nor ridiculous. Not even when it involves innocent little Peppa and her brother George.
澳大利亚广播公司曾禁播过一集,因为担心会鼓励儿童与危险的蜘蛛玩。专栏作家皮尔斯·阿克曼甚至指控节目推行“怪异的女权主义思想”。所以中国的禁令并非史无前例,也不可笑,就算涉及了天真无邪的佩奇和她的哥哥乔治。
The innocuous fictional world of Peppa Pig might seem too far removed from our own to become a symbol of unrest, or moral decay in society, but like much media before it, we create it, we consume it, we use it, and we ban it. What is children’s entertainment but a means to prepare our children for the world? And what is the world but a messed-up mire of warring politics created by angry grown-ups? Children need to be ready for this wherever they live – welcome to adulthood, kids.
小猪佩奇无伤大雅的虚幻世界可能看起来和我们的社会大相径庭,没法成为社会动荡或道德沦落的象征,但和此前的媒体一样,我们创造它、消费它、使用它并禁止它。要是儿童娱乐不过是为儿童走向世界做准备的手段呢?要是世界不过是愤怒的成人创造的混乱的战争政治呢?孩子们要准备好接受这一切——欢迎来到成人世界,孩子们。
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