Rastamouse Controversy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087221/Rastamouse-complained-childrens-TV-sparking-racism-row.html

A television series about crime-busting Rastafarian mice on the BBC was the most complained about children's programme last year, it has been revealed.
Rastamouse attracted more than 200 complaints because of the way it 'stereotyped black people' and because of the 'patois' language used by the Jamaican mouse characters.
The CBeebies show, which has run for two series, attracted 13 complaints when the first episode was aired last January. There have since been 200 further complaints.

Stereotypes: The BBC show Rastamouse attracted more than 200 complaints last year

The BBC has defended the Bafta-nominated show, which features an all-mouse reggae band - Rastamouse and Da Easy Crew.
The puppet mouse spreads love and respect as leader of the Easycrew.
He uses patois language - and phrases such as 'me wan go' for 'I want to go' and 'wagwan' for 'what's going on?'.
The CBeebies series is aimed at children under six.
Parents have complained on Mumsnet that children using the same language as the mice could be accused of racism.
One Mumsnet user, TinyD4ncer, asked fellow users for advice on whether to stop their child watching the programme, posting: 'I dont want my DD to talk this way. Do you think I should stop her watching it?

BAD LANGUAGE OR GOOD FUN? RASTAMOUSE PATOIS

'Wa'gwan' - What's going on
'Tings is ruff' - Things are bad
'Make a bad ting good' - Making the best of a bad situation
'Irie'  - Jamaican word meaning 'to be at total peace with your current state of being'
'Me tink me know who de t’ieving mouse may be' - I think I know who the thieveing mouse is.

'The thing I'm most worried about is her knowing/saying the words like 'rasta'.
'(I) Suppose what I'm saying is if my white child walked up to your Caribbean/Black etc child and said this, what would you feel - or nothing? - as I wouldn't want to walk away with a black eye?'
One user leaving a comment on MailOnline said: 'Frankly this programme is insulting because it uses a lazy stereotype.

'Most educated black people in this country who were born here speak the same as their white peers - some of us have cockney accents, others have RP accents. I am black and have an RP accent as I was the product of private schooling, university etc.

'Children need to lean to speak English properly and I do not understand why having this character would assist that process.
'If the programme makers want to introduce more diversity why not have a black character who speaks like a normal British born black person instead of a character that has a Jamaican accent.

'Surely this makes sense given that we are not living in Jamaica.'
A BBC spokeswoman said nine out of ten complaints had been about the language spoken by the characters.
She said: 'This was one of our most popular children's programmes last year.

Comments:

As this article is from the daily mail it is expected to be unbiased, however the lexis used such as ‘the BBC defended this Bafta-award winning show’ suggests defence against the ‘200 complaints’ by creating links between well respected organizations like the BBC and emphasising its achievements. It creates a semantic field of ‘love’ and ‘respect’ around the show to combat the negative comments, also portraying the ‘crime-fighting’ theme to go against the stereotype expressed by this arguably racist commenter – ‘'Frankly this programme is insulting because it uses a lazy stereotype’ who also believes that exposure to the accent will decrease their child’s education ‘'I don’t want my DD to talk this way.’ This suggests that the author of the article, while trying to remain unbiased is also trying to suppress the negativity surrounding the show, but while informing the audience. The audience is positioned to agree with the writer, who tries to make the controversy seem absurd while making a point about the audience of the show ‘The CBeebies series is aimed at children under six,’ which contrasts with the views of racism with that of innocent children, suggesting that it is just a program to entertain to children and exposure to accents and dialects like Jamaican Creole is important for cultural education. 

BBC Voices Poll - November 2004

 

Aims and methodology:

To find out how people in Britain felt about accents in the U.K. They conducted an internet survey of 5000 people to find this out, using celebrities that speak the accents as representatives. The final sample yielded 5,010 respondents (15+) who completed the entire survey. The final sample nationally was 49:51 Male : Female. There was a 'middle age spread' in the sample, with 25-64s proportionally over-represented and 15-24s and the 65+ under-represented. Social Class data was not collected. 97% of the whole sample said that English was their first language. 26% of the overall sample said they spoke at least one language as well as English.

Findings and analysis:

Sean Connery with his Edinburgh accent came out on top, followed by Trevor McDonald with a Trinidadian accent. Pierce Brosnan with his Irish and slight American accent also scored high up on the list. People enjoy listening to accents local to their own, for example Scots said they prefer Ewan McGregor's Perthshire accent, the English found Hugh Grant's accent, people in Wales preferred listening to Welsh actor Richard Burton and newsreader Huw Edwards, while those in Northern Ireland found Terry Wogan's Limerick accent preferable.
The most wished-for accent is a Standard English accent, but 7% said they would rather have a Southern Irish accent (12% in Northern Ireland).
59% people in the survey wished at least occasionally that they had a different accent.
Throughout the country, people voted "an accent identical to your own" as one of their favourite accents.
95% of people in Northern Ireland, 79% in Wales and 87% in Scotland think of themselves as having at least a moderately strong accent. Only 63% in the east of England and 64% in the south think their accent is moderately strong. Generally people in the north and west of the UK identify with "having an accent" more than those in the south-east.

Conclusions:

People like accents local to their own.
Scottish accents are consistently voted as most pleasurable to listen to by the general public.
Stereotypes and associations have a strong link when it comes to attitudes towards accents.

Evaluation:

The use of celebrities to rate accents can bring in bias, especially as a conclusion drawn from the survey is that people prefer accents local to their own, for example an anomaly in the results shown that Northern Irish participants were the only group who found Ian Paisley's voice acceptable - his was voted 'least pleasant' by all other areas of the UK.