Pre-school animation ‘Ridley Jones’: character comes out as NB (ffs)

[tiktok]

I’ve just seen the latest episode of the Netflix pre-school animation ‘Ridley Jones’. In ‘Happy Herd Day’ the bison character Fred comes out to his grannie as ‘non binary’…’and I use they/them pronouns’. 🙄

I’m not kidding.

This is for ages 2-5.

Bison Fred is all discombulated and sad when his grannie calls him ‘Winifred’ and he decides with his friends’ encouragement that he can only be himself (oops, themself..) if he tells her he’s not her granddaughter any more, and he’s now Fred. Non-binary Fred, with they/them pronouns.

Naturally, things are much better when Fred is ‘out’ & ‘they’ can lead a charge of bison cheerfully at last. Hurrah. 😡

The animators are moaning on Twitter that this fabulous breakthrough (the first non-binary character in a pre-school show) is not getting the usual Netflix marketing. Well, boohoohoo.

Little kids should not be introduced to the concept of pronouns & non-binary - why label them & change their pronouns at this early age?

You can watch this bullshit (or bison shit) yourselves if you have Netflix. It’s a real shame, as the animation is good quality, and Ridley Jones is an adventurous, courageous girl (until she comes out as trans I suppose 🙄).

I will not be tuning in. Not adding to their viewing figures.

We've seen elsewhere that this ideology is being pushed on increasingly younger children. Drip, drip effect so by the time they are teens they are fully indoctrinated.

@raspberrywine It is shocking anyone would think it suitable for pre-schoolers. It’s a very popular series…..and yes, it is like indoctrination.

This is absolutely bonkers. My kids will no longer be watching

Insanity... Preschoolers have enough trouble with pro-nouns as it is ( speech development wise) Way to make the whole thing even more confusing!

We watch this quite a lot and actually saw this episode, I did roll my eyes but not much more.

Grooming.

This is madness and indoctrination, totally agree.

And apologies for the derail here but tiktok?! Are you THE tiktok of the breastfeeding board? You helped me a lot when my teenagers were babies! I feel like I've just bumped into an old family friend.

Sorry, as you were.

Crap ds watches occasionally. Will steer away

Utterly shit for young girls.

That they can't be brave and adventurous and an actual girl.

Ah sorry it's the boy - still stands. Why can't boys be kind?

It's still shit for girls as they're told that boys are sort of girls too.

@Appleypie yep, it’s still me😀. It’s not my fault my handle became the name of a well-known social media platform 🤣

@WarriorN Fred was a girl…name of Winifred. She was her grandma Dottie’s granddaughter. But - who knows why? - Winifred decided she didn’t feel right as a girl. So she changed her name to Fred, called herself non binary and selected they/them pronouns.

Eye rolls all round. It’s awful that being a girl was not good enough for Winifred. What message does that send to girls?

Most adults have the skills and understanding to critique this nonsense - which is why children are so relentlessly targeted - so that there's a younger generation coming through without the critical thinking to understand the difference between facts and fantasy.
Pushing this stuff at such young children is literally grooming them to believe that sex differences don't exist.

So my original comment stands

This is enraging and off the list in our house now then

Little kids - and this animation is targetted at under 6s - simply accept that Fred is neither a boy or a girl. The creators think this is wonderful - the message just slides by, with no critique 😡

One of the writers has a thread on Twitter with screenshots and clips, if you can’t access the whole episode.
Here

One of the showrunners is on Twitter being upset that Netflix aren't promoting the show.

@IvyTwines yes….director/producer is trans, too, and is clearly on a mission to ‘educate’ pre-schoolers in their ideology. Only replies saying how marvellous it all is are permitted to stay - all others are hidden (replies can’t be deleted and remain on their posters’ timelines, but are invisible on the thread). 😡

Oh fucks sake. I really liked watching this with my two DDs.

@SirSamVimesCityWatch just omit that episode. I don’t think there are any others which are as overtly propagandist as this one. There are no more series forthcoming as far as I can tell. The framework of the stories is great & Ridley is adventurous and creative. It’s such a shame the production team think their role is to teach little kids about gender 🙄

We watch this on occasion so thanks for the heads up. No way would I put this on for DCs.

Problem is it's been one I've been happy to just put on and let them run through a few episodes back to back while I get on with other stuff. Now I'm going to have to actively police it so they don't watch that one.

Unless there's a way to "delete" from the playlist, so to speak? But I don't think you get that level of control on Netflix.

@SirSamVimesCityWatch maybe not....start back at series 1 and it will take a while to get to series 5, may be the answer.

Naturally, things are much better when Fred is ‘out’ & ‘they’ can lead a charge of bison cheerfully at last. Hurrah. 😡

Yes hugely "progressive" when it comes to women's rights....

You only get to "lead" when you are/identify as male.

I honestly can't fathom how people can not see this bull or rather bisonshit for what it is.

So fucking sexist