(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

anarchicq
2012-02-26 11:32 pm UTC (link)

I saw a flawed pony with a slight disability. All the ponies are flawed and so too is this one who also happens to have a disability.

There will always be dicks online who point and laugh at shit but the show is for kids and it might make them feel good that there's a character that's different like them.

Kids are smarter than people give them credit for and changing it could send another message to them that there's something wrong with them.

And, as a side note, how is that pony any different than this? If anything they turned her into a classic cartoon trope and they weren't trying to be malicious or hurtful.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	agent_hyatt 2012-02-26 11:37 pm UTC (link)
	You saw a pony with a slight disability. Other people saw a background pony with a possible disability that was used solely as a joke and a stereotype. They had a problem with it, and expressed their problems well enough that the show's staff understood where they were coming from and decided to honor their requests to remove what was considered offensive. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	anarchicq 2012-02-26 11:41 pm UTC (link)
	So complete erasure is less offensive than a disabled pony that was (by the cast, not the viewer) held to the same standards as everyone else in the show. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	agent_hyatt 2012-02-26 11:45 pm UTC (link)
	That's assuming the pony was even meant to actually be disabled. There's been no indication that that is the case. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	anarchicq 2012-02-27 12:03 am UTC (link)
	Inferring from the content of the scene isn't enough? It's better to have characters say something like "This is (Character name, which incidentally was striped from her too.), and she's a little bit disabled but that's ok! She's just like us anyway!"? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

agent_hyatt
2012-02-27 12:14 am UTC (link)

When that's pretty much all the content we have for her, and all the disability markers are also markers of a joke? No, it's not enough.

You're not a fan of the show, so maybe you don't get the issue. The character isn't really a character; she started as an art error that gained memetic status in the fandom. The characterization the fandom came up with was stereotypically mentally challenged, except without any real disability awareness. A lot of more disability-conscious fans have objected to that characterization, and to her name being an ableist slur. When the episode first aired, those people assumed that the writers had only seen the internet popularity and not the real issues people had with how she was treated as a joke.

Now, which do you think is more likely, that the writers intended to have a nuanced, disabled pony character and her first real scene just happened to be comedic, or that the writers decided to make a scene with a fandom-favorite character and characterization without realizing how problematic it was?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	cmdr_zoom 2012-02-27 02:17 am UTC (link)
	As I said in another thread: So our only choices are "invisibility" or "minstrel-show"? The hi-LAR-ious stereotype, or nothing? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	iamnotyourmuse 2012-02-27 03:56 am UTC (link)
	Thank you for so succinctly summing up my feelings on the matter. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	felinephoenix 2012-03-01 04:41 pm UTC (link)
	What iamnotyourmuse said. Thank you. (Reply to this)(Parent)

mneiai
2012-02-26 11:47 pm UTC (link)

Do you honestly think we should base characterization on the things they did in the 80s? O.o Or that no "classic" tropes are ever wrong? This is tv, intent doesn't matter, content does, and when you make someone with a possible disability the continual butt of jokes, that's wrong. I've only seen a handful of episodes, but that's how it came off to me. They could have also done a touching episode where she saves the day despite personal challenges and whatnot, then treated her with more sensitivity, but this is what they decided on.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	anarchicq 2012-02-27 12:08 am UTC (link)
	Ok, yeah, that's a fair enough point about old tropes. But now that it's been "fixed", we'll never get a future episode like the one you suggested because there's no disabled pony. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	seiberwing 2012-02-27 05:52 am UTC (link)
	She was never disabled. She was never anything, just a background pony with error-drawn eyes who got surprisingly popular. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ecchaniz0r 2012-02-27 07:32 pm UTC (link)
	Stop digging. i tell you this as a friend. STOP DIGGING, YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE FOR YOURSELF, AND OFFENDING ME. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -