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Although it may be surprising to some, Winnie The Pooh, the iconic series starring the honey
loving, yellow bear, has faced some moral concern in the past and for a number of different
reasons.
For instance, did you know that a Polish town had a suggestion to name a playground after
the popular children's bear but this was promptly shut down by city councillors due to the bear's
appearance?
Members deemed the bear inappropriate for children due to his, to quote, “dubious
sexuality” and “inappropriate” dress.
The discussion between councillors was sneakily recorded by one of the members and leaked
to the local press, were it was subsequently criticised and labelled as ridiculous.
Nonetheless, the councillors did indeed reject naming the playground after the bear for these
reasons, with one being heard saying: “The problem with that bear is it doesn’t
have a complete wardrobe.
It is half naked which is wholly inappropriate for children.
[Poland’s fictional bear] is dressed from head to toe, unlike Pooh who is only dressed
from the waist up.”
Further comments included concern over how the bear reproduces and even going on to criticise
Winnie the Pooh's author for potentially making the bear a hermaphrodite due to "problems
with his own identity".
Another source for controversy in the children's series is Pooh's little pig friend, Piglet.
The presence of Piglet in the books caused a UK school to pull them from classrooms over
fear of offending any Muslim pupils.
The English school's headteacher sent out a memo informing teachers that they must remove
all books featuring pigs from classrooms for under 7 year olds.
The memo read that this was prompted by "a recent occasion where young Muslim children
in a class were read stories about pigs which could have caused offence to religious sensitivities".
This then went on to make mainstream news in the UK though and then got a response from
Muslim leaders at the Muslim Council of Britain.
The religious leaders called for an end to, what they called a "well-intentioned but misguided"
movement.
The head teacher would later apologise, saying: "All we are doing is trying hard, and reasonably
successfully, to ensure that all of our children are awarded the respect that all human beings
deserve."
It's not just this incident though where Pooh's pig friend has come under fire.
The national public broadcaster of Turkey, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation,
completely banned the Disney cartoon in 2006 due to featuring a pig as one of the main
characters.
It wasn't just Winnie The Pooh though, as several other shows featuring pigs were also
scrapped.
The censors also admitted that they initially considered just removing the scenes showing
Piglet, but realised that this wouldn't work due to how frequently he appears.
By far though, the biggest controversy the famous bear has come under in recent years
is his depiction in the region of China.
Ever since a 2013 social media post, which compared the Chinese president with the plump
bear in an image showing him walk side by side Barack Obama, the Chinese government
has enacted harsh censorship against anything to do with Winnie The Pooh.
The Chinese region has strictly regulated internet access with the state's censors blacklisting
many parts of the web and closely monitoring things like social media to remove anything
deemed unsuitable.
This censorship regime is known as the "great firewall of China" in the western world and
is a combination of the terms "firewall" and "the great wall of china".
Winnie The Pooh ran into issues for two reasons, not only was it seen as highly offensive to
mock the president in such a way, which is against the moral interest of the country,
but Winnie The Pooh would also start to become a way to bypass other censorship.
Due to the heavy internet surveillance, the Chinese public began to use images of the
bear whenever they wanted to talk about the president.
The bear in essence became 'code talk' to try and get past the nation's censors.
This image from 2015, which compares Pooh sticking his head out of a car with the Chinese
president doing the same, was even ranked as the most censored image of the year by
the censorship tracking website Weiboscope.
More recently, Christopher Robin, the Winnie the Pooh movie, was denied a release by the
Chinese government due to the same reasons.
And then, only a few weeks ago, this came to a head again with screenshots of the upcoming
video game Kingdom Hearts 3.
The crossover game that combines elements from the Final Fantasy video game series with
the world of Walt Disney had recently showed fans a promotional trailer featuring Winnie
The Pooh.
Not wanting to face censorship though, this led to some Chinese websites employing a range
of censorship on their posts which blocked out any images of the bear.
It's important to stress though that Pooh is not completely pulled in China and so you
will still be able to find him at the rides at Disney's Shanghai Resort for instance.
However, these issues with the bear being discussed on the internet are still going
strong to this day.
This has also actually led to an annual occasion over in Tokyo, Japan, where a person has become
famous for dressing up as the bear during Halloween surrounded by dozens of busy bodyguards
- much to the amusement of crowds.
What do you think about these issues the children's bear has faced?
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to see more videos on how video games and other media are changed around the world.
Until next time, thank you for watching!