MLP and gender roles

[Sunset]

Ok, so I was perusing youtube and came across a video intitled "Bronies watch Rescue at Midnight Castle" or something to that effect.  I was curious and so I watched it.  I was rather disappointed by the fact that there wasn't very much actual thoughtful commentary.  Interestingly enough the reactions were the stereotypical reactions you would expect from males watching something made for little girls (oh, the irony.)


What struck me though, was twice the comment was made about how sexist it was.  This was in reaction to the fact that the moochick was male and provided the rainbow of light and the instant when Scorpan rescues Megan and the ponies.  Oh, and also when Megan hit the stratadon the comment was "this is sexist because girls can't fight in the show."


This isn't the first time I've heard a fan of FIM accuse previous generations of sexism.  I personally don't agree with them but I'm curious as to what other older fans or even newer fans think.

[Baby Sugarberry]

I find Rescue at Midnight Castle to actually be one of the least sexist of the G1 animations. o.O Both Firefly and Megan fight after all, not exactly a typical "sterotypical girl" thing.  Sure they're not very effective at it, but they're also one little pony, and one young girl, against a huge dragon monster thing.  Having them kick ass would just not be very realistic in my estimation. 


The Moochick may be male, but he's also possibly the least effective character in the show - he'd probably be screwed without that bunny familiar/friend of his.  And while he does provide the Ponies/Megan with the Rainbow, he doesn't actively participate at any point.  It's up to the Ponies/Megan to actually use it.   Going up against a giant demon thing with dragon pets to rescue your friends, or fishing a trinket out of your collection, which one demonstrates bravery?

[LadyMoondancer]

Well, it certainly wasn't perfect and it had some . . . less than perfect examples of gendered roles.  But overall it was excellent at showing female characters fighting to protect their home.  I mean, Megan tried to punch out Scorpan.  That was awesome!


I do have issues with "Escape from Catrina."


When Catrina's evil:  very proactive in her plans, independent, confident, does her own thing.


After Catrina turns good:  suddenly is giggling and simpering, with very submissive body language.


I don't mind her turning good, but come on . . . Let her remain a strong, independent character!  Otherwise it's conflating "submissive woman" with "good" and "strong woman" with bad.   


G1's other less-than-stellar moment is the episode "Flight from Cloud Castle", which I swear must have been written right after one of the writers was jilted by his girlfriend.  In case you haven't seen this episode, let me sum up:


Gnome Dude:  I'm in love with this girl!


Heart Throb: Oh, how lovely!  What's she like?


Gnome Dude:  Well, actually I've never met her.  But I hear she's HOT.


Heart Throb:  That is the most romantic thing I have ever heard.  Locket and I will help you with this quest!


So the ponies and the Gnome Dude defeat some monsters and get into the flying cloud castle, and Gnome Dude awakens the princess with a kiss.


Princess:  Wow, thank you for waking me up!  Welp, see you later!


Gnome Dude:  Wait!  I woke you from the spell!  You're supposed to be MINE now!  </actual dialogue>


Princess:  Yeeeeah, no.  See, getting knocked comatose for years and years was my father's idea, not mine.  Sayonara!


Gnome Dude: But it's not faaaaaair.


Suddenly, the castle begins to fall out of the sky!


Heart Throb:  Save us with your gnome dude powers, Gnome Dude!


Gnome Dude:  NO.  Since Princess won't marry me, I am going to let everyone DIE.


Locket:  USE YOUR GNOME DUDE MAGIC BEFORE I CRUSH YOU.


Gnome Dude reluctantly uses gnome dude magic to soften the landing.


Gnome Dude:  Well, goodbye Princess.  I . . . *sniffle sob* . . . LOVED YOU.  Without ever having met you.  Because you're hot.


Heart Throb:  Wait a moment!  It is completely UNFAIR of Princess not to marry this man whom she met five minutes ago!   He did something nice for her, and when a man does something nice for a woman, that means she owes him sex.


Locket:  Uh, Heart Throb . . .


Heart Throb: . . . I mean, True Love.  She owes him True Love.  We'll . . . fix that line in the editing room.




So, yeah, low point of the series.  Most of the time the series had a lot of great role models like brave Gusty, clever Wind Whistler, and Megan.  I never liked Megan, but she was certainly capable.


FIM, it should be noted, also has gender issues--notably the Royal Guards always being male and falling into the typical "gender divide" of female veterinarian, male doctor.

