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Ha-chan (agent_hyatt) wrote in unfunny_fandom,
@ 2012-02-26 16:49:00

Lessons from bronies: Removing ableist stereotypes is intolerant!
Remember the backlash when an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic portrayed fan-favorite Ditzy/"Derpy" as "humorously" mentally challenged? Well, the concerns were heard, and the voice changed!

Aaaaand now some bronies are crying "ruined FOREVER!". To the tune of "not liking our insensitivity is intolerant!"

So, everyone who can now watch the clip without cringeing, you're harshing someone's squee, and that's terrible.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

bishounenhideto
2012-02-28 11:34 am UTC (link)

I'm just wondering why nobody is going after the Simpsons for the clearly dis/differently-abled Ralph Wiggum and all the jokes about him, or the blunt racism of Apu, despite the few moments he's lent some dignity now and then? Seems sort of hypocritical, especially since the Simpsons is still airing just like MLP.

Also, how do people feel about dis/differently-abled people saying they liked the character as she was and felt she was a symbol for them in the fact that despite her being different, she was a MLP all the same and loved equally by all the other ponies, that "fixing" her was erasing their identity and saying people who are dis/differently-abled shouldn't be seen, let alone heard?

How many people in this fight are personally dis/differently-abled or personally have dis/differently-abled relatives who expressed a negative opinion of the character's original nature/look versus being white hats out to save people who, as many seem to have posted, don't feel they need or want saving of this kind?

For the record, I'm neither a brony nor have I seen a single episode of the show. I'm just trying to understand all sides of this. No straw men or ad hominem arguments, please.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

bishounenhideto
2012-02-28 12:03 pm UTC (link)

I came in way too early to the comments thread, especially as someone who doesn't know the show or it's demographics.

I won't delete or alter my comment but will reply to it to add further thoughts.

After seeing many more people speak out on this, it's good to see people standing up for something they believe in in a firm and generally rational way. Whether I am/was personally offended or not by the "Derpy" character, and in fact, whether anyone else was personally not offended by the character doesn't matter. Enough people were and Hasbro did what they felt was best. It's good that people can come together to make such change happen.

If I offended anyone with my previous comment, it was never my intent.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	roachspit 2012-02-28 06:29 pm UTC (link)
	If I offended anyone with my previous comment, it was never my intent. Oh, my bad. I thought we were discussing My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, not My Little Pony: Intent Is Fucking Magic. /sarcasm Maybe you should read the other comments first next time. It'll save you some trouble. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bishounenhideto 2012-02-29 05:50 am UTC (link)
	When I posted, there weren't hundreds of comments/replies yet. Sorry for not being constantly present to monitor the discussion every second. Nice to see we can accept when people start out on opposing sides and end up agreeing with you be learning more about the subject. Good way to encourage more open dialogue. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

staroverthebay, 2012-02-29 06:54 am UTC

roachspit
2012-03-01 12:16 am UTC (link)

Okay, let's do this thing.

I'm just wondering why nobody is going after the Simpsons...

Then write a post about the Simpsons. This is a MLP post. Switching from one to the other without a logical segue is derailing. Derailing is bad.

Also, how do people feel about dis/differently-abled people saying they liked the character as she was and felt she was a symbol for them in the fact that despite her being different, she was a MLP all the same and loved equally by all the other ponies, that "fixing" her was erasing their identity and saying people who are dis/differently-abled shouldn't be seen, let alone heard?

If you had read the earlier comments, you would already know how people feel about this. If the choices are, "You can be represented, but only in a disrespectful way," or, "You won't be represented at all," most people have chosen no representation over disrespectful representation. We feel that those should not be the only choices; respectful representation is ideal.

Also, we are not operating under a utilitarian ethical system. If something offends one reasonable person, then it has offended too many people. If those five people over there are not offended, this does not mean that it's still okay to offend the three over here. Ideally, no one should be offended.

How many people in this fight are personally dis/differently-abled or personally have dis/differently-abled relatives who expressed a negative opinion of the character's original nature/look...

One, it's none of your business if a random stranger on the Internet is a PWD. Two, if you had read the earlier comments, you'd have seen several community members self-identify as people with disabilities.

