Hi 5

KELLIE from Hi-5 has always been a favourite at our place. The kids also seem to like her. But at the risk of sounding like the Reverend Fred Nile, I’m a bit disappointed with her semi-clad efforts on the pages of Ralph.

Not angry. Not suggesting the photos should be banned, nor pretending that I didn’t have a discreet squizz at them like many other dads. Not questioning her right as a 34-year-old woman to engage in some entry-level eroticism to avoid being pigeon-holed as a cheesy children’s entertainer. Just annoyed that I might find myself having a conversation with our six-year-old daughter which begins: “Dad, isn’t that Kellie from Hi-5?”

The woman shouldn’t be crucified for doing what she did and the reaction from family groups and feminists to her shoot has been over the top.

Women’s Forum Australia spokeswoman Melinda Tankard Reist described the photos as an “abuse of her position with tens of thousands of little girls looking up to her”, as if from here to eternity Kel should be quarantined to a life of G-rated entertainment despite no longer being a member of the children’s group. But Tankard Reist was on the money when she said the problem was that Kel’s appearance on the cover was “particularly problematic because magazines like Ralph are on shop shelves at kiddy eye level”.

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