Shrek by OpenEnglishWeb (CC)

Ukraine is making a serious bid to copy the moralizing policies of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Its National Expert Commission for Protecting Public Morality has deemed that many popular children’s shows are a “real threat” to the country’s young people in a recently released study.

The Commission is delegated with the responsibility of examining the media and determining if it is compliant with the nation’s morality laws, which include prohibitions against pornography, religious hatred, homosexuality, and the promotion of smoking and alcohol.

The Commission had previously tried to ban “The Simpsons,” but that show passed the wholesome test. They did succeed in banning Sacha Baron Cohen’s film “Brüno” because of its “sexual perversions.”

Their current targets are shows like “Teletubbies,” “SpongeBob Squarepants,” “Family Guy,” “Futurama,” “Pokemon,” “Shrek,” “South Park” and Japanese anime.

What is so bad about these shows?

Psychologist Irina Medvédeva said in the study that after watching these shows, young children “pull faces and make jokes in front of adults they don’t know, laugh out loud and repeat nonsense phrases in a brazen manner.”

Never mind that young children who don’t even see these shows still laugh at jokes they don’t understand and “repeat nonsense phrases” all day long. For some reason, the commission is convinced that this behavior is caused by these children’s shows.

For example, the Commission’s report has determined that the Teletubbies create a “psychology of losers.”

“The Teletubbies deliberately aims to create subnormal (men), who spend all day in front of the television with their mouths open swallowing all types of information.”

The Teletubbies must be some powerful propaganda. Usually it is two, three and four-year-old kids who are watching it. Yet the Teletubbies are such a powerful force that they will remember it until the boys become men — subnormal men, that is.

According to the Commission, the other shows have their own degenerate effect on the country’s youth. Japanese anime is “sexist propaganda.” “Shrek” contains “sadism.” “South Park” has “reincarnation progaganda.” “SpongeBob” promotes “homosexuality.”

The Commission has decided that these shows are “aimed at the destruction of the family, and the promotion of drugs and other vices.” They feel that by allowing young minds to watch them, they will then be turned into “criminals and perverts.”

The Ukrainian commission sounds a lot like the Saudi Arabian Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The Saudis are about the most restrictive society on the planet in regards to “morality.” While the Saudis are not a theocracy like Iran, they are the closest thing too it. Ukraine is a Western democracy, although one with some severe problems in its political structure. Sure, it spent eighty years under communism, but that would explain opposition to these children’s shows as tools of capitalism, not because they create “criminals and perverts.”

None of these children’s shows are educational programs, but not every kid’s show can be “Sesame Street.” The opposition to these shows only emphasizes the fragile circumstances of post-Soviet Ukraine, which looks like it has plenty of extremists wanting to impose their personal morality on the nation.