The core of pretend playing, is pretending. Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens. I agree that maybe Bluey didn't actually mean to hurt her dad - but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it. Because the dad is portrayed as a (in this episode - literal) punch bag who has to accept everything the kids do. No valuable lesson was shown or taught here.
> but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it.
I did not interpret Bandit feeling any material amount of pain in the scene. More like feigning it for the kids’ entertainment. Also, it was Bingo that punched him (the 4 year old).
> Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens.
What would you like to happen? I’m not sure I understand here. I’m completely ok with Bluey’s dad not retaliating. Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.
No one said anything about retaliating - a simple "look you hurt dad, you need to be careful" would have been 100% sufficient, and as another comment said - it would have been a nice counter lesson to one of the previous episodes about rough play.
>>Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.
Sure - but as a dad you are also responsible for making sure your child understands that hurting other people is not ok, and they shouldn't do it again, pretend play or not.
Bluey is firmly in the category of shows for 2-4 year olds, they have to be educational at this point, I'm sorry but that's my firm stance as a parent. There will be plenty of time for pure entertainment where bad behaviour doesn't get corrected later - at this stage a 3 year old can't tell good from wrong, and the message the show sends categorically cannot be "let's punch dad in the stomach because it's funny".
Look at Peppa pig(which has a whole host of its own issues, but whatever) - any time Peppa and her brother do something wrong they get an explanation why it was wrong, how it could have hurt or made someone else sad, they apologise and sing/dance about it - most of the time it teaches a good lesson while still being amusing for little kids.
Bluey and her sister are 6 and 4 years old at the start of the show, now 7 and 5. I don’t think the show is made with 2 year olds in mind. Maybe 3.5 and up, but a lot of the concepts are for the 5+ kids in my opinion.
Good children's programming often presents characters somewhat older (in affect, if not truly in age, e.g. Big Bird) than the target audience, to act as role models. You don't want a typical 3-year-old to look to a typical 3-year-old as an example for what to aspire to, you want them to look at well-developing 4-, 5-, and 6-year olds. This works well anyway, since children often look up to older kids and are interested in what they get up to.
Sure, but the content of Bluey is not going to understandable to a 2 year old. I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts, but 3.5 to be safe.
In my experience, below 3.5 or so, more sing song-y and basic repetitious stuff is digestible. Bluey episodes have a plot and lots of dialogue that has to be followed.
>> I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts
My son is 2.5 and he absolutely understands what's happening in cartoons. He will comment on action saying clear things like "daddy he hit him in the head!" And then you have to pause it and actually explain it's not nice and you shouldn't do that. I wish shows clearly aimed at small children didn't have those moments.
That is my point. Bluey’s stories may require showing a bad action, but a too young toddler will not have the capability to understand the broader context and resolution.
My opinion anyway.