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Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Filmmakers apologise after complaints over allergy scene in Peter Rabbit movie

The scene involved a character who has fruit thrown at him and has to use an EpiPen.

PETER RABBIT FILMMAKERS and the studio behind it have apologised for insensitively depicting a character’s allergy in the film.

Sony Pictures said yesterday in a joint statement with the filmmakers that “food allergies are a serious issue” and the film “should not have made light” of a character being allergic to blackberries “even in a cartoonish, slapstick way”.

In Peter Rabbit which was released this weekend, the character of Mr McGregor is allergic to blackberries. The rabbits fling the fruit at him in a scene and he is forced to use an EpiPen.

The charity group Kids with Food Allergies posted a warning about the scene on its Facebook page on Friday, prompting some on Twitter to start using the hashtag #boycottpeterrabbit.
https://www.facebook.com/kidswithfoodallergies/photos/a.220623595960.171622.38739115960/10156713093435961/?type=3

The group said that allergy jokes are harmful to their community and that making light of the condition “encourages the public not to take the risk of allergic reactions seriously”.

A petition against the scene has garnered almost 10k signatures.

Kenneth Mendez, the president and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, wrote an open letter to the studio on Saturday asking for the opportunity to educate the company and the film’s cast on the realities of food allergies and urged the studio to “examine your portrayal of bullying in your films geared toward a young audience”.

The studio and filmmakers say that they, “Sincerely regret not being more aware and sensitive to this issue, and we truly apologize.”

Read: Food intolerance testing kits ‘don’t work’>

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    Mute themanwiththeplan
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:27 PM

    please find your safe-space!

    572
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    Mute Dave Hammond
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:34 PM

    @themanwiththeplan: Christ the permanently outraged have to turn to whats happening in a Makey up cartoon slapstick world ? I’m outraged at their stupidity !! Where were they when Tom and Jerry were giving us such bad examples of how to promote appropriate cat and mouse relations in home !

    569
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    Mute Tweed Cap
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:43 PM

    @Dave Hammond:
    A good shoot’em up murdering rampage on call of duty will help the kids get over it no time.

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:46 PM

    They obviously haven’t seen Watership Down or Bambi yet.

    111
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    Mute j4VEpUO8
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:29 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: Watership Down got me good when I was a nipper

    22
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    Mute Niccolo Saccho
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:50 PM

    @themanwiththeplan:
    Got so stressed reading this article I had to head straight to the puppy room.

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    Mute Ron North
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    Feb 12th 2018, 8:26 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: I remember bring a sensitive young niece of mine to the cinema years ago to see Bridge To Terabithia. We promised her that nothing upsetting would happen because it was a kids movie, then ten minutes in a child dies and the rest of the movie is about how the other child deals with the trauma.

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:39 PM

    Should be applauded for highlighting the importance of epipens

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    Mute Early Cuyler
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:49 PM

    @Dave O Keeffe: If anything it could be a positive move for kids with these conditions who feel different as a result. There’s a good case for representation to be made.

    A lot of successful media for kids promoted understanding of the other and the self. Lately it’s become a little more about the self.

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Feb 12th 2018, 4:43 PM

    @Early Cuyler: I agree. At the end of the day it’s a cartoon and no matter how the point is made it does show that epipens are important and can save a life

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    Mute The Allergy Fairy
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    Feb 12th 2018, 9:40 PM

    @Dave O Keeffe: not really! If it was about Epipens by itself maybe but a deliberate scene that undermines the severity of severe allergies is never going to be helpful.

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    Mute Séa Graham
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:35 PM

    When did it become the norm to complain just for the sake of it? It’s gone from you can’t please all the people all the time to you can’t please people.

    208
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    Mute John O’Carroll
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:28 PM

    @Séa Graham: Yeah it’s gone a bit mad now. We’ve gone from boycott Israel to boycott Peter rabbit way too quickly.

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    Mute Ciaran O Reilly
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    Feb 12th 2018, 6:13 PM

    @Séa Graham: The country is gone to the dogs, iv never seen a softer shower of snowflakes in my life.

