My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 241

Oh boy, I get to talk about why I love this show and fandom for the contest thingie. I love writing about stuff like this; I get to be the expert for once~

I guess I'd better start with my story. I was lucky in that I ran into hype for this show for the first time on a site that just outright bans people if they aren't actually contributing to discussion (not TL; this was back when Green Isn't Your Color had just aired). So no memefest, no image spam, no chance it was trolling. Everyone was simply presenting reasons why the show stood out, with some disagreement. That was enough to convince me it was genuine. I didn't actually plan on watching until about three days later when my closest friends both asked me to watch the show, and I was putting it off until I saw the original Ponycraft PMV. I tried it later that day and watched four episodes straight, then caught up over two more days. I will say right here that the irony behind the show's quality was a factor in giving it a shot. I hear a lot of cartoons are good, like the new Scooby-Doo series (supposedly it's a big leap up in quality in every area, too), but I don't give many a serious try because there's just too much out there. So irony got me past that hurdle; however, it was purely the show's quality that carried me from there.

The reasons I love the show are plentiful. Some are universal: the animation is very good for a modern cartoon, even if it's not quite top-tier (see: Avatar TLA fight scenes.) The characterization is strong, allowing for consistent personality quirks, flaws, and twists on the classic archetypes, though it takes several episodes to see this. The episodes are 22 minute blocks instead of the common 11-12, meaning a lot more character development can take place as the story unfolds. Other reasons are specific to my personality. These include a dislike of crude or cruel humor and intentionally stupid characters being used to set up jokes, a reason I'm not fond of many other recent cartoons. I feel it's just too easy to make a joke if you include a character who can just say random stupid things and not be called out on it--a character that is funny, but has no depth or consistency. On the positive side, I'm not adverse to cute things. I have a personality and worldview that allows me to judge something based on a critical view of it rather than preconceived notions. I enjoy character-driven stories; I don't need action scenes, romance, or complicated plots if I'm able to become emotionally invested in the characters. And I'm a big fan of the classic cartoon humor, including cartoon physics, visual gags, and occasional ridiculously over-the-top scenes. Not everyone wants these things in a cartoon, especially the conflicts usually being restricted to mundane but relatable interpersonal or intrapersonal conflicts, and that's fine.

Speaking of character archetypes, FiM uses six of the most universal and popular ones as a base for the characters, especially the athletic badasss, the nerd girl, the shy, quiet, demure angel, and the energetic Cloud Cukoolander. You'll see these archetypes in plenty of anime as well, because pretty much everyone can identify with at least one and admires others. Thankfully, FiM does an exceptional job of not playing these archetypes so straight that you can anticipate what is going to happen in between the introduction of a conflict and the expected resolution, even if the resolution itself may be clear because of self-contained episodes. Even the simplest conflicts tend to have very crazy events and reactions occurring sometime in the middle of the plot. The writers aren't afraid to get dirty in how they treat their characters. We've had a chance to see exactly what their greatest flaws are: obsession with order or details, self-expectation, need for attention or acceptance, perfectionism, pride, and stubbornness to name a few. And we've seen episodes where these flaws were expanded on to the point of giving each character a rather shocking, but highly entertaining, breakdown or a glimpse of their dark side without having to break their character. If you've become invested into the characters, seeing something like this is a thrill work experiencing.

I still don't believe people, despite hearing it from every side, when they say the show is made just for girls and only has an incidental male audience; I can objectively say that there are only a few episodes with traditionally girly themes, all but one of which is just using fashion either for metaphor or parody, and I recognize that Studio B and Faust don't actually have an interest placed in selling toys over writing well so long as the Hub needs their show. This is a big deal that I think most people overlook when they judge the show ahead of time: this is an extremely rare example of a toy show that needs viewers as much it needs to sell toys because it's on a new network, and it was created by a woman whose primary interest and goal was the improvement of cartoons for girls to be more intelligent, empowering, and true-to-life. The people working on this may have been able to get away with just making a toy-seller, but their actual motives and self-described "perfectionist" personalities drove them to produce the best thing they could make. Good thing since Faust's recruitment choices early on included Rob Renzetti (a top writer from the past ten years of cartoons) and Studio B (some of the forerunners in modern animation, with experienced staff from shows like Ed, Edd and Eddy on board.) And it turns out that "good writing" is rather gender-neutral, or more accurately it expands the sphere of that which anyone can enjoy and relate to.

