Bluey racism claims and ABC’s woke response

Labelling the award-winning and much loved kids TV show racist because of a single viewer complaint highlights how ridiculous cancel culture has become, writes Susie O’Brien

ACCORDING to the Urban Dictionary, “ooga booga” is caveman talk for hello, goodbye, and I’m hungry.

It’s also the name of a video game, a poetry collection and a Launceston futsal team.

Apparently, it’s now also a racist term. Who knew?

Two episodes of the popular kids’ TV show Bluey have been pulled and will be reissued

without the words “ooga booga” after a complaint was made to the ABC.

Bluey has been edited after a viewer complaint.

The ABC says it received a viewer complaint stating that two episodes of the show “included

a term with racial connotations and a problematic history for Indigenous Australians”.

The broadcaster said it “sincerely apologised to the complainant for any distress caused by the term”.

“The complainant was advised that neither the ABC nor the external producers were aware of the potentially derogatory meaning of the term, which was intended only as irreverent rhyming slang made up by children.”

In other words, the ABC offered a grovelling apology and took immediate action over a term that no one even knew was racist.

It’s ridiculous. Shows containing terms that are not widely understood to be racist, and that are not used with any racial connotations, should not be modified to protect the feelings of a single viewer.

Bluey has been previously praised for its inclusiveness.

It’s pertinent that the term in question doesn’t have a well-established history as a racist descriptor or saying.

A term like ooga booga is different, say, to a word like coon. The cheese bearing this name is

being rebranded because coon is a well-known derogatory term for black people.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines ooga booga as “a stereotypical rendering of what the speaker regards to be the language of those deemed by them to be African savages”.

But it’s much more commonly used by children as a popular nonsensical word in a wide

range of ways, from pretend caveman talk to baby talk for snot. It’s not used to depict or reflect those from any specific race.

It’s pertinent that even the woke ABC producers and writers weren’t aware of the term’s

“potentially derogatory meaning”.

I do not have a problem with popular culture keeping up with changing times. It’s now

generally accepted that blackface is racist and that indigenous and black stories need to be

told by people themselves, instead of through white voices.

But there’s a limit, and we should beware of erasing our cultural history to protect the

sensitivity of a mere handful of people — or in this case, one single viewer.

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