My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

But why would I want to watch a show for GIIIIIIIIRLS?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a reboot of a franchise that freely admits to being a glorified toy commercial for little girls. It stars a purple unicorn named Twilight Sparkle, who spends her time hanging out with her pony friends Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy, in the town of Ponyville. Every episode, she learns an important lesson about friendship, which she reports via letter to her mentor Princess Celestia.

Why the FUCK is it so awesome?

I suppose by asking that question I’ve outed myself as one of those so-called “bronies” you may have heard about, though I would never apply that label to myself. To me, the term implies that someone watches My Little Pony because he loves ponies and wants to watch stories about the “power of friendship” and stuff, whereas I’m genuinely annoyed by all that junk and yet like the show anyway. What gives?

I’m not really saying that there’s anything wrong with being a genuine brony. It takes a certain security in one’s own masculinity to like girly things and not be embarrassed by it. If we were to choose who’s manliest between a proud My Little Pony fan and the sort of guy who drinks Dr Pepper 10 because the guy in the commercial says it’s macho, the bronies would win hooves down. As for me, I can’t say that I’m a fan of the frilly stuff, but that isn’t to say that I only like cars and explosions and boobs, or whatever it is that manly men are supposed to care about. In the end, I don’t give a rat’s ass about whether things are meant for men or women or kids; if I like something, I like it, and if I don’t, I don’t. And that philosophy has served me pretty well, since choosing entertainment based on its target demographic inevitably leads to watching absolute shit.

That’s really why I was skeptical about this whole My Little Pony thing, because My Little Pony has always been specifically targeted at young girls by means of being so much brainless fluff. It was never meant to be anything else. See, the original My Little Pony cartoon series came about in the 80s, the time in America’s history when the concepts of “entertainment” and “marketing” were most interchangeable. I’m not singling out My Little Pony with this statement; all the cartoons of the era were made to sell toys. We all, on some level, knew this, but we didn’t care, because the toy companies were treating us with a certain sort of dignity in this arrangement. Kids want an emotional attachment to their toys, and so they offered us one, by creating stories and characters and alternate worlds for us to get involved in. It was a far cry from where things stand today, when we have shows that are literally about people playing the games that the company’s trying to sell, because evidently kids won’t get the message if you deliver it with any subtlety whatsoever. In those days, they did it with class.

So My Little Pony did at least have that modicum of dignity, but the fact remained that it only existed to push pink little plastic ponies onto the female youth of the nation, and that doesn’t exactly lead directly into quality programming. It was the same marketing strategy for girls as, say, GI Joe had for boys, but at least GI Joe had some inherent conflict built in: some of the toys are good, and some of the toys are evil, and presto, a TV series is made. When your toy franchise has neither heroes nor villains and instead just has… ponies… well, then it’s hard to translate that into a compelling narrative.

And yet along came the reboot, with the least encouraging subtitle imaginable, and the internet slowly became aware that it existed, and a select class of men found it oddly appealing.  Society was quick to label those men “weirdos” and “deviants”, because of an assumption that any grown man watching a show made for young girls was probably a pedophile, or at least mentally or socially maladjusted. It doesn’t help that there are, of course, some men of whom that is true – I briefly lived with one such guy (of the “socially maladjusted” type) in college, so I get why people might jump to that conclusion – but it’s still sad that everyone is so quick to accept such a broad generalization of the fanbase as fact without watching even a single episode of the show.

I didn’t want to be the kind of person who makes snap judgements like that. After all, I like plenty of stuff that isn’t strictly meant for me. I watch Adventure Time every week without shame, and that’s a kids’ show, plus one of my favorite anime series is Ouran High School Host Club, a show so intended for teenage girls that the back of the DVD case asks me to decide which of the show’s hunky male characters I’d most like to date (Kyouya, but that’s not the point). There’s often something about a series that I like even if it’s primarily meant for a different audience, so why should I rush to judge other people for what they like? So I decided, when I saw the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic pop up on Netflix, that even though I’m not interested in cute ponies or learning lessons about friendship I would watch a few episodes and see just what it was that the bronies liked about it.

And the answer I came up with was a pretty boring one: it’s just a good show.

Is it girly? Of course. Is it cheesy? Fuck yes. But it’s supposed to be those things, and in the end it’s put together exceptionally well. I know you’re still skeptical about that, since you’re still thinking about how the main character is named Twilight Sparkle and lives in a town called Ponyville, but bear in mind that they don’t spend the entire show shouting their own names at each other like Pokemon. They actually have to fill up the time with stuff like stories – which are generally solid – and jokes – which are generally hilarious. The crew is working its collective ass off to make this show awesome, and it really shows.