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    Mute Ronan Gallagher
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    Feb 13th 2018, 12:09 AM

    @Séa Graham: ever since we let the Protestants stay.

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    Mute WJH
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:31 PM

    Ah for phuq sake. Stop the world. I want to get off.

    284
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    Mute Noel
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:37 PM

    What next!
    I’m going to see if there is anything else out there that offends me. I love being offended!

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    Mute Séa Graham
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:41 PM

    @Noel: and I look forward to being offended by you being offended by the things that offend you..

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    Mute Noel
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:22 PM

    @Séa Graham: I find that comment offensive and I hope you are now offended!
    Anyone else out there who needs to be offended?

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    Mute François Auerbach
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    Feb 12th 2018, 11:48 PM

    @Noel: How dare you?

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    Mute Anthony Clark
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:58 PM

    This was highlighted by One Parent who thought her child might be offended… and it makes news.

    Are there reports of any Affected people actually offended?

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    Mute The Allergy Fairy
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    Feb 12th 2018, 9:42 PM

    @Anthony Clark: actually yes, those of us with severe allergies are quite upset about it.

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    Mute League of shadows
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:45 PM

    Repressive liberalism at it’s finest!

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    Mute Maurice Bourke
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:06 PM

    @League of shadows:
    Repressive liberalism doesn’t make sense.

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    Mute Alan Moore
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:21 PM

    @Maurice Bourke: it shouldn’t make sense, but it makes perfect sense in the brave new world.

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    Mute ChuckE
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:21 PM

    @Maurice Bourke: that might just be the point

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    Mute HelloGoogleTracking
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:45 PM

    Outrage and victim and identity culture gone mad.

    People queuing up to demand status as poor victims – and fight against the brutal injustice of a slapstick children’s movie…..

    Hardly a educational documentary that people will refer to and the gold standard of allergy knowledge.

    How petty is too petty for these unhinged social warriors without a cause

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    Mute Nollaig Kelly
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:52 PM

    If that is too much for your little one, sit them down and let them watch Watership Down,

    Down with this sort of thing

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    Mute Stephen East
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:28 PM

    I think from what i have heard about the film perhaps should apologize for the film as a whole

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Feb 12th 2018, 1:45 PM

    What was going through the scriptwriters mind ? “I know, we’ll try to murder Mr McGregor with blackberries. Kid’s probably won’t like it if he dies though, so we’ll just induce anaphylactic shock and bring him back from the brink with epinephrine. Be hilarious”.

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    Mute cortisola
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:10 PM

    @Tommy Roche: I would hardly imagine anything more terrifying than cat burned in 2014 Postman Pat kids movie, turning afterwards into robo-cat-terminator. Who made that script is over my head. https://kalindamage.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/pp-01.jpg

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    Mute Anne Marie Devlin
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:15 PM

    @Tommy Roche: you’ve obviously never seen Tom and Jerry or the Road Runner or even Bugs Bunny

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:44 PM

    @Anne Marie Devlin: Of course I have. Good cartoons in the old slapstick tradition. Wouldn’t have been nearly as good if Wily E Coyote had had brittle bone disease and needed surgery to pin his shattered bones back together every time he went off that cliff !!

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    Mute The Allergy Fairy
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    Feb 12th 2018, 9:43 PM

    @Tommy Roche: exactly. A rather odd storyline.

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    Mute
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:11 PM

    I don’t think these complaints are genuine, well I hope not. There has to be a secret agenda for all these , yes one or two might be genuine. but it has to hackers / robot accounts sending these emails off.

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    Mute Siobhan Dunne
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:54 PM

    Outraged at a movie about a Bunny Rabbit that nobody is compelling you to see? You can’t make this stuff up. Sounds like stand up comedy gold to me

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    Mute Sean
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    Feb 12th 2018, 5:52 PM

    I’ve a child with a nut allergy. He misses out on a lot – chocolate cakes at parties, going to restaurants and ordering off the menu, that sort of thing. I can see the perspective of the parent that complained because it’s monkey see monkey do for children who are the target audience. It seems unusually nasty and specific for slapstick in a children’s movie. It seems the filmmakers wanted to make an “edgy” film without really thinking it through.

