So another kids TV programme is causing uproar among parents! This time the ‘offending’ programme is Rastamouse, which is aimed at the under 6’s and is shown just before tea time on CBeeebies. The story revolves around Rastamouse, a skateboarding cool dude mouse, and his friends Scratchy and Zoomer , who are all crime solving secret agents who work for the President, and who also play in a reggae band. So what’s the problem you may be asking yourself?
Apparently, as the name of the show would suggest, the characters speak in a Jamaican Patois and use phrases such as ‘irie’ (which means happy) and ‘ting’ instead of thing! Well, I expect you are shocked by that aren’t you? That a rastamouse would speak in Jamaican!
The BBC has received complaints from viewers depicting the show as being racist, that it contains stereotype black people and is full of slang words and not liking the language used by the characters!
I will be honest I have only seen a couple of episodes, as it is on at a time that Burton and I don’t tend to watch CBeebies. However, from what I have seen I really don’t understand why there has been such an uproar! It is just a bit of fun and infact I think it is refreshing to see a children’s TV programme that reflects a different culture, afterall we do live in a multi cultural society and it’s good for children from all cultures to see what other ones exist. Most of it’s target audience (not the parents, I know a lot of you enjoy this show!) are too young to probably get the humour it conveys anyway, and watch it to see the adventures of the mice and listen to the reggae music. Ok so some children may well repeat some of the terminology from the programme at school, but does that matter? Phrases from popular TV shows such as Little Britain and the Catherine Tate show, for example, have been repeated by teens and adults alike and the content of these programmes have been a tad risque, so what’s the difference?
I know that when I was growing up Grange Hill was always in the news for controversial story lines as was Byker Grove. In recent times the Teletubbies
was hugely criticised for it’s choice of language it’s lead characters adopted and for possibly having a gay Teletubby!
The ‘ting’ is Rastamouse is thriving – it is currently the most watched CBeebies programme on iPlayer, and has the biggest cult following since the Teletubbies. A single from the show is being released which has even been played on Radio 2 , i know this because this is how my Mum heard about the show!
I think the parents who have complained need to quite frankly get a life, and if they don’t approve of it then there is a switch on their remote which can turn the television off – you get me?! 🙂
Please share your thoughts, I would love to hear them. Thanks.
Thank you xx
thanks for your comment. i think too many people are narrow minded and miss the point of what the show is really about. like you say, unfortunately the Jamaican and Rasta culture gets too much bad press which is why some parents are in uproar, i guess. x
With my youngest being 8 we’ve progressed to CBBC…except we got massively into Big Babies last year. I need to check Rastamouse out, it sounds fun. I think your comments are very wise – some people just have to find something to complain about. Mind you, my 13 year old still says ‘eh-oh’ and ‘dipsy dance’ from time to time and I have a fear of soup dragons and sometimes make sounds like a swanee whistle so perhaps children’s tv does warp the the mind…