Sony Should Not Have To Apologize For The 'Peter Rabbit' Controversy

'Peter Rabbit'

There is a scene in Sony’s Peter Rabbit, which just opened with $25 million over its debut weekend, where our antihero (Peter Rabbit, voiced by James Corden) attacks his human nemesis (Mr. Thomas McGregor, played by Domhnall Gleeson) with a variety of fruits and vegetables, eventually tossing blackberries at him. Peter and his rabbit family know Mr. McGregor has a severe blackberry allergy, but they accidentally toss one right into the poor man’s mouth. McGregor quickly grabs an EpiPen and injects himself with the proper medication, ending the danger. To those who have merely heard about the scene or are attempting to create controversy, it may look like a punching-down moment aimed at those with food allergies. But it’s a key sequence in the arcs of its two main characters.

I personally enjoy that kind of specificity when it comes to creating fictional characters. It doesn’t really add anything to his character, but it’s a token detail to make McGregor a little more realistic. People have food allergies, there’s no reason fictional characters shouldn’t as well. For the specific arc of the movie, it’s a key moment in Peter and Thomas’s adversarial relationship. For the human, it’s part of what leads him to (justifiably) thrash his animal nemesis toward the end of the film. For Peter, it’s a key to his eventual realization that he is the villain of his own story.

While Peter Rabbit is the lead character, he is not the “good guy.” He is selfish, reckless and, when confronted with a human rival for Rose Byrne’s Bea (who the orphaned bunny has come to view as a surrogate mother), embarks on a crusade that culminates in mutual destruction. His awakening leads him to realize the error of his ways and selflessly embark on a journey to make things right for all parties. None of this is groundbreaking storytelling, and Peter Rabbit is not some new classic. But in order to sell the idea that Peter Rabbit is a flawed character who needs to be better, he has to act out in potentially unsympathetic ways before the film’s emotional climax.

But as (more-or-less) predicted by the movie itself, the hashtag #BoycottPeterRabbit has popped up on Twitter, with stories about folks offended and upset about the sequence propelling that narrative above any other discussions about the Sony Animation release. For better or worse, the studio has apologized, if only because that was the easiest course of action. The loud (and amplified by social media) outcries over this brief sequence is a sadly predictable result of a media and audience where the mere appearance of bad behavior from a fictional character is seen as endorsing that behavior. To the extent that these outrages affect the movie’s overall financial performance (that’s a case-by-case basis situation), what we see here is arguably uninformed outrage being elevated to the level of actual controversy.

We’ve seen this over and over again, from a Saturday Night Live sketch being deemed controversial by virtue of a handful of angry tweets to John Boyega having to defend himself for partying at the Notting Hill Carnival, a would-be controversy based on a single irate Twitter user. The ability for the online media to write stories headlined “SomeFolksAren’tHappyAboutXYZ” featuring a handful of tweets of unhappy social media users removes all responsibility from the would-be journalist to verify whether or not the outrage is justified or whether the Twitter or Facebook users represent anything resembling the consensus. Sure, some controversies are valid, but when you merely use the Twitter search option as your go-to research resource, you can find a dozen people upset about almost anything.

Getting back to the movie, even if parents of kids with food allergies are upset, I would argue they would not be if they saw the movie rather than just being outraged sans context. Apologies for the third-act spoilers, but McGregor becomes a better and happier person by the end of the film. He and Peter come to a mutual understanding and he (pardon the expression) gets the girl by the time the credits roll. That’s not exactly a terrible fate for kids with food allergies to witness for their would-be onscreen surrogate. Context matters in these situations, context for character and for plot. Yet it is that context that often gets ignored for the sake of clickbait outrage and jump-covering of the clickbait outrage.

I get why they did, but Sony shouldn't have apologized for pretty conventional storytelling in the service of a standard character arc. Yes, Peter uses Thomas’ allergy against him in a moment of cruelty, but the emergency is quickly solved (sans any melodrama or much in the way of comic reactions) and Peter’s behavior is not remotely viewed as positive or becoming of a true onscreen hero (Paddington would have not have approved). He’s a flawed onscreen hero acting in a poor way who later changes his behavior and becomes happier as a result. As a general rule, there are two kinds of character arcs in most popular fiction. We either have stories about people who undergo character growth as a result of their experiences and actions (IronMan or Peter Rabbit) or we have stories about people who are so good or bad that they affect everyone else around them (think Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Paddington 2). But to tell a variation on that first kind of story, you do need some latitude for the flawed characters to act in an imperfect fashion before their would-be enlightenment.

This wasn't a case of a sympathetic character being presented as bigoted or sexist. This wasn't even a case of a flawed character acting out while the would-be victims were just there to further the lead's journey since Mr. Food Allergy is himself a main character as well. If we allow would-be controversy about onscreen characters’ actions or dialogue to dominate the narrative around a film or a TV show when characters act badly even when those bad actions are punished or are on the path toward character growth, then we threaten the very concept of conflict and character development in mainstream entertainment.

