Winnie the Pooh Banned for being “half naked” and having “dubious sexuality”
If you are going to Poland anytime soon, then you will have a hard time trying to find Winnie the Pooh toys.
Polish Town bans Winnie the Pooh for being half-naked, and inappropriate for children. According to reports, the lawmakers in the small town of Tuszyn, Poland have voted to ban the honey-loving character from representing a playground, due to the bear’s lack of a clear gender identity and allegedly increasing the chances of kids going pants-less.
Official at a council meeting claimed that Winnie the Pooh is of “dubious sexuality” and is “inappropriately dressed” to be around children, given that the bear is “half naked.”
“The problem with that bear is it doesn’t have a complete wardrobe,” said council person Ryszard Cichy, 46. “It is half-naked, which is wholly inappropriate for children.”
Another official said that Pooh Bear “doesn’t wear underpants because it doesn’t have a sex. It’s a hermaphrodite.”
Council person Hanna Jachimska criticized Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne for having “cut his [Pooh’s] testicles off with a razor blade because he had a problem with his identity.”
This is not the first time a male character was banned due to being unmanly or feminine. Previously, lawmakers wanted to ban the Teletubbies. American televangelist and conservative pundit Jerry Falwell claimed in 1999 that Tinky Winky, one of the Teletubbies, was a homosexual role model for children. Falwell based this conclusion on the character’s purple colour and triangular antenna; both the colour purple and the triangle are sometimes used as symbols of the Gay Pride movement. In addition, Spongebob Squarepants was labled as a gay character and was banned from Ukraine.
Spongebob, who lives in an underwater pineapple with pink snail Gary and receives driving lessons from Mrs Puff, has been popular with the gay community since his inception in 1999. However, he was described as “asexual” by creator Stephen Hillenburg in 2002, who said his popularity was merely down to Spongebob’s inclusive attitude. [via]
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