[Sunset]

I've never seen Cloud Castle so thanks for that summary.  Your right it was looking pretty good up until that last part ruined it.


I do have to admit that I really didn't get to see the series when I was little.  We didn't have cable.  The two mlp shows I got to see was Rescue at Midnight Castle and the Movie and to a much lesser degree, Escape from Katrina.  And these were because we could rent them.   Pretty much all of my pony nostalgia centers around Midnight Castle.

Post Merge: May 24, 2012, 10:19:26 PM

To add to the discussion, how do you think that the portrayel of gender roles in MLP matches up to cartoons on the other end of the divide?  In other words how does it compare to the 80's cartoons meant for boys?  How does FIM compare to the boy cartoons of today.  I just find it interesting that we so often talk about the bad examples in things aimed at girls but that there seems to be less scrutiny in things aimed at boys.

[Stuntmang]

To be fair, MLP aims itself at girls. Any toy line that aims itself at one gender specifically is sexist in its own right, regardless of anything else in said line. Why can't we just have toys instead of "THESE ARE FOR BOYS AND THESE ARE FOR GIRLS"?

[Sunset]

Fair enough.  But I think it would be a pretty short discussion if we stopped there.  How would you propose fixing the problem?

I've heard people suggest before that the toy line needed to change somehow to make it more gender neutral.  But would changing anything further play into preconcieved notions? (ie. boys won't play with pink toys)  Or is it all about the marketing?

Though, really I was originally thinking mostly of the cartoons when I started this thread.  The toys themselves I've always thought weren't near as problematic as a toy like,say, Barbie.  It's just that 98% of them are female and they have the tendancy to be pink.  But really, it's just the packaging that says what gender the pony is.  Once the pony is out of the packaging, it's up to the child's imagination.

Btw, did you know that I read in a book once that it's only been in about the last century or so that pink was for girls and blue was for boys?  Before that it was oppisite. Pink was associated with red which was supposed to be decisive which was considered a masculine feature.  Blue was for girls because it was considered dainty.  Go figure.

Edited to add:
I decided to do a little online research and found this article about children's clothing on smithsonian.com   Very interesting!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?c=y&page=1

[Taxel]

To be fair, MLP aims itself at girls. Any toy line that aims itself at one gender specifically is sexist in its own right, regardless of anything else in said line. Why can't we just have toys instead of "THESE ARE FOR BOYS AND THESE ARE FOR GIRLS"?

Not this again. :/

If you think it wouldn't cause an uproar, go make some pastel ponies that are mostly pink with long, colorful brushable hair and other typical "girly" stuff (dress-up dresses and hair ties, wedding playsets, pink castles, etc) and aim them at boys. Good luck with all the hate mail and angry parents you'd have to deal with. I doubt your toy line would last long at all, if you even made it into mass production.

That would not in any way be acceptable in modern society (talking about the US since I don't know anything about other countries). Parents would go absolutely ballistic over such a thing, and claim the toys were for gays, made by gays, would turn your children gay, are evil tools of Satan/devil worshippers/etc probably something about gay, blah blah blah gay bad evil, etc etc etc. And although I know some parents don't and wouldn't care if their son wanted to play with MLPs, they'd be teased at school most likely. And although most kids get teased in my experience, you have heard about the kids, some in elementary school, being bullied about being "gay" (whether or not they actually were) committing suicide, right?

Simply put, society is not ready for such a thing. And for parents who don't believe in "girl toys" and "boy toys", they'll buy their kids the toys they like regardless of the gender they're aimed at and more than likely try to teach their child(ren) that gender stereotypes are not something that needs to be followed.

[Malicieuse]

Frankly, i would simply not listen too much to some bronies on matters like that.
I watched the "bronies watch the season 2 finale" (or something like that) and they kept saying "how is this for little girls?" every time something even slightly "scary" happened. Like they didn't realize every classic disney movie  has stuff that's far more "scary" than what we have seen during the royal wedding.
I can't really take that stuff too seriously, knowing the flack older gens get and the massive amount of praise FIM gets. Both have their issues.

[Fräulein_Kim]

I think to make the toyline gender neutral (if this would be what you want) - You'd have to go the way of Pokemon. Mixing the cute of current ponies with i.e. robots, zombies, dinosaurs, ponies transforming into cars LOL.. ninjas and pirates. Have the guards have their own episodes. SOLDIERS. WAR. LOL... okay, okay, I'm blowing it all out of proportions here. ;D

But I think you get what I mean.. there just (unfortunately) ARE things that are linked exclusively to girls and things linked to boys. And much like Taxel has said, it is rather society as a whole that is to blame, not toy companies following the market (they're in it for the money after all.. not to change the world, cannot blame 'em for it I think..)

So in order to make it more gender-neutral, you'd have to mix all those components so that it would appeal to both stereotypical genders and everything inbetween. Like I said, I think Pokemon is a prime example for doing that.

[butterflybuttons]

And for parents who don't believe in "girl toys" and "boy toys", they'll buy their kids the toys they like regardless of the gender they're aimed at and more than likely try to teach their child(ren) that gender stereotypes are not something that needs to be followed.

This is it. "gender neutral" toys wouldnt cater for those children that really like pink and sparkles or really scary monsters and trucks. Children can naturally be drawn to certain types of toys, it's only when they are told they are not allowed to play with different gender toys it becomes stereotypical.   

[Moonracer]

I've seen a thumbnail for this review, but I didn't bother to watch it, because quite frankly, I'm tired of guys like that bashing the show we all loved and grew up with.


As for my opinion on the matter... first off I find it quite laughable for those guys to comment that the show is childish, immature and girly, because it's primary target are LITTLE GIRLS, not teen/adult guys.


Secondly, I never thought MLP was sexist in any way: neither when I was a kid nor even now, as a grown-up. Sure, it's really girly, and it shows some stereotypical gender roles. But I think that it's just been a product of it's times: back in the 80s, creating whole plot structure and developing the characters (that is if there was any character development whatsoever, in the first place) was a completely different process, than it is now.


And, for shows like MLP, which were specifically created to promote certain products, the writers were quite often pressured into creating new plots on schedule, which meant that they would constantly spew out scripts for new episodes in a production-line fashion, often without giving a second glance at their work to make sure everything was 100% okay.


Since then times have changed: many cartoons nowaday have really great story lines, well-developed characters and high-quality animation, mostly due to the fact that the creators of those shows are not so much hard-pressed into producing new episodes on a daily basis.


The problem is, that because many people nowadays are surrounded by all those "quality cartoons", as I like to call them, their expectations of the shows are much higher, and they tend to get picky quite a lot. Hence, many of those people, when viewing certain cartoons from the early 90s, 80s or even 70s, often like to complain on how those shows suck and how the new shows are far better.


And while I admit that none of these shows were exactly flawless, for those times these were really enjoyable cartoons, that are still quite fun to watch.


As for the fact that people keep complaining of the characters acting weak and thus it's considered sexist: again, this is a product of the high expectations people have - many of them have gotten used to the fact that female characters need to be portrayed as strong, independent individuals who can kick some ass. Therefore whenever they see a character acting weak in the older series, they get into this ranting mode, claiming it's sexist and stereotypcial, which I think it's pretty much over-the-top.


Besides, I find this judgement to be laughable as well, as someone already pointed out, that it's just a young girl and a pony against a whole castle of dragon-demons and an evil centaur-demon-devil-monster who has the power to transform others into his dark minions. So there's like 0% chances that these two would be able to handle all that in one go. Oh yeah, because a little girl fighting and beating the crap out of monsters is totally realistic and not least bit implausible.


Anyway, that's just my opinion.

[mlpfan]

Fair enough.  But I think it would be a pretty short discussion if we stopped there.  How would you propose fixing the problem?

I've heard people suggest before that the toy line needed to change somehow to make it more gender neutral.  But would changing anything further play into preconcieved notions? (ie. boys won't play with pink toys)  Or is it all about the marketing?

Though, really I was originally thinking mostly of the cartoons when I started this thread.  The toys themselves I've always thought weren't near as problematic as a toy like,say, Barbie.  It's just that 98% of them are female and they have the tendancy to be pink.  But really, it's just the packaging that says what gender the pony is.  Once the pony is out of the packaging, it's up to the child's imagination.

Btw, did you know that I read in a book once that it's only been in about the last century or so that pink was for girls and blue was for boys?  Before that it was oppisite. Pink was associated with red which was supposed to be decisive which was considered a masculine feature.  Blue was for girls because it was considered dainty.  Go figure.