...versus being white hats out to save people...

No one is white knighting here. We are simply attempting to be decent, respectful human beings.

...people who, as many seem to have posted, don't feel they need or want saving of this kind?

Many who seem to have posted where? Because the people with disabilities who have commented on this post have largely wanted respect, not "saving." They aren't helpless, they are being disrespected--and you are not helping.

For the record, I'm neither a brony nor have I seen a single episode of the show. I'm just trying to understand all sides of this.

People who want respect and the people who recognize that they deserve respect vs. people who don't want to give them respect and instead want to mock them without being called on it. What about that is so hard to understand?

I came in way too early to the comments thread, especially as someone who doesn't know the show or it's demographics.

Yeah. Work on that for next time, okay?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

roachspit
2012-03-01 12:19 am UTC (link)

After seeing many more people speak out on this, it's good to see people standing up for something they believe in in a firm and generally rational way.

You may not realize this, but that sentence comes across as incredibly condescending. We don't want to be patted on the head and told, "Good job." We want the bronies to stop being disrespectful assholes. Also, we generally don't like condescension and have a tendency to bite people's hands when they try to pat us on the head.

Whether I am/was personally offended or not by the "Derpy" character, and in fact, whether anyone else was personally not offended by the character doesn't matter.

Okay, now you're showing improvement...

Enough people were and Hasbro did what they felt was best.

...and now you're not. Enough people were offended? How many people counts as "enough people"? Is it one hundred? Two hundred? How about a dozen? Because I think it's one. One reasonable person who is offended is too many. There is no acceptable level of offense here.

If I offended anyone with my previous comment, it was never my intent.

Intent is not fucking magic. You might want to rephrase that. You didn't even say "sorry." :(

When I posted, there weren't hundreds of comments/replies yet.

There were enough. We can read timestamps.

Sorry for not being constantly present to monitor the discussion every second.

You are forgiven.

Nice to see we can accept when people start out on opposing sides and end up agreeing with you be learning more about the subject. Good way to encourage more open dialogue.

You may have learned something, but you started by offending people and followed up with a fauxpology. Bad form.

As a southerner, I get tired of the "missing teeth, didn't graduate 5th grade, wear only overalls and no shoes, dumb as a rock, inbred hayseed redneck" trope, but not much ever gets done about that. It makes too much money, I guess. Larry the Cable Guy isn't even actually southern, so a northerner slurs southerners and makes big bucks and is hugely popular for doing it. *sighs*

I'm from Georgia. Is that relevant to the current discussion? No. We are not playing oppression Olympics. And even if we were, "Southerners are stupid" is in no way comparable to the "People with disabilities are all retarded and subhuman. Let's point and laugh at them! Hur hur!" bullshit that the bronies are pulling right now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

roachspit, 2012-03-01 12:20 am UTC

cyndra_falin, 2012-03-01 02:29 am UTC

shadwing
2012-02-28 05:40 pm UTC (link)

I think I can answer your questions about Simpsons vs MLP:FiM

The Simpsons, was never ment to be a 'pure' kids cartoon, it along with other shows FOX premired when it first started were more or less edgy/satire/dark comedy they were crude rude and in your face hit topics that most 'main stream' networks wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole with fear of offending the PC police. The Simpsons never packaged itself as a show for kids and to teach them 'life lessons' ect. In fact the Simpsons started as 'ad bumpers' on the Tracy Ulman Show before they spun off into their own series...a show with a decidely Adult Target Audience.

Compare with MLP:FiM a Cartoon Series airing on a Safe Kid friendly Network, packaged as a good wholesome show about cute ponies haveing adventures and learning lessons. Having a possibly (never stated or confirmed in the show) disabled character, a less perfect and pretty pony messing things up and being scolded by the 'pretty/perfect' ponies and no lesson about how this is not a good thing, can send very uncomfortable message out.

Combine that with a known slur against the disabled, and establishing that as the characters name...and combine that with the fact said name was FAN BASED...started by the Adult segment of the fandom IIRC...and well you can get how people would react badly.

