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Original poster

Octonauts and the sea sponge

59 replies

Octopop · 13/05/2019 20:24

Would I be nuts to complain to the BBC about this episode?

It has a (female voiced) sea sponge that has a whale louse inside it that is making it feel ill.

Even though the Octonauts know the whale louse is making the sea sponge ill, they don’t remove it until they can find a whale to put it on.

Apparently the whale louse does not harm the whale.

I am really not happy with perpetuating the ‘self-sacrificing’ nature of women. The whale louse should have been removed as soon as they knew it was harming the sea sponge.

On a scale of 1-10, how mad am I?

OP posts:
2BthatUnnoticed · 13/05/2019 22:51

Also aren’t the three male characters the stars of the show, while the two females are just supporting roles? Complain OP, you know you want to Grin

Ohyesiam · 13/05/2019 22:40

Peso is a drip, I’m glad he’s a he. It’s been a long time, but the carrot toting engineer is female, and so
Is the tech bod as far as I remember.
It could be worse.
If it were drivel, the gender balance would have annoyed me, but it’s so informative and happy I forgave it.

I thought of octonauts today for the first time in years when the Mariana (?) tTrench was on radio 4. And now here.

Greyworm · 13/05/2019 22:38

11 with octonauts though. I have noticed this. And the sky thing. And mayor goodway being rubbish.

Greyworm · 13/05/2019 22:36

I've noticed that the bed time hour has only male narrators. Clangers, abney and teal and in the night garden (but they might have changed abney and teal?) I always found that a bit weird. The new on 'moon and me' has a female narrator but that finishes at 6pm.

ScrimshawTheSecond · 13/05/2019 22:32

Can we petition for a majority-female Octonauts?

JohnWolfenstein · 13/05/2019 22:19

If anything having a male character i.e. Peso, as the medic/nurse/carer is better as it's gender non-conforming. I agree with a pp Captain Barnacles should be female if anyone. The female characters also have quite non stereotypical roles, Tweek is the mechanic and inventor of the GUPs and Dashi is the IT tech bod.

2BthatUnnoticed · 13/05/2019 22:14

You’re at 11, and I’m with you. Complain and keep us posted!

FeminismandWomensFights · 13/05/2019 22:10

And don’t get me started on Andy’s Prehistoric sex stereotypes— sorry, Adventures

Namelessinseattle · 13/05/2019 21:57

You have completely out done your point by suggesting peso be female.

TulipsTulipsTulips · 13/05/2019 21:55

I’m not familiar with this episode but generally find it so annoying that kids programs often conform to the 3 males to 1 female ratio of characters!

DpWm · 13/05/2019 21:52

I wish I'd seen this episode then I could work out if I'm to be outraged or not.

tilder · 13/05/2019 21:51

OhHolyJesus totally agree about paw patrol.

The brain washing starts early.

tilder · 13/05/2019 21:44

Maybe Peso is gender non conforming

Original poster
Octopop · 13/05/2019 21:30

I suppose I wanted Peso to be female because that would be the easiest to change. He doesn't wear any clothes so you can't tell that way, and the voice is pretty androgenous. So when I wasn't paying too much attention, at the beginning, I tried to speak about him as female when my children were little to even out the gender balance. That was never going to work with Captain Barnacles, mainly because of the voice, although the clothes are fairly masculine too.

OP posts:
OhHolyJesus · 13/05/2019 21:16

I'm also mad then. I'm annoyed that Sky was the only female on Paw Patrol until Everest turned up, and she's the smallest and quite annoying...and Mayor Goodway is a useless tool who is obsessed with her pet chicken. Sky can at least fly though but why does she have to wear pink?

tilder · 13/05/2019 21:12

Why should Peso be female? Why not the Captain?

I love octonauts in many ways. Brilliant to bring science to children like that. Shows some of the amazing, bonkers things that happen in the natural world.

But yes I do agree. White middle class males lead the show.

PerpetualStudent · 13/05/2019 21:06

I have found my people! I get annoyed that the captain and the professor are both male and have RP accents, while there’s only diversity amongst the less senior crew members.

Stylemebabyonemoretime · 13/05/2019 21:02

I have not seen or zoned out for that episode but I entirely agree about the main characters all being male and the ratio of male to female characters are so unequal.

Cattenberg · 13/05/2019 21:02

I did appreciate the Scouse walruses in one episode. Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!

Original poster
Octopop · 13/05/2019 21:00

I think the whale louse is male. I am not 100 percent sure. It is transferred to a female sperm whale. And given Wikipedia describes it as a parasite, albeit reasonably benign, I am not at all sure the whale (who wasn’t told about it) would be too happy either.

Glad I name changed. I will probably not write in about this one!

OP posts:
Original poster
Octopop · 13/05/2019 20:57

It was not made at all clear that the whale louse would actually die outside the sea sponge. And at the very least the sea sponge (which was shown getting sicker) should have been given the option of removal.

I agree about the lack of female characters. Peso should be female I think.

OP posts:
BreakWindandFire · 13/05/2019 20:55

Octonauts bothers me because of the feudal nature of the relationship of the 'nauts with their slave-carrots.

Biscuit
RiddleyW · 13/05/2019 20:52

It’s quite an interesting thought. I haven’t seen that one though, I’ll seek it out and watch.

PaintBySticker · 13/05/2019 20:46

I agree there is an important point to be made about female characters in Octonauts and more widely in children’s tv programmes. I don’t think this is the point though.

HappyPunky · 13/05/2019 20:41

Octonauts bothers me because one of the three main characters should be female. The two female ones are secondary characters and I expect more from cbeebies so even though it sounds a bit mad it sounds like a symptom of how they view women.