The My Little Pony "Stigma"

[Al-1701]

There has always been this stigma attached to My Little Pony as being a shining example of "girly = bad".  I've seen people use it as a negative comparison to other things.  Interest in MLP is shown as a sign of a problem in boys and something girls have to get over.  Needless to say, MLP has been the butt of many a cruel joke.  Even Lauren Faust, the supposed Matron Saint of Ponies, lumped the original cartoon (which she barely watched btw) on the heap of "tea parties and beating the villain by crying" despite that never happening.

The question is, why?  Why is it My Little Pony that gets the bad rap?  It wasn't the girliest thing out there and there's nothing wrong with being the girliest thing out there.  The television show was short-lived and not the best animated but that was because it was produced on a shoestring budget and while other shows made for Hasbro (that got the lion's share of their production budget) were imploding.  I found the Transformers movie more unwatchable than the My Little Pony movie because I could at least tell what was going on in the MLP movie even if I didn't like it.

The answer I can think of is My Little Pony was successful.  It stayed on American store shelves for a decade and even longer in Europe.  It's a brand as instantly recognizable as Barbie, and got there through the jungle of the 1980's.  That made it an easy target because it had the profile but not the history.  Many other brands are probably more guilty of the things My Little Pony is accused of, but too obscure to get people to notice.

So, why do you think My Little Pony has been stuck with this stigma?

[mopthebunny]

From my personal experience, I would say that Barbie and Bratz get a lot more flack than MLP, but that's besides the point.

Without getting into a long-winded rant, I will say this: sexism.  For as long as society sees women in a negative light, people will see so-called 'girly' things like MLP as bad things.

If you ask any boy why they don't like MLP, most of them will say 'because it's for girls!'. Women are also guilty of seeing 'feminine' things as something to be ridiculed.

So, in conclusion, people aren't ridiculing MLP simply because they dislike plastic ponies -- they hate and ridicule the female archetype without understanding what that archetype is, or why they hate it so. 
  When you live in a world where 'girl' is an insult, girls' toys are going to be seen as a bad thing.

[Artemesia's Garden]

I'm sorry i don't agree. Transformers the movie was amazing!!! 

p.s. completely agree with the above! Mop the bunny hit the nail on the head there.  I showed a 7 year old boy my collection and an episode of the cartoon.  He chose Sunlight as his favorite thinking it was Rainbow Dash.  She's the most stereotypically masculine of the 6 

[SunPony]

From my personal experience, I would say that Barbie and Bratz get a lot more flack than MLP, but that's besides the point.

Without getting into a long-winded rant, I will say this: sexism.  For as long as society sees women in a negative light, people will see so-called 'girly' things like MLP as bad things.

If you ask any boy why they don't like MLP, most of them will say 'because it's for girls!'. Women are also guilty of seeing 'feminine' things as something to be ridiculed.

So, in conclusion, people aren't ridiculing MLP simply because they dislike plastic ponies -- they hate and ridicule the female archetype without understanding what that archetype is, or why they hate it so. 
  When you live in a world where 'girl' is an insult, girls' toys are going to be seen as a bad thing.

Seconded.

[hathorcat]

I do think it is as simple mopthebunny says. I dont think its MLP specifically and I dont think the brand suffers any more eye rolling or jokes at its expense than any other "girly" toy line. The phrase "girly" is typically used negatively (although thankfully it does not suffer as much as it perhaps did a couple of decades ago) and therefore anything seen as innately "girly" is equally as effected.

So stereotyping and sexism...thats about it.

[QueenStarglow]

I don't really see MLP as having a bad rap. When most non-collectors learn I collect they say, "I had hundreds of those! How cool!" and then we spend a while talking about different characters and I help identify old favorites. My boyfriend doesn't collect MLP but he's got more Breyer horses are other horse figurines than I do. Everybody loves horses and ponies!

[Aadra310]

Human traits are divided into 2 groups: masculine and feminine.  Masculine traits tend to be strength, leadership, thinking, independence, and problem-solving.  Traits like compassion, empathy, communication, listening, and cooperation are often considered "feminine."  Feminine traits are consistently devalued and seen as weaknesses while masculine traits are portrayed as more desirable.  This causes men to devalue anything feminine and women to devalue themselves and each other.  People need to realize that HUMAN traits are neither masculine nor feminine and all of these traits are essential in the healthy running of a society. 

So, yes.  It has very little to do with MLP.  It has very much to do with girls and women being portrayed as weaker (both physically and mentally if you buy into many of the cultural messages).  This is what a lot of feminists are trying to get people to understand.  However, many feminists are being verbally attacked and ridiculed.  Many people (including women!) don't understand what the feminist movement is really about which I find very discouraging.  *disclaimer- I do realize there are some militant feminists that are a bit extreme in their views and those aren't the people I'm talking about here.

