Susie O’Brien: Woke academics must back off kids TV show Bluey, Bandit’s parenting style

Unleashing on a cartoon dog’s parenting style and questioning a lack of ‘dogs of colour’ on popular kids TV show Bluey proves why being woke is beyond a joke.

Knockabout Aussie dad had his parenting style pulled apart by two Queensland academics this week.

The father of two, who is well loved and heavily involved in his children’s lives, was dubbed a bully for his “playful teasing”.

The researchers posed the question: Are larrikin fathers good role models or just “bad dads”? A furious online debate ensued, during which 99 per cent of responders in one newspaper poll backed the dad (funny that.)

What’s amusing is that the father they were obsessing about was Bandit, a cartoon dog from the show Bluey. Bandit is not a real person – not even a real dog.

Bluey, as you’re probably aware, is a global hit beloved by millions of viewers, a cartoon that is funny, relevant, cute and entertaining.

Woke academics have discovered kids TV.

But that’s not good enough for University of Southern Queensland academics David Burton and Kate Cantrell, who labelled Bandit – Bluey’s dad – a bully and a cheat.

They even go so far as to suggest that Bandit exhibits conservative gender values because his mates mock him for wearing make-up.

Bandit, they claim, also has a habit of not “engaging in full imaginative play when under the gaze of other men” (pretty sure he’s not the only male to do this).

Burton and Cantrell say Bandit “never strays far from the reductive stereotype of the Australian larrikin”, his behaviour “sometimes devolving into bullying”.

They also don’t like the way Bandit’s wife Chilli “pulls him into line” and is the “boring” parent who saves the day.

“There is a darker side to this loveable character,” they say. “Even Bandit’s name conjures up the small-time crimes of bushrangers, Australia’s revered outlaws.”

One day a cartoon dog is lauded as father of the year, the next he’s a symbol of the hetero masculinist cisgender stereotypical bi-gendered mainstream discourse.

Surely these adults have better things to do with their taxpayer-funded degrees? Yet again, the woke has gone beyond a joke.

Surely these adults have better things to do with their taxpayer-funded degrees? Asks Susie O’Brien.

These days even fathers who are dogs that don’t exist have every utterance, act and opinion combed over for signs of their darker sides.

Parents who’ve lost hours or even days of their lives watching endless loops of charming, funny, well-written Bluey episodes are left wondering if it’s an elaborate hoax.

Bluey is bigger than ever: Kids can eat Bluey biscuits from Arnott’s, the internet melted down over the release of new episodes, and US viewers are even getting Aussie accents because they watch the show so much.

Sadly, though, it’s not the first time Bluey has been criticised by social engineering activists who appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that it matters what colour a cartoon dog is.
“Where are the disabled, queer, poor, gender diverse, dogs of colour and single-parent dog families in Bluey’s Brisbane?” ABC journalist Beverley Wang asked recently.

Yes, you read that right. Bandit the blue-hued heeler has been slammed for not being a dog of colour.

Bandit’s name, colour and parenting styles were pulled apart by the academics.

The ABC also temporarily pulled two Bluey episodes – Teasing and Flat Pack – for containing the term “ooga booga” because it was told the caveman term had racial connotations. The broadcaster “sincerely apologised” to the one complainant “for any distress caused by the term”.

Such analysis comes amid wider criticism of Paw Patrol’s lack of female characters and “authoritarian propaganda” and the “misogynist undertones” of Peppa Pig.

Such shows do not fare well when subjected to such close scrutiny because they are harmless kids’ programs, not serious political statements containing life lessons and important role models.

They should not be subject to meaningless box-ticking identity politics.

I have no problem with popular culture keeping up with changing times. Some aspects of popular culture are no longer funny or relevant because they are racist, sexist or homophobic.

But picking on a lighthearted cartoon dog dad for being insufficiently politically correct is silly and pointless. It’s a cartoon, not a searing forward-thinking critique of modern gender roles and family dynamics.

As one online commentator put it, if we are psychoanalysing Bandit, we’re doomed as a species.

What next? Suggesting the name of Bandit’s daughter, Bingo, could encourage kids to gamble? That Bluey is colourist because her name offends dogs of a red persuasion?

Give me a big dose of Bluey-style keepy uppy, bush wees, dollar bucks and real life rather than that tripe any day.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist