Watership Down

The show makes female rabbits a repeated part of the main conflict. Strawberry is changed into a doe and digs the Honeycomb that becomes the new warren’s home. Clover helps the rescue plan, and Hyzenthlay leads the captive does against Efrafa. The story still follows Hazel’s leadership, brotherhood, survival, and fight for freedom, so female empowerment is an important subplot rather than the whole premise.

The show changes Strawberry from the novel’s buck into a doe. The show also gives Strawberry, Clover, and Hyzenthlay larger jobs in building the new warren and planning escapes. The director said the team wanted female rabbits to have a more central role and wanted Strawberry to have more agency. These are clear identity-based changes to the source, even though the main escape and battle story remains the same.

A Spectator-linked article called the series a BBC attempt to make Watership Down woke. The article objected to Strawberry’s gender change, stronger female roles, and the captive does’ freedom language. The separate X research found only a few small posts making similar complaints about a woke remake or a more female-centered story. The reaction was fringe, with no boycott, review-bomb push, or sustained influencer campaign.

Richard Adams was an animal-welfare and environmental advocate, not a DEI activist. Tom Bidwell has written about teen mental health, body image, and sexuality, but no clear activist record is reported. Noam Murro, Pete Dodd, and the listed producers have little or no known activist record. Murro’s title interview still gives some context because he said the team wanted female characters to have more central roles.