Mumsnet Talk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/ 8293129/Rastamouse-CBeebies-preview.html

hi,my son watched this for the first time today aged 3,n wen it finished in a very matter of fact voice,he said,'well,i thoroughly enjoyed that'.lol,so its gets my vote x

i absolutely love it. i saw the books some time ago, but it took a stop motion animation to get me hooked. since i was a kid i've loved stop motion - postman pat, the magic roundabout etc - just beautiful for kids to watch.

I've just googled stop motion animation

We've just discovered Rastamouse through our youngest- aged 14!

He thought we'd be interested as DH has dreadlocks but we all loved it and have unanimously voted to watch it regularly

no can't stand it .We don't know any black people let alone rastafarians so my DC can't identify with it at all, and I certainly don't want them talking like that!

princessparty - are you being serious?!

DS (4.6yo) loves it. I thought it was brilliant too. So good infact we sat through 3 episodes on iPlayer twice this pm.

Princess

Nice thread, semi. You made a bad ting good.

Tokenistic and horrible. Never even heard of it till this thread so checked it out on youtube. My kid is going to be part Jamaican and will not be watching that, thats for sure. My DP is "confused" about it at best, can't wait to show it to my FIL and the other Jamaican relatives.

Sorry guys, don't mean to be a party pooper, if you like it then fair enough. At least its a step forward I suppose.

As for Princess, I would say TROLL.

DD is half Jamaican, me being the white parent, fuckwit of an ex has never bothered so I think it's bloody brilliant that a programme like this is on mainstream children's television.

interesting LDNmummy. What is it about it that you think is horrible?

I think it's great to hear an accent on cBeebies that isn't generic drama school english (Nina and neurons being exception)

Well for a start it is very insulting toward the rastafari religion even. Rastafari is as legitimate a religion as any other and it is being boiled down into a ceebeebies show full of stereotypes of the Jamaican culture.

The fact that AnnaFalactic sees this as a good way of relating her childs culture to her from a young age is also very worrying IMO. Sorry Anna, I know it must be tough with the dad not around to provide cultural reference points but this show is full of misrepresentations and infantilizing a culture, boiling it down to something simple, comprised of simplistic stereotypes.

Maybe I need to watch more of it but what I have seen was not impressive. Although, as I said, it is still a step forward.

What's troll-like about wanting kids to be taught to speak properly

Although I totally agree with you AnyFuleKno, would be nice to have more diversity in childrens programs. And I hope I didn't seem too negative, I get why it is liked from an outside perspective.

What exactly is "speaking properly"?

The queens english?

well 'ting' for thing is clearly not standard English is it?

And what on earth is "standard english"?

we live in a very very mixed race/culture area of london neither dd nor dp (australian) can understand a word of it! Dd watched it the other day and asked if they were speaking english. Personally i find it abit stereotypey (i know thats not a real word)

And whats wrong with children being exposed to more than one language or way of speaking a language?

Why would they necessarily end up speaking that way just because it is shown on a childrens programme?

There is nothing wrong with children being exposed to other cultures, but there is not much point making a tv program that most children can't understand

Nancy I was talking to Princessparty.

Oh sorry, unless you were addressing the post I made to her. Sometimes I get confused with all the back and forth on these threads

The accents on the show are not strong at all. But then everyone is different, what they are saying might not be so obvious at first.

My grandson introduced me to this yesterday LOL - its fantastic. He is 2 and a half.....he kept saying 'Andma, Andma, watch this - me woves it!!!' We all ended up ROFL....Rastamouse sounds like Shaggy!!!

Remember when DS4 was little (he is now 13) and he adored Tellytubbies - everybody kept saying how wrong it was and how children would copy how they talked....well he DID copy them and it was funny.

So many other things to fret and worry about - this is just good fun.

Absolute rubbish - switched over after after a couple of minutes!!

Childrens programmes that they cant understand...

Bill and Ben.
Waybuloo.
Tellytubbies.
In The Night Garden.
And numerous others that I cant think of because I havent had my daily cup of caffiene yet.

What makes this one any different?

OH NO They are Rastas!!

Quick turn off the telly cant have my kids saying "ting"
Much rather have them saying "Eh Oh" and other such nonsense.

Ferret-Exactly my point.The above programmes have been roundly ctiticised by educationalists because the characters do not speak properly.

I hope it's on over the weekend so I can catch it.

"""Tokenistic and horrible.""""

Here here. My sentiments exactly. And embarrassing to boot.

I love it. I belly laughed all the way through it. Mostly because it reminds me of the middle class white pot heads I went to school with in Surrey who all spoke like that.

Jesus, I'm not sitting DD down in front of the tv and saying "Here is an accurate representation of the whole Jamaican culture darling, isn't it wonderful, life is just like that where your Daddy is from!"

