ONCE upon a time there were four little rabbits. This, however, was thought to be discriminatory towards deeply offended hares, and so once upon a time there were four little animals instead. The four little animals had names and genders, but for the sake of inclusivity this story refers to them as A, B, C and D. (To those whose names include other letters, please do not start a boycott.)
One day, the four little animals' legal guardian sat them down in a room each and locked the doors. “I love you, dear children,” they said. “The world is a dangerous place and it will be safer for you here.”
Confused, little A asked: “But parent, can’t I play with my siblings?”
“It is safer to be alone, dear A,” the guardian warned. “Your siblings may have bugs, viruses, or dangerous ideas.”
And so it was. The doors stayed locked and the little animals grew into adults. With dreams of the outside world, one day the animals broke their doors down and kissed the guardian goodbye.
They skipped across fields in the blazing sun, feeling free as birds, or similar winged animals.
“Where shall we go? What shall we do?” asked an excited B.
“Look over there,” said C. “There are other animals like us.”
So off they skipped, and when they came to a road they didn’t know what it was. Splat! Poor D didn't know that animals could not walk in front of double decker buses.
“Oh no!” said A. “It’s OK,” said C, “we weren’t that close anyway.”
Soon, A, B and C found lots of other animals. But they were not animals like them; they were all different kinds, big and small. They were in a zoo.
“Oh wow!” said B. “Look at that beautiful striped orange animal over there! Let us go and make friends with it.”
And off B ran, excited about this wonderful new world. “Hello,” said B to the animal. “My name is B and I am an animal just like you. Can we be friends?”
“ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRR,” roared the animal, which self-defined as a tiger, and promptly gobbled B up.
“Oh no!” said C. “We have lost another sibling.” “It’s OK,” said A, “we weren’t that close.”
A and C decided to skip off somewhere else where there were no strange animals. They found a forest, full of big trees and plants they had never seen.
“It is like a dream,” said C. “Let us live here.”
“Good idea, C!” said A. “I will go hunting for food, as we are surely hungry after such a big adventure.”
And off A went looking for a meal. But without the loving warmth and protection of the guardian, poor A was confused. “Hmm,” A thought. “What shall we eat?”
A hunted and hunted but did not know what to pick. Eventually, a tired A noticed some interesting little things sprouting from the ground.
“These look nice and different,” A thought, before picking a selection of them.
A returned to C and they ate some of the food, sending them on an instant acid trip. The mushrooms were magical, and A and C danced and danced around the forest until their tired bodies gave in to sleep.
When they awoke, they were hungry again.
“Let us try some of the other ones,” said C to A, and so they did.
A few days later, they both died from organ failure after eating a basketful of poisonous mushrooms.
The moral of the story was that children’s story books and films are, among other things, supposed to introduce the danger of the world they live in with subtle warnings. This fact seems to have been lost on the angry campaigners lambasting the new Peter Rabbit movie for “allergy bullying” because of a scene in which a fictional gang of cartoon rabbits throws a blackberry into the mouth of a human nemesis, knowing he has an allergy and forcing him to use an EpiPen. Sony Pictures had to apologise for “making light of the issue”.
Far worse things happen in pre-watershed soap operas without threat of a boycott. Much more terrifying things are covered in daily news bulletins, and that’s before we even get to the viciousness that exists in video games.
This is an outrage so outrageous that I spent the week convinced it was all just a clever parody. I dread to think how the mollycoddled youth of today will cope when they come face to face with the real world. Won’t someone think of the children?
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