Peppa Pig has been all over our newsfeeds lately with Mummy Pig’s pregnancy, but it has sparked debate this is covering something subliminally sinister.
The biggest shock of the new edition to these announcements was that Pig is actually their surname, but the pregnancy and birth was deemed newsworthy by every major UK outlet. However it wasn’t all muddy puddles and picnics, as some believed that the immense news coverage was a national distraction.
From the sheer amount of news coverage, you could assume that Evie is a new royal or Kardashian, but she hails from the humble (and fictional) Pig family.
Is there a chance that this potential national treasure’s cartoon creation was really sinister, or is the news just clutching at straws or any vaguely positive news to cheer the country up?
Some are circulating the fairly straightforward conspiracy theory that this is orchestrated to distract the nation from political bad news and current events, and throw our focus to something more trivial and harmless. This could be true, as debate has been diverted from arguably more pressing, dare I say newsworthy topics, and onto the fictional piglet’s birth instead. Should interview opportunities have been taken up on these occasions by people more worthy of a platform? Is Mummy Pig really who we need behind the news desk? And should we be questioning why she actually was?
Jane Fleming, who was instantly suspicious of the coverage, thinks so. “With the world in the state it is in, I think it’s inconceivable that we’re spending time and resources on this,” she said. “If the kids want to see their favourite characters and news on them, then they can turn on those cartoons, but now we’re all talking about Mummy Pig instead of the genuine atrocities happening around us, it’s absurd.”
Others think that there is an even more suspicious undertone to the announcements and that this publicity could be a way to increase birth rates. Stay with me.
Last week, UK Parliament Post published a research briefing titled ‘Impacts of birthrate decline,’ and it details growing concerns about a number of issues, including the size of future workforces. Everyone can agree the Mummy Pig news making headlines multiple times on every news outlet (the latest being Daddy Pig’s interview on Good Morning Britain just yesterday) is a tad peculiar, even if it’s being put down to just a bit of whimsical promotion for kids, so many took to social media to explore what the true intent behind the promo was.
Charlotte Hooks, an influencer and feminist who analyses paradigm shifts, with over 1.7 million Tik Tok likes, described it as a ‘political stunt’. “When it was announced on the news, initially I thought it’s weird it’s being announced on national TV and I just kind of brushed it off and assumed it was like a marketing ploy,” she said. “But then when I was seeing it more and more, and saw a lot of other people making videos saying this is really weird, I started thinking ‘why have they put this on the news?'”
Charlotte sees Mummy Pig’s attention as a politicised move that is intertwined with a shifting culture towards more conservatism, which may sound crazy, but the timing is all a bit perfect. “Currently there’s a very evident shift towards more traditional gender roles and women kind of being mothers and homemakers is being promoted more and more,” she says. “And there is also definitely concern around a decrease in birth rates, most countries around the world do want people to have more children and it is no coincidence that we’re seeing these big stunts encouraging the idea of having kids.”
Charlotte thinks that if there is a governmental push for people to start having more kids, then that should be presented to us more openly. “I think rather than trying to manipulate people and use subliminal messaging like that, the issues as to why people aren’t having children so much should be addressed,” she said. “They’ve targeted this Mummy Pig stuff specifically, in terms of audience and timing, none of it is coincidence and we’d be naïve to think it is.”
Charlotte isn’t the only one who believes that the Mummy Pig news is orchestrated to encourage both a generation of girls to aspire to start families and engage parents in the idea of having more children.
“I believe it’s actually aimed at the little girls watching,” another commenter said. “Nowadays, we tend to tell girls they can be whatever they want, I haven’t heard ‘being a mum’ as a dream job in years.”
Now I don’t know how glamorous or romanticised the Pig family seems to be and the announcement of Evie Pig’s birth didn’t exactly make me broody, but who knows, maybe down the line we’ll see a baby boom dating back to right now. Years down the line we’ll have to keep an eye out for a crazy boom of kids born on the back of Peppa Pig propaganda.
