Punch and Judy - WTF?

[AnnaQuayRules]

I've just been to a village fete. Lovely traditional event with a Punch and Judy show. I remember P&J from my childhood 50 years ago, and know it involved domestic violence played for laughs, but assumed the story had been updated for modern times.

Apparently not. Punch is still beating up Judy, and all the children were laughing along with it.

I feel it's completely inappropriate in this day and age, and sending very dodgy messages about domestic abuse. However someone I was chatting to thought I was being ridiculously "woke" about it.

So
YABU - it's just a traditional kids shoe and it's fine because Mr P gets arrested
YANBU - it's ridiculous it's still using this story line

In the voice of Brian Connolly, It’s a puppetttttttt!

Yet we allow kids to play computer games which depict violence?

As the popular Mumsnet phrase goes, 'I really couldn't get worked up about this...'

😆

You will see far more violence in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. They literally knock the holy crap out of each other 🤣🤣

@Dollymylove I agree, but they are not pretending to be humans.

Tom and Jerry are regarded as problematic more for racial stereotyping than cartoon violence these days (mainly the 'mammy' figure of Tom's human mum) - the DVD box set has an introduction given by Whoopi Goldberg giving appropriate context to explain this to viewers.

I’ve always detested P&J since seeing it as a child. Children react differently, some see silly play, others a horrible man and violence.

They can see that it’s old-fashioned heritage weirdness too. No child is going to mistake that for educational content. So that’s the way I’d explain it if needed - an historic thing from hundreds of years ago that some people feel nostalgic about at beaches and fairs.