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    Mute Statler R. Waldorf
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:27 PM

    About time that Hollywood’s flagrant disregard for kids allergies be challenged. I mean. I’ve seen a huge negative turn in attitudes towards kids allergies since that Smurf movie depicted a kid with a peanut allergy end up in hospital. I mean – what sort of message is that we’re endorsing?
    Here’s hoping this is a turning point #MyAllergyToo

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    Mute Gary Quinn
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:03 PM

    I believe Elmer Fudd is going to shoot the rabbit in the sequel, that should keep them happy… peta on the other hand wont be so it might be a trilogy..

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    Mute Oliver Cullen
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:57 PM

    Jesus have they ever seen the Simpsons or south park!

    17
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    Mute Maria Hickey-Fagan
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    Feb 12th 2018, 5:17 PM

    Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Marge lost her s**t over the violence in Itchy and Scratchy? And her complaining led to “Lemonade?” “Please” “You’re my best friend” type cartoons. And remember how we all laughed at how ridiculous it was? Simpler times, my friends, simpler times. Sigh.

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    Mute Chauncey Gardiner
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:34 PM

    I read that as “…allergy scene in Pat Rabbit movie”! Mondays..nn

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    Mute Dazz
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:18 PM

    Would an EpiPen help the massive overreaction to the rabbit’s massive overreaction?

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    Mute Daffy the Bear
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    Feb 12th 2018, 6:59 PM

    Again, the only problem here is the apology..

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Feb 12th 2018, 10:09 PM

    @Daffy the Bear: Could be worse as Blyton stuff could be made into a film with a gay male rape scene with Noddy being raped by those racist dolls (which are illegal / immoral to have now)… But those books were changed with time and yet they complain about something as innocent as that???

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    Mute Royston Fitzpatrick
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:51 PM

    Well done to The Journal for trolling all of the Alt-Right Snowflakes, bravo! Clickbait and a net full of little fish to boot!

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    Mute Mattia Accinelli
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    Feb 12th 2018, 4:39 PM

    Where are the good old times of Watership Down, when we had murderous blood thirsty rabbits and still no parents complained?

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    Mute Sean
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    Feb 12th 2018, 9:31 PM

    From a purely economic point of view it was a terrible decision to include a scene of this nature. 15 million people in the U.S. have food allergies. That’s enough people to make it the fifth largest state.

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    Mute Margaret Murphy
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    Feb 12th 2018, 5:08 PM

    What a load of nonsense ! It’s a fictional rabbit , political correctness has taken over our world – ridiculous.

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    Mute Marcia Craine
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    Feb 12th 2018, 3:17 PM

    Get over yourself ffs

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    Mute Al Byrne
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    Feb 13th 2018, 10:59 AM

    The idea that this is ‘the snowflake brigade gone mad’ or it’s only a ‘cartoon’ are simplistic and lazy reactions. Quite simply, the number of people who have serious life-threatening anaphylactic allergies has grown massively (for whatever reason) in recent decades. For a movie aimed at children to flippantly trivialise this (ahh, sure it’s grand if you have an EpiPen) is absolutely tone deaf. To say it’s just a cartoon is nonsense – dropping an anvil on Wile E Coyote is just that, cartoonish! Normalising the serious threat that many children and adults live under is a bad call, plain and simple. Allergies and anaphylaxis are massively misunderstood, by virtue of quackery and misdiagnoses by those unqualified to do so. If you’re so quick to think that people who find this depiction in a child’s movie an over reaction, ask the parents of children who take such care to keep their children safe, but who are not always around to do so.

