It seems this show is not in line with feminist principles, but the feminists are silent for some reason.
Come on feminists, get in here and tell us how it is!
Here’s one problem with tokenism: that token has to be all things for all people. If the lone female character is too bossy, bitchy, smart, dumb, whatever, someone will complain that the show thinks all women are X. Writers can react by making them bland and inoffensive, which is no fun. If you have two of that token they’ll often play up opposite character types. Better, but still not quite there.
But in a show where there’s a lot of X, in this case women, you introduce tons of gradations. Two of the main MLP characters are tomboys, and they’re tomboys in completely different ways.
Imagine if there was a mostly male show, but Rarity was the token female. I can imagine the backlash now. But in MLP, hey, it’s Rarity! Just one of the gals.
You see something similar with minorities, especially black tokens. People will complain if they act too white, too ghetto, too ruthless, too dumb…but if you make The Wire, and have all sorts of different types of black people, everyone is happy because they can find someone to relate to. And if someone is too X, there’s someone else there to set a counter-example.
The show’s creator, Lauren Faust, has explicitly said she set out to make a show showing women in heroic roles, and she wanted to set role models for young girls. Mainly, that there are different ways to be a girl, and none are inherently superior or inferior. Her response to critics like the OP was basically like some of the responses already given: pick any other show if you want more male characters. It’s not like girls don’t watch them, but boys won’t watch “girly” shows (also because such shows tend to lack any artistic vision, but that’s another ball of wax and has been getting better – like Korra).
I liked how Rarity and Pinkie kept calling him a monster, even to his face, despite Fluttershy’s corrections. All those mule jokes. 'Dat racism.
Unicorns are the master race…
Other lessons from the show:
Best political system? Absolute dictatorship.*
Mother nature should be tightly controlled and used to our advantage.
Rich people are mostly a bunch of a-holes, but not all of them!
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- I’m still wondering if Ponyville actually elects their mayor, as a sort of crumb tossed their way by the aristocracy, or if she’s appointed.
This is a good example of the disconnect between the toys and the show.
The people who make the show were contractually obligated to make a two-part season finale about a pretty pink pony princess getting married. So they decided to make it a story about growing apart, jealousy, and emotivore insect shapeshifters infiltrating the country’s leadership to subvert critical military positions in preparation of a full-scale invasion.
It was pretty awesome.
Also, in a twist to the usual Disney Princess theme, the wedding wasn’t about the female validating her life by marrying an important male. In this case, the pink pony princess was already in a position of power, and she picked a random nobody grunt who’d worked his way up through the ranks of the Guard. He wasn’t a prince until the marriage to her made him one…
Male protagonists no, if you don’t count villains.
As far as friendships go, you don’t see it much, but Pinkie Pie is friends with everypony.
Who? Discord?
You mean alicorns
The social structure of Equestria is one of those crazy things that works in the show but in real life would be horrible. The way that each pony gets their cutie mark sort of binds them into a particular trade for the rest of their life. What if they want to change professions? Or what if their distinguishing characteristic is lost? There is fan speculation that Celestia keeps absolute rule over Equestria by doling out cutie marks in order to make everypony subservient to her
They wouldn’t want to. The cutie mark is emblematic of their inherent passion. Remember when Twilight accidentally switches them all up? Doing what they loved fixed having the wrong cutie mark.
With a note that I’m only familiar with the TV version of the blue crew: in addition to females being constructed, baby smurfs are brought by the stork.
I was thinking more along the lines of Filthy Rich. If he loses all his money in the Equestrian stock market, it would be pretty silly to still call him Filthy Rich. Sure, his passion may be money, but there’s no guarantee he’ll always have it
And that brings me to names of ponies too, which I’m sure Celestia whispers into the minds of parent ponies. How did they know Scootaloo would be into scooters before she was born? What if he liked mountain climbing? In this case, either she’ll get a scooter cutie mark or her entire life doesn’t make any sense!
So the stork has sex (with a smurf?) and that creates baby smurfs?
Have you seen the new Strawberry Shortcake? My 2 girls watch it A LOT. as far as I can tell, there are only two speaking male roles and both are quite minor, and not human. (a caterpillar and a talking strawberry.) The old-school version at least had a Smurfette-in-reverse named Huck. (and an evil pie-man.) Both are gone in the new version. I think Pupcake is male, but unlike Spike, he is a pet, and doesn’t talk.
So, MLP doesn’t win the most-sexist award for recent shows, even if one accepts the faulty premise that sexism=gender imbalance in the cast.
Actually, according to my Grand Unified Theory of Ponydom, it’s the Earth ponies’ doing, not Celestia’s.
There’s also Hoof Hearted. He’s been on a time or two.
Pinkie Pie is the Ultimate Ponymaster? I knew it!
Are ponies named at birth, or are the names they bear chosen once their personality has manifested?
They’re named before their cutie marks appear at least.
I don’t get it. Are you saying it’s not about choices, or not about women?
It’s not actually made clear. Ponies certainly have names before their cutie marks, and they certainly have names afterwards. Both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are referred to by name in a flashback episode (“The Cutie Mark Chronicles”) from before they had their marks.
It’s not a system that makes sense.
We do sometimes still do Rarity challenging Twilight for leadership. It used to be we didn’t know why Twilight was the leader, but it turns out she’s a Princess. (A Princess in training, but still.) I had a witch cast a spell on Rarity, which seemed to satisfy the Rarity is not a bad pony rule. She still - her toy version, I mean - still looks stuck-up and bitchy to me.
PS: Does this mean we can abandon the "There really are (non)token boys in the MLP universe?
There are plenty of non-token boys in the MLP universe. The show just doesn’t concentrate on them much.
Well, we (luckily) don’t watch Strawberry Shortcake, so I can’t comment on that one.
Is the premise faulty? I thought the defense of MLP was that there are (well, used to be) kids’ shows all about boys? Which were… sexist, right?
No, Iron Will (the minotaur running self-help assertiveness seminar)
My son was a Brony at the age if three. He thought Rainbow Dash was the coolest thing ever (and a boy) and went by “Rainbow Dash” for quite a period if time. Then one day . . . his little sister said she wanted to watch the pony show.
Love can be cruel.
He never picks MLP anymore, but he watches. He’s moved on to Phineas and Ferb which I think us just as good. Both are a thousand time better than freaking Strawberry Shortcake. Bleech!