[Al-1701]

Sexism is definitely at the core.  However, when a generic girly thing needs to thrown up for ridicule, it seems like My Little Pony is often what is put up there.

[Galactica]

Yeah- it is just sexism.    The same reason why women attorneys only make up 2% of the shareholder/leadership positions, and why women's health is so under researched and under valued, and why women across the board do not get promoted or paid the same as men, I guess i could go on all day.   

[Taffeta]

This is a really interesting discussion point. I found myself thinking back to when I was a child, and the way in which MLP was perceived then. I went to a very small village school where pretty much all the girls (and some of the boys, younger ones) had MLP. I remember the other boys singing the "my little pony skinny and bony" refrain, and I remember MLP being banned by my (evil) head teacher because the boys kept throwing them on the roof (still wondering how that was our fault  )

But, I was not a girly girl. I loathed pink till I became an adult and realised it was no longer a little girl stigma hanging over me. My friends and I, our pony games consisted of zombie worlds and rescuing princesses from monsters...and the boys who threw the ponies on the roof came to regret it because we regrouped, gathered our unicorn ponies and treated them to what we called "pony chase", which consisted of chasing them around the playground and then prodding them with the unicorn ponies. Fizzy was the best for this! We played combination games of My Little Pony/Ghostbusters and My Little Pony/TMNT, as well as countless other weird and wonderful things.

As a kid for me the stigma was Barbie. I hated her with a passion because all the dolls in the stores where I was here in the UK were in sickly pink boxes with pink clothing and all of them without exception were fair skinned, blond haired and vapid looking in terms of expression. As a kid all I wanted was some variety. I hated Megan as well, for the same reasons. What was with blond dolls and pink outfits, anyway? So I never had Megan and Sundance and the one Barbie I did have lost all her accessories to my pony collection.

I don't think of MLP = girly. On the contrary, as a kid, they allowed me to be NOT girly, because they were not the stereotypical dolls. My ponies didn't have teaparties though. They got kidnapped by monsters or abseiled out of the window on ribbons and shoelaces (true story).

As a teenager, I felt very self-conscious that I was still collecting. I didn't talk about it at school at all, and hid them. If we went carbooting, I put it on my sister that we were collecting for her. She didn't mind. She loved ponies too - still does (as of yesterday she was sending me texts about a pony mug she'd found in order to make me jealous, and last time she was here she abducted Sky Rocket, so yeah, she';s not grown up either). I think then, in the 1990s, it was expected to grow out of the toys. But I still played with them at school till I was 11 and nobody cared particularly.

As a child, I didn't have a lot of influence from the TV show. I had a grand total of 4 episodes on vhs - Ice Cream Wars, Revolt of PE, Sweet Stuff and the Treasure Hunt and the Wouldbe Dragon Slayer. I watched them a lot, but to me they had a lot of "unreal" ponies in (ie ponies not sold in the UK, like Paradise, Truly, Cupcake, Scoops...) or the "wrong names" (ie Sweet Stuff who was called Sweetie in the UK) so with my kid logic I kinda dismissed them in favour of the comic interpretations whenever it was a clash. In the mid 1990s, Sky 1 aired all the MLP eps, including MLP tales and my sister's best friend leant her the videos she had recorded of those episodes. Most of these I saw then for the first time. I would have been about 14 I think, so I saw them with an older eye, rather than a small kid's eye.

I still prioritise the comics over all other characterisation, because of the range of ponies covered and the fact they were the principal influence on me as a child, but my overwhelming impression of the G1 cartoon series is that there are a few silly episodes and a lot of very dark episodes and episodes with hidden messages (don't take drugs, don't take things from strangers, don't judge on appearances...etc etc). You have shadows being stolen, youth being sucked out, ponies being enslaved, imprisoned in dark cities, the world dying of drought, a beautiful legend of the first unicorn in the Golden Horseshoes and such like. I don't really like MLP the Movie and never did (except the smooze), but there are a lot of eps among the early ones I do like. MLP Tales is more girly, but in general, I don't see any of the G1 episodes as being overtly girly. As a kid I also watched Heman, Shera, Thundercats, Transformers, etc. MLP just fit into that slot.

It's not just back then, though. My best friend was telling me recently how she had found a Tootsie at a carboot sale and had bought it for her niece (who is about 4 now I think). This girl is a super-tomboy, but she loves Tootsie (who she calls Lollipop) and was very disappointed she wasn't in the new cartoon show. Now my friend is looking for other common G1 ponies at carboot sales so Tootsie has friends. I find it interesting because Tootsie is also not pink and traditionally "girly" colours, and I remember the brother of a friend of mine at school who had one and took her around with him everywhere. He was a boy, but there was never a stigma about it (because Tootsie wasn't pink, perhaps?)

Based on all of that, I think that this is a stigma that associates more to G4 and maybe G3 than one that has always been in place (at least in my experience, different places may have different experiences).

