nenena | Third pony-post in a row brings frowny-face.

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Third pony-post in a row brings frowny-face.

So, this week's episode of MLP. Kind of reached all sorts of uncomfortable levels of fail, even worse than the Zecora episode.

This post @ deadbrowalking sums it up rather succinctly.

Dear Lauren Faust and the FiM crew: I know that your heart is in the right place, but please please please stop trying to make episodes about racism because so far you have shown that your only modus operandi is to rely on racist stereotypes and profoundly otherize non-white races in your half-assed attempts to teach kids about "tolerating" those who are different. This is 2011 and we should be past that level of fail by now. Come on.

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Disappoint :\

Well..... actually This is kinda what I think of the ponies races.... Please don't yell at me!!!

Twilight- Chinese (or any form of Asian)
Spike- Don't know yet...
Rainbow Dash- Some type of Hispanic
Fluttershy- Another type of Asian....
Rarity- Italian
Pinky- American
Applejack- Western american

Yeah... I guess I'm a little racist.... But about the rest, I agree with the 'tolerating different types of ponies' part. I just don't agree with 'the ponies are all white!' part.... I'll shut up now....

I'm not going to yell at you. But I am going to ask you straight-up: Why on earth are you interpreting Twilight and Fluttershy as Asian?

If the answer is because one is a hard-working student and the other is extremely shy and introverted, then you've got some seriously racist thinking that you're projecting onto the show.

Also, "American" is not a race.

I have no idea where you're getting Hispanic for Rainbow Dash. So far the only pony we've seen who is even halfway remotely close to being maybe kinda-sorta Hispanic is Diamond Tiara, and that's only because she held a "cutecinera." You're interpreting Rarity as Italian because she's... fashionable? That smells like another racist stereotype right there.

Edited 2011-03-26 04:13 (UTC)

I really am steriotypical, am I? Yeah... you can just ignore me..... You don't need to respond....

Er, last I checked, "American" and "Western American" aren't races, unless you're referring to Native Americans.

And ditto what Nen said about the Shy Asian Girl/Studious Asian stereotypes.

Also, in most of the fan-made anthromorphizations I've seen online, people tend to choose the ponies' races based on what shade of color they are in their pony form. Like Twilight will usually be black or otherwise ambiguously brown-skinned because she's dark purple, and Rainbow and Pinkie will be a more medium skintone, and Fluttershy and Rarity will be white because, well, they're pale yellow and white respectively.

Bison who live in teepees and have land disputes with cowboy ponies? Yikes, I think I'll be skipping that episode. :/

I watched the whole Zecora episode going "Surely they can't be-- this isn't-- shit."

It's nice to know that other people found the Zecora episode iffy. I watched a few minutes of this ep and simply couldn't watch the rest. Oh pony show I love you dearly but you really stumble bad with stuff like this.

Another issue I would like to bring up is Derpy/Dizty Doo. I know she's fandom and all but I don't think laughing at mentally handicapped people is funny. I just have concerns since she keeps appearing in the show as a service to fans. What if she gets bigger/speaking roles?

Sorry I know it's off topic but here was rather interesting discussion about her from people I watch on tumblr not too long ago.

No, it's not off-topic here. And it's something that's really bothered me about the fandom, too. It's pretty clear that Lauren's original conception of the character was just a ditzy/airhead pony, which is fine, and that her original cross-eyed appearance was just an animation error, which is also fine. But then what the fandom did with that... Ugh. And now that Lauren Faust has officially approved of the name "Derpy Hooves," I'm really hoping it's just because she honestly has no idea what "derpy" means. I really, really hope that it's just because she doesn't know. But it's less easy to believe that Ditzy's official cross-eyed appearances are being done in complete ignorance of what that's supposed to look like. Every kid watching the show probably recognizes that crossed eyes are one of the things that you do when you're making a "retard face" so yyyyeaaaah, it's a lot less easy to be forgiving of that particular bit of fanpandering.

Still, one of the reasons that I really love this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTYaM3_wJpg) (well, at least when Ditzy starts singing at 0:16) is because - even though this was CLEARLY not the intent of the creator of the video - it reads to me like she's just mocking the fuck out of all of the ablist internet memes that she's generated and it is awesome.

And yes, it is possible to project a anti-ablist meaning onto an ablist text ;)

I actually didn't know the meaning of 'derp' for a long time either. For some reason I thought it was like 'oops'? for some reason. Knowing how much I've used in the past is biting me in the ass right now. At least I'm trying to fight against the term now ^^'''

Ugh, glad I'm not the only one who squirmed during the Zecora episode, And I don't think I'll be watching this particular episode. Come on Awesome MLP show that I love dearly and which currently dominates my writing, can we just let the whole racism thing go!?

REALLY hoping we don't see any more episode's like this. *Shudders*

Yeah, bizarrely, it felt more like the sorts of stereotypes we'd get in '80s/'90s cartoons, not this show. :\

Or the 70's. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Chief)

Or the freakin' 1930s, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonto) as long as we're at it.

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Third pony-post in a row brings frowny-face.

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Not really racist....

Re: Not really racist....

Re: Not really racist....

Re: Not really racist....

Re: Not really racist....

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