Edited to add:
I decided to do a little online research and found this article about children's clothing on smithsonian.com   Very interesting!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?c=y&page=1

yea, mens fashion looked very girly in the 1600-1700's  I do not think my little pony is sexist. I do not think you can make gender neutral toys, you will always have toys that swing towards girls or boys. I think people read too much into cartoons, anyway look at these manly fashions from days past

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Medinacelli.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leipziger_Student.jpg

[Dragonflitter]

I actually applaud the 80's cartoon for its diverse amount of character personalities. Many 'girly' shows of that time (and ever today!) only show female characters as cookie-cutter goodie-goodies. I love our cranky Buttons, sarcastic Gusty, and pessimistic Lickety-Split.

Frankly, i would simply not listen too much to some bronies on matters like that.
I watched the "bronies watch the season 2 finale" (or something like that) and they kept saying "how is this for little girls?" every time something even slightly "scary" happened. Like they didn't realize every classic disney movie  has stuff that's far more "scary" than what we have seen during the royal wedding.
I can't really take that stuff too seriously, knowing the flack older gens get and the massive amount of praise FIM gets. Both have their issues.

THIS. Both series have their pros and cons in regards to gender stereotypes, or just good storytelling/characters/etc. An overeager fan (or fans) will conveniently ignore the cons of their favorite show and build up the pros to the point where... the 80's cartoon becomes an example of blatant sexism and the FiM finale becomes something obviously marketed toward older males because little girls couldn't take that 'amount of violence'.

[LadyMoondancer]

There's a really interesting book called Sold Separately that talks about this (and even has a chapter devoted the MLP--the 80s show and the toys) and examines how "girls" shows and toys differ from "boys" shows and toys.  I highly recommend it, it's an interesting read.   There are both pros and cons to girls being shunted into "the pink ghetto."


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One of the pros is that in the pink ghetto, female characters can have more range.   There are some "gender neutral" shows that have strong female roles--Avatar The Last Airbender comes to mind--but all too often when you have a mixed cast of boys and girls, the female characters always end up in the following roles:

The Girlfriend / Love Interest.  Even in G.I. Joe, where I believe it is technically against the rules for soldiers to date within the chain of command, you just KNEW Scarlett was going to end up as the Love Interest.   

The Sultry Temptress.  Oh, curse those villainous women and their tempting ways!!

The Mother.  Thank goodness the sensible female character is there to take care of sensible matters and allow the male characters to be irresponsible layabouts!

I mean, this is a simplification obviously, but the fact remains . . . it's really, really hard to break female characters out of all the baggage that our society automatically heaps on girls and women unless you shake things up.  And one way to do that is to create a "pinkified" world where the very setting screams "THIS IS FOR GIRLS!!!"

I don't see it as being sexist.  I see it as trying to provide a haven.   Of course I am fine with boys / men watching girls shows;  but only if they accept them for what they are, in all their pinkness, and don't try to "mannify" the show into "G.I. Joe with ponies," if you know what I mean.

[Nonnavlis]

I actually applaud the 80's cartoon for its diverse amount of character personalities. Many 'girly' shows of that time (and ever today!) only show female characters as cookie-cutter goodie-goodies. I love our cranky Buttons, sarcastic Gusty, and pessimistic Lickety-Split.

I agree with this. I also grew up watching Jem and the Hollograms, and My Little Pony definitely has a better array of personalities, and better role models. One of the things I really like about the My Little Pony characters is that, except for the odd moment here and there, the ponies, Megan, and Molly, never strove to be 'Glamorous' like in other cartoon shows for girls, even to this day.

I do believe my little pony is sexist, though, but against men. I believe there were, what? Six boy ponies in the whole series? There was of course Danny, the Bushwoollies (Which may not be male), and the occasional side character, but on a daily basis Danny was the only one representing boys. And, when they finally do introduce the male ponies, they stayed for only one episode.

Danny though, I must admit and praise, was a very good representation of a male character for a girls cartoon. He's well rounded, and was not just there as either romantic interest, or to save all the women when they decide to put themselves in distress every episode. Hasbro very well could have left him out, so I'm at least glad he was included.

And as a quick note about the toys, I also agree if you take the package out of it they are not sexist. The 'Female' ponies can simply all be considered one breed (Like a thoroughbred) while the male ponies can be considered another (Clydesdale's presumably) and gender never has to come into the picture. Colours are not gender specific, no matter how people want to say "Pink is for girls".

Ya'll beat me to the 'Pink used to be a masculine colour' argument, so I'll end there .