So in short the Simpsons don't get the flack because it's considered Adult Satire rather than Kids Entertainment.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bishounenhideto
2012-02-29 06:18 am UTC (link)

Thank you for politely answering my questions. I appreciate it. I'd still like to see things be more even across the board. What Hasbro did in the end was the absolute right thing to do. I'd like to see even "adult shows" be given the same once-over to spend less time trying to get cheap laughs from racial/sexual/younameit stereotypes and actually try simply being originally funny.

As a southerner, I get tired of the "missing teeth, didn't graduate 5th grade, wear only overalls and no shoes, dumb as a rock, inbred hayseed redneck" trope, but not much ever gets done about that. It makes too much money, I guess. Larry the Cable Guy isn't even actually southern, so a northerner slurs southerners and makes big bucks and is hugely popular for doing it. *sighs*

If it takes one genre/fandom at a time to try to deal with using -isms for cheap laughs, then it's good to see Hasbro helping that along for this particular -ism. It's good to see people pull together and make it happen.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	sandglass 2012-02-28 05:46 pm UTC (link)
	You didn't think anarchicq was bad enough, huh? Wanted to bookend the comments with, "But no disabled people were really upset! It's all white knights!"? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bishounenhideto
2012-02-29 05:57 am UTC (link)

I didn't say "every" anywhere in my original question, and you must've missed my follow up to my own post. The fact is, some dis/differently-abled people liked Derpy as she was. The bigger fact, though, was enough other dis/differently-abled people and their friends/family didn't. They spoke up and were heard and responded to. That matters most. Hasbro did the right thing by taking the offensiveness out of her.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2012-02-29 06:05 am UTC (link)
	This isn't about whether or not people liked it, it's about it being honest to god offensive. Also, could you please cut the twee "differently abled" thing? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bishounenhideto, 2012-02-29 06:24 am UTC

sandglass, 2012-02-29 06:37 am UTC

bishounenhideto, 2012-02-29 06:47 am UTC

sandglass, 2012-02-29 06:57 am UTC

bishounenhideto, 2012-02-29 07:07 am UTC

sandglass, 2012-02-29 07:11 am UTC

bishounenhideto, 2012-02-29 07:22 am UTC

sandglass, 2012-02-29 07:25 am UTC

bishounenhideto, 2012-02-29 07:38 am UTC

sandglass, 2012-02-29 07:41 am UTC

	felinephoenix 2012-03-01 04:55 pm UTC (link)
	Seconding sandglass here. Please stop using "differently abled". I am not differently abled, I have a disability, okay? Now, Professor X might be differently abled -- not because he's in a chair but because he can kill people with his mind. If only I could that. (Reply to this)(Parent)

chikane
2012-02-28 06:30 pm UTC (link)

I'm just wondering why nobody is going after the Simpsons for the clearly dis/differently-abled Ralph Wiggum

How many people in this fight are personally dis/differently-abled or personally have dis/differently-abled relatives who expressed a negative opinion of the character's original nature/look versus being white hats out to save people who, as many seem to have posted, don't feel they need or want saving of this kind?

There should be a law that during any discussion about any prejudice, someone who didn't check the actual situation will barge in with these two arguments. Because it always happens.

And they are nearly always wrong. Why can't we have people randomly barging into such discussions saying

"How many people in this fight secretly are Illuminati!? Most of them must be Illuminati! I know it!"

It'd be as nonsensical, but at least it'd be funny.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

bwthree
2012-02-28 08:45 pm UTC (link)

How many people in this fight are personally dis/differently-abled or personally have dis/differently-abled relatives who expressed a negative opinion of the character's original nature/look versus being white hats out to save people who, as many seem to have posted, don't feel they need or want saving of this kind?

By my count, at least half a dozen of us just in this post alone, plus an unspecified number of friends (I assume you meant to mention them too?) and family.

I've seen pretty similar patterns among the complaints about this elsewhere, too- with similar results. It seems like we only count when we agree with the mainstream/majority opinion; otherwise we're just mentally filed as 'not/not really disabled' and we and anyone standing with us get dismissed as 'white knights'.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

shadwing
2012-02-28 09:18 pm UTC (link)

Or people unfairly labeled as such because they are different from the norm.