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'Peter Rabbit'

There is a scene in Sony’s Peter Rabbit, which just opened with $25 million over its debut weekend, where our antihero (Peter Rabbit, voiced by James Corden) attacks his human nemesis (Mr. Thomas McGregor, played by Domhnall Gleeson) with a variety of fruits and vegetables, eventually tossing blackberries at him. Peter and his rabbit family know Mr. McGregor has a severe blackberry allergy, but they accidentally toss one right into the poor man’s mouth. McGregor quickly grabs an EpiPen and injects himself with the proper medication, ending the danger. To those who have merely heard about the scene or are attempting to create controversy, it may look like a punching-down moment aimed at those with food allergies. But it’s a key sequence in the arcs of its two main characters.

I personally enjoy that kind of specificity when it comes to creating fictional characters. It doesn’t really add anything to his character, but it’s a token detail to make McGregor a little more realistic. People have food allergies, there’s no reason fictional characters shouldn’t as well. For the specific arc of the movie, it’s a key moment in Peter and Thomas’s adversarial relationship. For the human, it’s part of what leads him to (justifiably) thrash his animal nemesis toward the end of the film. For Peter, it’s a key to his eventual realization that he is the villain of his own story.

While Peter Rabbit is the lead character, he is not the “good guy.” He is selfish, reckless and, when confronted with a human rival for Rose Byrne’s Bea (who the orphaned bunny has come to view as a surrogate mother), embarks on a crusade that culminates in mutual destruction. His awakening leads him to realize the error of his ways and selflessly embark on a journey to make things right for all parties. None of this is groundbreaking storytelling, and Peter Rabbit is not some new classic. But in order to sell the idea that Peter Rabbit is a flawed character who needs to be better, he has to act out in potentially unsympathetic ways before the film’s emotional climax.

But as (more-or-less) predicted by the movie itself, the hashtag #BoycottPeterRabbit has popped up on Twitter, with stories about folks offended and upset about the sequence propelling that narrative above any other discussions about the Sony Animation release. For better or worse, the studio has apologized, if only because that was the easiest course of action. The loud (and amplified by social media) outcries over this brief sequence is a sadly predictable result of a media and audience where the mere appearance of bad behavior from a fictional character is seen as endorsing that behavior. To the extent that these outrages affect the movie’s overall financial performance (that’s a case-by-case basis situation), what we see here is arguably uninformed outrage being elevated to the level of actual controversy.

We’ve seen this over and over again, from a Saturday Night Live sketch being deemed controversial by virtue of a handful of angry tweets to John Boyega having to defend himself for partying at the Notting Hill Carnival, a would-be controversy based on a single irate Twitter user. The ability for the online media to write stories headlined “SomeFolksAren’tHappyAboutXYZ” featuring a handful of tweets of unhappy social media users removes all responsibility from the would-be journalist to verify whether or not the outrage is justified or whether the Twitter or Facebook users represent anything resembling the consensus. Sure, some controversies are valid, but when you merely use the Twitter search option as your go-to research resource, you can find a dozen people upset about almost anything.

Getting back to the movie, even if parents of kids with food allergies are upset, I would argue they would not be if they saw the movie rather than just being outraged sans context. Apologies for the third-act spoilers, but McGregor becomes a better and happier person by the end of the film. He and Peter come to a mutual understanding and he (pardon the expression) gets the girl by the time the credits roll. That’s not exactly a terrible fate for kids with food allergies to witness for their would-be onscreen surrogate. Context matters in these situations, context for character and for plot. Yet it is that context that often gets ignored for the sake of clickbait outrage and jump-covering of the clickbait outrage.

I get why they did, but Sony shouldn't have apologized for pretty conventional storytelling in the service of a standard character arc. Yes, Peter uses Thomas’ allergy against him in a moment of cruelty, but the emergency is quickly solved (sans any melodrama or much in the way of comic reactions) and Peter’s behavior is not remotely viewed as positive or becoming of a true onscreen hero (Paddington would have not have approved). He’s a flawed onscreen hero acting in a poor way who later changes his behavior and becomes happier as a result. As a general rule, there are two kinds of character arcs in most popular fiction. We either have stories about people who undergo character growth as a result of their experiences and actions (IronMan or Peter Rabbit) or we have stories about people who are so good or bad that they affect everyone else around them (think Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Paddington 2). But to tell a variation on that first kind of story, you do need some latitude for the flawed characters to act in an imperfect fashion before their would-be enlightenment.

This wasn't a case of a sympathetic character being presented as bigoted or sexist. This wasn't even a case of a flawed character acting out while the would-be victims were just there to further the lead's journey since Mr. Food Allergy is himself a main character as well. If we allow would-be controversy about onscreen characters’ actions or dialogue to dominate the narrative around a film or a TV show when characters act badly even when those bad actions are punished or are on the path toward character growth, then we threaten the very concept of conflict and character development in mainstream entertainment.

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