It's just good to be able to say "oh look, it's rasta mouse, he's Jamaican like you are" and it's on mainstream children's television - it is so rare to find anything mainstream that even makes reference to Jamaica, let alone a whole programme made up of entirely Jamaican characters!

DD isn't suddenly going to start talking with a Jamaican accent, but it's good for her to hear one.

Now, I get the piss taken out of me because I am so fussy about grammar and pronunciation, I'm always correcting DD, and she learns.
My friend thinks it's hilarious to get DD in the habit of saying 'paff, baff, laff' etc instead of 'path, bath and laugh', which is one of my pet hates.

But I really don't have an issue with children hearing Jamaican accents on television. If it was a pakistani, south african or even a bloody geordie accent, would you be complaining then? I doubt it very much!

Well I for one find Postman Pat to be a gross misrepresentation of rural life, so I'm going to boycott it.

does everything have to be absolutly correct to the t? whats wrong with your child using the word ting?

i think its funny, its not meant to be an accurate representation of a certain type of person, i mean its a talking mouse.

why has no one complained that mice dont actually speak english instead?

whoever said they dont know any black people? are you for real? i feel for you and your children if you are that socially segregagated from normal life

And hang on - Irish people say 'ting' aswell, just how they pronounce it, it's their accent.

Oh, but they aren't stereotyped as all being red stripe drinking, weed smoking rasta's are they?

no but they are often depicted in other negative ways

But why do the girl mice wear skirts and yet the boy mice don't wear pants?

KnittedBreast - I know they are, but there wouldn't be any complaints about mice with a thick Irish accent would there?!

'"""But why do the girl mice wear skirts and yet the boy mice don't wear pants?"""

Must be living under a patriarchally oppressive regime...
A female rodents genitalia is publicly censurable but not the menz mices bits...oh no...they can go sky-clad. (I'm writing a letter of complaint about this. If any of you want the template just ask)

Oi Aunty Beeb - Rasta character = good, inclusive, all-embracing etc. Female rodents in restrictive garb = sexist bollox. Get it sorted. Ffs.

DH is Jamaican, and I think he likes it more than DD does! I've bought one of the books so he can do the bed-time story without having to put any effort in for the voices.

Yes it's simplistic and this might lead to some stereotypes in there, but it's a TV show for pre-school children so I kind of expect a bit of that. If someone were to ask me to decribe the "stereotypical" rasta, it certainly wouldn't be someone whizzing about on a skateboard solving mysteries.

As for my in-laws living in Jamaica, I think they'd be really proud that their small nation has had such an impact on British culture.

I think it's nice that my daughter can watch a show where the characters sound a bit like her Dad and his family. I've obviously got no hope of her growing up speaking "proper" English

Something tells me that this will inordinately appeal to the white, middle-class "progressive" parents. (more so than the minorities, which its aimed at)

I think it's cute, dd adores it already and sings the theme tune, what's not to like?
It pisses on boring crap like Waybuloo (another one with 'incorrect' language)!

Interesting LDN and Harpy,
My DH told me about this yesterday. He thought it was off too (he's white, I'm mixed race) and was quite disappointed that this was the best the BBC could come up as a programme referencing black people and culture. Sounds as though DS will not be watching it again. I think you may be right that white middle-class progressives will like it most.

saying 'paff, baff, laff' etc instead of 'path, bath and laugh', which is one of my pet hates.
Seriously? The short vowel isn't wrong, it is a regional variation.

I think you seem to be overthinking it,it's a kids show ffs,if they had geordie accents and it was called geordie mouse would you still be moaning that it was full of stereotypes I doubt it.My kids are jamaican and they love it

I love it. We don't know anyone Jamaican (DD's grandfather is Guyanese but doesn't have much of an accent) but so far DD hasn't had any trouble understanding what's going on. She's already picking up a fine American accent from Bear in the Big Blue Sodding House, so why not Jamaican as well?

It's not about the accents in our house we just find the whole programme rubbish and Rasta mice a bit naff.

DD loves it and is at this very moment running round singing "Give It Up" as she tries to remember the theme song. She could watch Rastamouse and Octonauts all day, easily.

i am struggling to think of any other kids show where the characters have a really thick accent.A very light accent maybe but not your full on Glaswegian or Geordie.

olduninBoden - Driver Dan's story train, the camel is a proper brummy and the dinosaur is very geordie.

And Tinga tinga tales, the animals had african accents.

Big and Small were brummie because Lenny Henry was doing the voices.

DS got bored after 2 minutes and asked me to put shaun the sheep on.

all I really need to know really.

