colours, shapes and geekiness

lileclaire:

shymollymawk:

persisting:

nikiya:

eschergirls:

snailchimera:

It has come to my attention that a certain segment of the “brony” community has some complaints about their favorite show; not the entire brony population, which has many cool people in it, but enough of a portion to have a visible internet presence.

Namely, they are upset that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is still written primarily to appeal to and be understood by preadolescent girls instead of post-adolescent guys. They seem especially upset about the lack of male characters, and the lack of focus on those male characters.

Dear Bronys. What you are experiencing is indeed an uncomfortable and sometimes saddening phenomenon!

It is called “not being the target audience”.

You may be familiar with this phrase from when you, your friends, or your creative heroes used it to justify making the entire female casts of entire comics franchises look like soft core porn stars with severe physical disabilities, and not giving them the same focus or character depth overall as their male counterparts.

Or you might be familiar with its use in the video games industry, where it serves much the same purpose.

Or you may know it better from within the sphere of tabletop roleplaying games.

Or you may not be a “geek”, and are merely used to being the “target audience” of almost every other show on TV that is remotely engaging.

I feel your pain. It can be pretty miserable to love a media work of some kind, and not see anyone to identify with or consider a role model! And it can be even worse to feel like examples of your gender are only there to prove to audiences that your gender does in fact EXIST in the universe of that media work, and with that token acknowledgement accomplished, no one will ever do anything notable with them.

I would advise you to take solace in the fact that you will never see Spike in a physically impossible thong, posing submissively and “sexily” for no apparent reason while writing the moral of the day or being menaced by the villain du jour. Unless, you know, you like that kind of thing, in which case I’m sure certain subsets of the fandom can oblige. You will also never see Big Macintosh reduced to absolute, pathetic helplessness and weakness simply to reassure audiences that Applejack is the strongest of the ponies and no male pony will ever be able to compete.

And please, do keep writing in to fandom secrets. The vengeful, bitter monster in my heart thinks your pain tastes like cupcakes.

This is something my super smart friend SnailChimera wrote that’s a little relevant.

I’ll also add that a difference between Brony complaints about MLP and the issues in comics, video games, etc is that the “meant for a certain subset of hetero guys” thing isn’t just for one comic, or one video game.  Superhero comics and often mainstream comics in general, are assumed to be for that subset of hetero guys.  It’s not just Superman, X-Men, Batman, it’s Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Ms. Marvel, Avengers, everything.  In video games, you’ll see Escher Girls in art and advertising for action games, fighting games, RPGs, strategy games (remember Evony? xD), etc etc etc…

A comparable complaint would be if the Bronies felt every children’s show was meant for pre-adolescent girls, or all mainstream television was meant for children.  It’s one thing to not be the target audience of one show you like, but it’s another when entire industries decide that only one tiny subset that isn’t you is their target audience (it’s not even hetero men, it’s hetero men who want to see non-stop porny things in comics or video games that aren’t about sex).

basically all of this

tbh this is why i hate it when people call themselves “bronies.” you’re contributing to this attitude you guys you’re better than this. ;\ don’t gender what fans are called and don’t separate yourself from the “other” fans. just be ok with being in the same group as women and little girls, ok?

^ This. If you’re male and a fan, that’s awesome. But that doesn’t make you a special fan deserving of a special name and special consideration. Just be a fan. 

And yeah, on the topic of “but where’s my role model/representative/means of perspective in this medium?”: welcome to what women and girls deal with in “mainstream” works (ie, “for men/boys by default, unless we have made it pink and then it is for women/girls”).

Because, once again, masculine things are to be aspired to and it is admirable when women seek them out, while feminine things are in a lower category and it has to be somehow remarkable for a man to associate with them.

Let me add to this;

I see a lot of dialogue along the lines of “Har har, let’s steal little girl’s toys”, “Let’s buy them out so the little girls can’t get any”. I saw a clip of a con panel featuring the show actresses, and they had to remind the room of whooping, hollering man-children that there were little girls in the audience, and could they please bring them up to the front so they could actually hear what was going on.

I know one thing for sure- if I had been a little girl there, I would have been frightened to even go inside, let alone have the attention of hundreds of grown men on me, shouting at me to go up-front. Sure, there are Rainbow Dashes in the world but I was a Fluttershy and I’m pretty sure Fluttershy herself would have headed for the hills.

Male fans need to take on the message of the show. The show will always be for little girls, feminine, silly and cute. It’s great that there are male fans who embrace it and discard society’s rigid definitions of masculinity, who can be gentle and kind and sing songs and not ridiculed for being feminine, because femininity is wonderful.

It’s not so great that there are male fans who want to change it, who want to retain that rigid definition and it’s apparent “superiority” and deny young girls their right to be feminine, their toys, their enjoyment and their space.

Let them go first in the queue. Don’t enter competitions designed for kids. Be mindful of them and don’t holler and whoop at conventions. You wouldn’t scream like a madman at Fluttershy, would you? You wouldn’t buy up all the books so Twilight couldn’t have any, you wouldn’t edge Rarity out of a queue.

Don’t rob a little girl of her chance to be cool or smart or kind. Help her with it, and realise that you can be represented in the show too… wit, braveness, athleticism and style aren’t gender exclusive.

This. Hurrah for defying conventional masculinity, but doing so by completely appropriating something is not cool. It also isn’t cool to be unkind and selfish.
Although the gender imbalance can be jarring at times (the recent Smile song parade for example) it is factually correct, with equine herd hierarchy similar to that of lions and elephants i.e. matriarchal, although at least stallions aren’t lazy like lions are.