Not to give all the credit to only one of the many people responsible, but the main driving force behind it all came from Lauren Faust, the show’s creator, who previously worked on such popular cartoons as The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. She had a particular vision for this incarnation of the My Little Pony franchise, and that vision, to paraphrase a bit, was essentially: “Let’s make a My Little Pony cartoon that doesn’t suck.” She’s stated that she played with My Little Pony toys as a kid, but didn’t like the cartoon because it didn’t resemble the way she played with the toys. And that makes her one of those ever-so-rare geniuses who saw the potential in an idea, recognized its shortcomings, and dedicated her effort to improving it. See, all of those preconceptions you have about what My Little Pony is? She specifically set out to defy all of them.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show for young girls, but it doesn’t treat young girls as brainless blobs of cuteness and innocence. It recognizes that girls are people, same as the rest of us, and they’re smart enough to care about things like well-rounded characters and conflict-driven drama. It’s a show that treats girls with dignity and presents issues as they apply to people, not to some imaginary stereotypical girly girl. And that’s why it has such a strong fanbase amongst adult males; inasmuch as we’re all people, we actually can relate to a lot of the same issues. When Fluttershy has trouble standing up for herself, or when Twilight worries about letting down someone she cares about, I can connect with that because I’ve been there. We’ve all been there.

Sure, the lessons learned are obvious and straightforward. Kids aren’t normally too keen on nuance and metaphor, after all. But there’s a quote from Ernest Hemingway that comes to mind. When Faulkner once mocked him for using plain, ineloquent language, he replied, “Does [Faulkner] really think big emotions come from big words?” I’ve always liked that line. It’s the idea that’s important, not the way it’s delivered. So no, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic isn’t the most intellectual or contemplative of television shows, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have anything to say. A simple story that gets to the point and says what it means can be a refreshing change of pace from the dense and convoluted world of “grown-up” entertainment. As much as I love Citizen Kane, sometimes I just want to watch some Looney Tunes instead.

And that isn't a bad comparison, now that I think about it, because that cartoon and this one actually have a few things in common. In discussions of My Little Pony, a lot of attention is paid to the cutesy ponies and obligatory friendship lessons, but people don't seem to realize that the rest of the show is made up mostly of goofball comedy and fourth-wall-breaking insanity. It isn’t that surprising, since the series was created by the head writer of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, and if you’re familiar at all with that show then you should have some idea what you’re in for. The comedy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic doesn’t quite match the frantic pace of Foster’s, but the philosophy is the same: the jokes come fast, and they don’t come subtle.

You might think the comedic potential of the My Little Pony franchise would be limited, but it actually works pretty well. It helps that the subject matter of vaguely anthropomorphized ponies is a relatively untapped well of comedy, but actually most of the humor comes out of the characters themselves. Each character has their own little quirks, such Twilight being a huge nerd, and Rainbow Dash acting like a mid-90s teenager obsessed with being cool. They were each built with a lot of potential for wackiness to ensue, though by far the wackiest is Pinkie Pie. Good lord, Pinkie Pie. Pinkie is a force of pure insanity unleashed upon the defenseless land of Equestria. With her constant spouting of silly nonsense, her habit of randomly bursting into song for no reason, and her astonishing ability to break the fourth wall on a regular basis, I daresay she’s one of the most utterly entertaining characters to appear in recent years. How could you not enjoy a show with someone like her in it?

There are some problems with the show too, it should be said. Some of the stories are hypocritical or contrived, and I have to wince whenever they make lame pony pun after lame pony pun, which they do in almost every episode. But in the final tally, it’s just a good show which was made to be entertaining for everyone, regardless of who the “target audience” is. So no, the bronies aren’t weird for liking this show. The only thing that makes the bronies different from anyone else is that they were mature enough to watch the show before judging it, and they were man enough to acknowledge its quality without regard to how people would react. I see no reason not to respect that.

It’s nice to see that the creators of the show feel the same way. They’ve been quick to defend their male fans from the quick-to-judge types. Lauren Faust herself has been pretty vocal about it. If you think about it, how else would you to expect her to respond? “Hey Lauren, isn’t it fucked up that a bunch of people like that TV show you poured your heart and soul into creating?” “Absolutely, nothing feels worse than being appreciated and respected for your hard work.” Yeah, hard to see the conversation going down a track like that. But even beyond that the team has made a surprising number of nods to the periphery fanbase, going so far as to actually refer to the bronies by name in one of their promos. The most famous fandom nod is the background character of Derpy Hooves, who was popularized and given her name by the fans on account of her crossed eyes (though this did draw a few complaints that, personally, I see as arguably valid). I really haven’t seen very many, if any, TV shows willing to go to these lengths just to show how much they care about their fans. It’s really quite endearing.

If this show is one that you’ve made snide remarks about, now’s the time for you to knock it off. It’s a quality production, through and through. If you’re not convinced, I recommend just watching an episode or two. It’s not like it’d kill you to give it a shot. I’m not saying that everyone will love it, but I think a lot of you would like it more than you think. I liked it, and I’m glad I ended up giving it a chance. I may even keep watching as new episodes are released. And I wouldn’t be a bit embarrassed about it.

So, to all the bronies out there… I may not think of myself as one of you, but I’m behind you all the way. Brohoof. /)

My Little Pony and all related characters and images are property of Hasbro, Inc. Images used for review purposes only.