There are quite a lot of regional accents of one kind or another on CBeebies. They probably don't seem like strong accents to people who live in those particular regions but I'm guessing that the Jamaican accents in Rastamouse also wouldn't seem particularly strong to those who come from that part of the world. Plus there are tons and tons of American accents on other channels. Maybe those don't sound strong because we are so used to hearing them?

"Ferret-Exactly my point.The above programmes have been roundly ctiticised by educationalists because the characters do not speak properly."

princess party - hang on a minute - those programmes may have been "roundly criticised", but not by a majority of educationalists I'm certain. Ann Wood, who made the Teletubbies and Night Garden, is a speech and language therapist, (as am I), and the speech/language used within those programmes is entirely appropriate for the target audience. Brilliantly made programmes in my opinion.

We love it in our house. I hadn't thought about insulting rastas - so will ask the rastaman my daughter and I see everyday on our way to school....but hold on postman pat, do postmens get offended? OK so I know that's a profession and not a religion, but you 'catch my drift'? Oh no - rastamouse speak! I don't think it will be just small kids watching it - I personally can see whole families (especially first and second generation black) watching rastamouse. the fact that it is on cbeebies might just be limiting - it probably should be on CBBC! It is the first time ever that I have heard anyone in a stop motion show speak with a proper Jamaican accent - my mum came to the UK 55 years ago - and so for the first time in over half a century Cbeebies have made something that I connect to at the deepest level. I want to see rastamouse in schools, rastamouse everywhere. I love rastamouse!

I disagree that it will appeal to white middle class progressive parents....if we flip this on its head - what does that mean about charlie and lola? How do you think black/minority parents view that? ....Well in fact we love it in our house too. Children see colour, it's a fact! They also need to hear colour too - again if that makes sense. 'Listen with your eyes, listen with your eyes and sing everything you see' - we all know that lyrice - and now finally it's started to make sense. Rastamouse rules!

the writer of rastamouse - michael de souza is in fact a rasta - so will take the rap for offending rastas everywhere!! if a language therapist says its spot on then only reinforces what i thought. that this was a great step forward for the bbc - ie broadcasting this - nb - not creating it - as i said above that's micheal and genevieve's accomplishment. maybe the bbc is making up for lost time - i certainly would have welcomed this 30+ years ago when i was a preschooler. but then we weren't big on sitting kids in front of the tv like we are today - with dedicated channels. ...i will be fan of rastamouse forever and hope that it has the long life it deserves

I am not offended by the Rasta mice,it's the blinging rapper mouse that pisses me off! Why put in a character that visually represents a homophobic and misonagistic group of people?

not all rappers are created equal! that's a massive generalisation.

I like the programme. I like the story lines and the characters

BUT

I am at the stage of teaching son to say 'I' instead of his name or 'me'. This programme is not helping. Think it is good to teach children of other cultures etc but would be better if he watched it after he has mastered 'I'. Anyway, I am sure he will get it and this programme wont be the end of his English skills

Ds likes it and we like it too.

I can't believe people are taking rastamouse so seriously! Since when did children's programs need to make sense? It wasn't made for adults anyway so whether or not any of us enjoy it is totally irrelevant at the end of the day. It's a good natured cute program that has a positive message with some culture thrown in, what could possibly be the problem.....? People need to lighten up and stop being so over PC.

DS (3) LOVES it, especially the music. His favourite saying is now "YO" instead of hello and he is desperate to go on a jet-ski like Rastamouse. Don't really see what the problem is.

It's a sorry state of affairs if television should be completely responsible for educating children about understanding and tolerance of other cultures. That's where one may be forced to do some parenting. Sorry to break it to you...

Oh and by the way... I'm unlucky enough to live in an are without many ethnic minorities, I'm sorry to say that I've never even met a Rastafarian. It's odd then that I should be able to understand every word spoken on the programme, despite the heavy accents. That's why I don't really buy that others can't.

Mind you, I shouldn't be so harsh on you lesser mortals. It might all be down to my awesomely high intelligence, not to mention my startling good looks. ;)

to princess.i bet u would let your child watch telletubbies and crap like that...what u said about black people is bordering racism..sounds like you wouldnt have your kid mix with different races if you could help it...
open your eyes to something different princess..

u average person!!

I wouldn't say I dislike it but I don't really get what the fuss is about.

Zingzillas OTOH is shite. DD refuses to watch it.

Timmy Time and Octonauts are favourites here.

my little lad loves it so thats all that matters to me!!!!!!

Well my DD likes it. She likes the theme tune, she likes the way they speak.

We don't know anyone who speaks like that so she hasn't connected it with being black anyway.

Would it bother me if she did? Well no.

If she said "Mummy that man sounds like Rastamouse!" I would expect him to not be bothered either. And if he is, then he can blame the BBC