Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. There are also other sapient species in Equestria, such as cows the concept of one intelligent species keeping another for milking purposes is quite disturbing if interrogated closely enough. And finally, there are the unicorns, horned ponies that have a wide portfolio of magic powers, including telekinesis, alchemical transformation, and teleportation. There are pegasi, flying ponies that are able to manipulate the weather. There are the earth-ponies, the most mundane type which most closely resemble real ponies. The setting of MLP: FiM, a land called Equestria (and specifically the city of Ponyville), is populated by three types of ponies. Now I know the question you all must be asking: “But don’t the historical theories of capital accumulation presuppose a world defined by scarcity and industrial development?” Of course they do. And there are clear signs of that stratification, except they are obscured by a propagandistic focus on the power of “friendship”. By even the most cursory of sociological and economic analyses, the society in MLP: FiM should be highly stratified along class and racial lines. The most fantastic element of the show is not that ponies can talk or that dragons exist it is the illusion that an egalitarian society can be maintained among groups with massive biologically inherent gaps in ability and economic utility. The show also teaches lessons about confidence, self-expression, and overcoming adversity.īut the strong feminist themes of the series are built on a foundation of political contradictions. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (hereafter referred to as MLP: FiM) is sharply written and gorgeously animated, and features positive role models in female characters who defy stereotypical gender roles. Girls like stories with real conflict girls are smart enough to understand complex plots girls aren’t as easily frightened as everyone seems to think. Creator Lauren Faust, who previously worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, writes in her rebuttal to Richter that in developing this series she wanted to show that:Ĭartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness. magazine blog mounted an attack on the show, calling it “homophobic” and “smart-shaming” – criticism that comes off as a bit incoherent because the show is neither of those things. The My Little Pony toy line has always been a flashpoint for debates on gender representation and consumerism, and its latest incarnation in the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is no exception.
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