As sometimes happened with the term ‘PC’ for political correctness in the 1980s, some people think the use of the modern term ‘woke’ has also gone too far. The term stems from the word ‘awake’ and refers to having ’woken up’ to things like racism or different sexual identities in society.
This debate has even reached the holiday home world with major holiday park operator Haven changing some of its mascot characters to reflect a more woke outlook.
If this was done partly as a publicity stunt it certainly worked as the company received a lot of media coverage.
Haven replaced its Bradley Bear mascot with a character called Jaz who was initially reported to be non-binary, but was later confirmed to instead be Bradley’s niece. In addition, Anxious the Elephant was renamed Annie, and Greedy the Gorilla became George – supposedly in a bid to avoid offending overweight people.
On the other side of the debate, rival operator Parkdean Resorts has vowed to keep its mascots the same and said it would not be making any changes to its Starland Krew, which features boy and girl rabbits, Sparky and Sparkle, as well as Sid the Seagull, Lizzie the Lizard and Naarky the Aardvark.