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    Mute Dave Hammond
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    Feb 13th 2018, 1:00 PM

    @Al Byrne: could I suggest to you sir the concerned parents should focus their efforts energy and anger at the global Pharma companies who disgracefully excessively profiteer from these Pens by jacking up prices and controlling the supply and demand curve in a disgraceful opportunitstic ways – concentrating the awareness of the real issues and targeting the real corporations who are in a position to do something about wider availability and pricing would be a far more useful way to spend time and effort than being outraged at a cartoon- which are flippant and trivialise everything – because they are cartoons not some social justice warrior platform.

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    Mute Charles McCarthy
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    Feb 13th 2018, 1:59 PM

    @Dave Hammond: Spot on Dave. Al does not mention if he himself has done anything to alleviate the fears that parents and children have regarding the actual issue. Nope, too busy being as you rightly said, a social justice warrior. The country is awash with these individuals and pretty soon it will be as bad as the U.S. Blame Sony for the issue. You couldn’t make it up, mind you in this instance, they did.

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    Mute Al Byrne
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    Feb 13th 2018, 4:24 PM

    @Dave Hammond: ok, this reply is baffling on so many levels. Firstly, concerned parents are focused on ensuring their kids, or themselves, avoid allergens – accidental or otherwise. I am in total agreement in the overcharging of pharma companies. But that’s not the issue. The issue is normalizing allergies and the flippant nature of ‘it’s okay to introduce an allergen to someone once they’ve got an EpiPen. As for being a ‘social justice warrior’, I’d hardly consider a single post as a crusade! I’d also consider saying something was ‘tone deaf’ is hardly an outrage.

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    Mute Al Byrne
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    Feb 13th 2018, 4:26 PM

    @Charles McCarthy: Thanks for this considered and knowledgeable reply. I was, until this point, unaware that I must explain my reasoning, understanding or experience, personal or otherwise about the issues of anaphylaxis and allergies among parents or children. But if you say I’ve none, it must be true, right? Much in the same way, if I say that somewhere, a village is missing an idiot…Also, if Sony isn’t responsible in some way for putting a tone deaf scene in the movie, then who is? Oh yeah, Big Pharma…right?

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    Mute Karl Patchell
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    Feb 12th 2018, 2:24 PM

    Complained themselves (filmmakers), publicity.

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Feb 12th 2018, 9:56 PM

    Rabbit stew with blackberries???

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    Mute Amy Wallis
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    Feb 13th 2018, 9:22 AM

    That… doesn’t sound like they were making light at all. Kids were throwing berries at him and he had an allergic reaction to the point he had to use an epi-pen? I am genuinely curious as to how you would make light of this.

    Beyond that, surely this is a good thing? Normalising the use of epipens for children? I certainly don’t remember ever seeing one in a film or show when I was a child and can’t think of one even now.

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    Mute dar
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    Feb 12th 2018, 5:49 PM

    Moaning for sake of moaning,

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    Mute Charles McCarthy
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    Feb 13th 2018, 7:38 AM

    Whatever you do don’t watch Willie wonka and the chocolate factory. Frightening stuff all together! I was years in councilling after it.

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Feb 12th 2018, 10:05 PM

    Beatrix Potter Magic Mushrooms lol.

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    Mute Colin B
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    Feb 12th 2018, 10:17 PM

    I have a child with a pretty serious food allergy. Seriously KFA …cop the f€ck on. If this sort of thing upsets your child you need to reevaluate your parenting skills.

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    Mute Seth Cheffetz
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    Feb 12th 2018, 5:46 PM

    I’m very sensitive about my shoes and was deeply offended by this scene! People with allergies should not have to put up with such insensitive abuse!

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Feb 12th 2018, 10:00 PM

    @Seth Cheffetz: My god, Tom and Jerry are next as people allergic to dairy won’t like a cream pie in the face? Also Roadrunner is allergic to TNT… lol.

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    Mute SkylineSi
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    Feb 14th 2018, 8:25 AM

    stop the planet, I want to get off

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    Mute Nollaig Kelly
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    Feb 13th 2018, 12:39 PM

    I miss the days when a cartoon mouse could hit a cat with a frying pan or drop an anvil on its head and we could laugh at the antics going on

    Remember those days, the good old days

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