It's been a good week for … equality
It's been a good week for … equality
After almost 100 years, Ladybird Books is to stop labelling its titles "for girls" or "for boys". It follows the Let Books Be Books campaign which is urging an end to gender branding so children can choose freely what kind of story and activity books interest them.
Having previously published books such as Ladybird Favourite Fairy Tales for Girls and Ladybird Favourite Stories for Boys, the publisher now says it doesn't want to be seen "to be limiting children" and from now on, will avoid gendered titles and remove such labelling in reprinted copies.
"Out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print, we actually only have six titles with this kind of titling," said Ladybird, which is the seventh publisher to commit to the campaign.
This is all well and good for the adults in this particular story, but I'm sure the children care not a jot. The fact that boys and girls enjoy different types of reading material is undeniable, no matter what's on the front cover. But on-message gestures always look good on paper. Presumably, the next step is to rebrand the imprint as Personbird Books.
It's been a bad week for … Paddington Bear
You could never accuse Paddington of sexism. But it seems he has been causing offence in a different manner.
The new Paddington children's movie has been rated PG (Parental Guidance) rather than U (Universal) because it contains "innuendo".
After Paddington's creator, Michael Bond, expressed amazement at the British Board of Film Classification's assessment that the film contained "mild sex references", the board has revised its advice and now says the film merely has scenes that contain "dangerous behaviour, mild threat, innuendo, infrequent mild bad language".
Actor Hugh Bonneville, who plays the father of the family that adopts Paddington, said he thought it was "hilarious" that the classification agency had found sexual references in a scene in which - spoiler alert - he is disguised as a cleaning woman and a security guard flirts with him.
Disturbing stuff. But not as disturbing as this new movie version of Paddington, who looks more meerkat than bear. Worse still, he has no wellies. How can you expect a bear from Peru to survive in the UK without a decent pair of boots?
It's just too far-fetched.
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