In more recent years, I feel MLP has become a "brand" and it is somewhat "cult" or "cool". I don't actually know how I feel about this, though I do love the merchandise for G1 ponies that it has created. I deal now with a lot of students, girls and boys at the college I currently work at that love G4 and aren't afraid to say so.These kids are 16-19 years old and it's ok for them to be "bronies", although there are still kids who are not into it and who dismiss it.

I have watched Friendship is Magic, and I don't hate it, but it doesn't attract me to watch it obsessively, nor am I really attracted to the characters (although I find Rarity funny). I think the reason is that MLP is a lot more girly than the old MLP used to be (not that that's at all a bad thing, but just my opinion, and not to my taste). There are more girly things involved in the storylines I've seen - parties, fashion,etc come up a lot, which they don't really for the original MLPs in G1 (maybe MLP tales). I don't know if this is responding to the demographic, or if it's Hasbro's assumption that it's what girls want (but it is working, so it must be the right mix). However the mass explosion of popularity of G4 (which I confess, as a pony fan I still don't understand xD) is bound to bring with it some kind of reaction.

I think MLP may have more stigma now than it ever did in the past, and now it has the history. So maybe the history itself makes it something to be stigmatised over? I don't know. Who knows? If it's being talked about, it means it has a presence - sometimes it's better to be loved and hated than forgotten and lost. But it might simply be that G4 crosses traditional boundaries and people are noticing it more - because a lot of adult males are getting interested in MLP, not just a few young boys, and that perhaps messes with the "perceived notion" of who should love MLP.

But then two of my closest MLP community friends from years back (though sadly no longer in the community I don't think) were male, so there always have been male MLP fans. I guess it's just become a bigger talking point, which is why it's excited so much attention.

As for Lauren Faust, I honestly find her viewpoint irrelevant to whether MLP is or isn't "seen as" anything. She's heavily involved in G4, but not in anything earlier than that - and as a fan of MLP, she's entitled to her view as any of us are without it being held up as an example of how anyone else is meant to think. If people are just copying what she said and not thinking about it themselves, more fool them.

[DazzleKitty]

From my personal experience, I would say that Barbie and Bratz get a lot more flack than MLP, but that's besides the point.

Without getting into a long-winded rant, I will say this: sexism.  For as long as society sees women in a negative light, people will see so-called 'girly' things like MLP as bad things.

If you ask any boy why they don't like MLP, most of them will say 'because it's for girls!'. Women are also guilty of seeing 'feminine' things as something to be ridiculed.

So, in conclusion, people aren't ridiculing MLP simply because they dislike plastic ponies -- they hate and ridicule the female archetype without understanding what that archetype is, or why they hate it so. 
  When you live in a world where 'girl' is an insult, girls' toys are going to be seen as a bad thing.

I couldn't agree more with this, as depressing as it is. Even women make fun of a man for being feminine and therefore are insulting their own femininity.

[Icey]

I have not read or experienced any negativity about ponies from either gender. Most people I have talked pony with have fond memories of them (even boys who played with their sister's ponies). There is no such thing as a girl or boy toy in my house. I say all toys were meant to be played with by kids of all ages and gender. If it helps them to use their imagination I do not care what sex it was intended for. My son has MLP and a dollhouse. My daughter has tools and dinosaurs and a dump truck

[Snapdragon]

I'm gonna second the sexism comment, yep! I don't think there's anything explicitly 'bad' about MLP that people latch onto; it's just something that a lot of girls grew up with and enjoyed, and it's been a popular girl-marketed toy line for a loooong time. Hence, "deserving" of sexist mockery.

I have to roll my eyes at anyone who mocks G1/G3 while praising G4 for it's "gender neutrality" or whatever. You DO realize that G1 was more action-packed than G4, right?

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[Lore-Lei]

Needless to say, MLP has been the butt of many a cruel joke.  Even Lauren Faust, the supposed Matron Saint of Ponies(...)

And THIS is where all the problems come from, treating Lauren like some almighty deity that changed the word.

Other than that, as others said, stereotyping and sexism without doing reseach, mainly for the G3 era... even though G3 was also very clever in the beginning.

[SummerSkye]

I guess I don't see the big deal? I've only seen this issue come up since g4/bronies came about.

I grew up in the 80s and had a bunch of ponies. My brother even had 2! (baby racer and Tabby if you're curious) I had some he-man figures and ninja turtle, too. While we were perfectly aware which aisles these toys were sold in they were pretty much all played with together.

I collect G1s now bc they are my favorite line (and one only has so much room). Now this whole grown men avidly watching FiM is different and is admittedly odd to even to me. I've watched the show. It's ok. It's not THAT great. I'm frankly surprised how popular it is. I guess I should be happy bc it keeps mlp alive (...but no so thrilled with g4 brushables anyways).

I don't want to start anything I just want to express my opinion from a 80s kid/collector s pov.