While I wouldn't say the show is girly, I might concede that it's childish. Not always--the majority of the time it fits into what we'd call "all-ages". But there are times when the conflict relies a little too much on the characters not having some social knowledge that we take for granted as adults. There's also the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who simply do have childish problems in some of their episodes. On the other hand, several other episodes have more subtle lessons that represent some of the hardest and most frustrating lessons we have had to learn as adults. The core of Suited for Success is a song which parodies Steven Sondheim's work "Putting it Together", and it represents the aspirations of an artist being crushed into bitterness as the reality of the commercial world is forced on them. Anyone who has tried meeting the needs of a client without a contract, be it with web design or programming or animation or art commissions, knows the frustrations of last-minute changes, feature creep, and client indecision. And anyone in film or TV who had to move away from what they wanted to make to appeal to the masses knows Rarity's pain as well. Another episode, The Best Night Ever, is firmly focused on the message that the big thing you are hyped for and have been waiting for your whole life is never going to meet your expectations and may even suck, and that you have to pick up and move on when it does. This is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone, regardless of age or gender. These messages, these snippets of the writers projecting their real frustrations and experience into the show, are important so that I, as an intellectual, don't feel like there's nothing for me to take away from the show in the end, even though the lessons about friendship are themselves trivial at my age.

What compels me to extend my love of this show outside of just watching it? Well, the fact that the show carries a stigma with the name may have been key in creating a connection between its viewers, because almost no one would give the show a try without recommendation--thus anyone who likes the show would already know someone connected to the fanbase, and likely get introduced to it themselves. The result is that the fanbase of the show is absolutely massive--and while this is not inherently good, with size comes a lot of talented individuals. The artwork, music, and even stories produced by this community has such a large sample size that there are an unbelievable number of top-quality works out there. We've even got people sitting down and seriously designing video games, doing all the work themselves for no money--people who are posting real results and have attracted attention from major video game publications like GameInformer and several international publications. There is also a strong sense of community here. Of course, there are downsides; my frustration with fans who don't understand when a meme is tired or how pointless it is to wave it in the face of someone without context or explanation is unbounded. I would love for the conflict and pointlessness on all sides to come to an end and for people to just explain themselves, but this is the Internet where you can't be stopped from saying nothing in the most annoying way possible.

One of the most fantastic things about this whole phenomenon to me is the fact that we are actually able to interact with show staff members. This is a totally new concept, and it doesn't happen with many other shows yet (though Adventure Time and Phineas and Ferb do it a lot, I hear). We've had the chance to hear exactly what thought process goes into making the show, what actresses' and animators' individual experiences were like, what everyone's attitude is, and a technical explanation of every process and decision. And we've also seen the personal sides of the people that make the show, giving me a whole new perspective on TV programming, artists, and so much more; if there is any place that FiM has really, truly enabled me to grow as an individual, it is here, because before I was completely oblivious to the struggles in commercial entertainment media, those of artistic vision and aspiration versus the bottom line and demands to play it safe. A favorite topic of mine is when Faust said she actually lurked the Equestria Daily comments and would occasionally drop spoilers as an anonymous user. Just amazing to see someone so happy to be appreciated, watching her dreams grow closer, that she'd take the time to give a little back her own sly manner.

So there you have it. I'm sure I could keep going, but I probably just wrote enough to fill a large newspaper column, so I guess I'll stop for everyone's sake. This was more positive than I originally intended; I would love to go back and point out some flaws in the writing, which I am extremely critical of in my post-viewing reviews you may see throughout this thread and other sites I visit, for some contrast and to emphasize that I'm not just raining praise blindly here. There's a message for the community I want to leave everyone with, the reason why I would write so much: I believe that it is very empowering to be able to review something you love and point out exactly why you love it, but also to nitpick its flaws because you are in the best position to spot them if you really look. Doing so is what gives me confidence that I'm not a hopeless dope obsessed with the show because it's trendy or ironic. It's my wish that all sides in the pointless bickering surrounding the show outside of TL and other well-moderated communities, as well as the people stating their love in this thread, will learn to be critical and fair, and to demonstrate their viewpoints with a reasoned argument. Communication will do so much more for the community image than spewing memes and reaction images at people and not considering the values of the communities we coexist with. This thread is mostly exceptional about it, but I want to see this attitude spread more. Even though 99% of arguments don't change the opinions of either side if they are emotionally invested in it, it's important to make the effort to present ourselves as reasonable and sane.

Note: Any edits I make here are to fix mechanical errors; I'm not trying to cheat in the judging of my post for the contest. I hope that's okay.