I was labled 'retard' as a kid because I was quiet and didn't follow the 'popular' trends and kids and I prefered the company of the so called 'retarded' kids cuz they were a heck of allot nicer then the clique but since I associated with them I must be one too.

Being called names was bad enough but even worse when you discover what that name MEANS, I was a smart kid...I knew how to use a dictionary I looked up the word and my self-esteem took a hell of a blow to know that people thought of me as slow, as stupid, as inferior.

Now its entirely possible that the kids who called me that didn't realize what that word meant, but they got the signal somewhere, heard the word somewhere, was told that people who fit into these cues were this way and this is how you refer to them...how you treat them and its okay to do that.

Even worse the 'Derp/Derpy' term is now becoming more and more common and seen as 'harmless' one community I belong to got a complaint about it, the mods looked it up...and did a 180 hammering down on it as hard as other slurs, with enormous backlash but they held firm thank gods.

So yeah my teal deer let me show you it...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ekaterinv
2012-02-28 11:18 pm UTC (link)

Yep. Everyone has a stake in people being decent to people. Some people's stakes are higher in certain situations than others. I was called "lesbian" as a slur in high school, but my stakes in lesbians getting treated as human isn't as great as it is for actual lesbians. But that doesn't mean I don't have any stake in it.

And even people who never get -ist slurs thrown at them personally (do they exist?) have a stake in society being a better place, if they have any empathy at all.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cyndra_falin, 2012-02-29 12:45 am UTC

	miraba 2012-02-29 03:26 am UTC (link)
	Just wanting to say I am very impressed with those mods. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ekaterinv 2012-02-28 11:15 pm UTC (link)
	And we're causing "erasure"! Of a cartoon pony. But we don't actually exist. The cartoon pony's rights are far more important. "Erasure" only counts when it's about cartoon ponies, not about actual human beings. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	phosfate 2012-02-28 09:16 pm UTC (link)
	Classic derail! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	cyndra_falin 2012-02-28 10:48 pm UTC (link)
	Kindly shove it up your ass. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ekaterinv
2012-02-28 11:13 pm UTC (link)

You know that "erasure" thing that anarchicq and you are getting all high horse-y about?

YOU ARE BOTH DOING IT.

Oh no, no disabled people right here on this post are saying they had problems with the ableism. Nope. We don't exist.

If it's so very important to you that a fan-created ableist-named cartoon pony isn't "erased" that you're ignoring actual human beings in order to be oh-so-logical and calm and ordering us how to speak to you, you have a big fucking problem.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cyndra_falin 2012-02-29 12:46 am UTC (link)
	And this. (Reply to this)(Parent)

bishounenhideto
2012-02-29 06:05 am UTC (link)

It was extremely clear from my post that I was a secret brony. Oh, and it's good to see people read my own reply to my post before anyone else read what I wrote, and saw that after seeing more replies show up after mine, I saw that what ended up happening was a good thing, but we can't have "the enemy" realize that sort of thing and accept that they've realized it. It's always too late for anyone to come to a better conclusion and support your side because then we run out of people we can actually get a virtual grip around their throats and throttle them for initially saying things we disagreed with.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	staroverthebay 2012-02-29 06:52 am UTC (link)
	Why don't you just admit that you were wrong, or that you worded things wrong, and stop trying to play the victim? You're only digging your grave deeper by doing this. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ekaterinv
2012-02-29 09:36 am UTC (link)

What's with the implied accusation that I claimed you were a brony? You may as well have tried to imply I was accusing you of being an Illuminati, there's about as much evidence.

I saw your reply to your post. It was a "sorry if I offended anyone" fauxpology. You followed it by whining about how there weren't "hundreds of replies" when you first posted -- which was possibly technically true, since maybe there were just under 200 and now there are over 200. There were plenty of people, including me, who posted that they were disabled and offended before you swanned in here acting like we were invisible and ordering us to respond to you in a certain way. My disability doesn't make me unable to read timestamps.

Just. Stop.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

phosfate, 2012-02-29 02:42 pm UTC

cyndra_falin, 2012-02-29 07:13 pm UTC

napalmnacey, 2012-03-06 01:51 pm UTC

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