Dedicated readers will remember an article I wrote back in July about the Bronie movement, and my theories behind its popularity and growing nature. Needless to say, my optimistic outlook of this subculture drew a few gay jokes my way, and it doesn’t help my case that I actually do enjoy the show quite a lot, and I love the memes it’s spawned. It really doesn’t help that my current Facebook profile picture is a pony, either. Sometimes, you just have to own the jokes they make about you.
"Like how I own the alley behind Denny’s."
But I’m certainly not a ‘fanboy’. I’m not so blinded by bronie-dom that I can’t see what’s wrong with parts of the series. And some of things that are wrong with it are pants-shittingly terrifying, from a Political Science perspective. Even a cartoon aimed at little girls can be frightening if you think about it hard enough. And I’ve thought about it very, very hard.
“My Little Pony, My Little Pony…”
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has kind of a messed up governmental system, if you look at the information they present you with about it objectively. Equestria, the land that the ponies live in, is basically a Communist Dictatorship, under “Our Dear Leader” Princess Celestia.
Ponies are basically pigeon-holed into their future interests and careers by way of their cutie marks, the marks on their asses that display their personality type and skills. They get this at their version of puberty, but their cutie mark and interests almost always match their birth name. For instance, Rainbow Dash, a Pegasus who has a rainbow colored mane and flies at speeds fast enough to create a sonic rainboom, has a cloud with a rainbow-colored lightning bolt coming out of it. Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn who’s adept at magic, has freaking sparkles on her flank. Apple Jack, who grows apples, has apples on her flank. You get the idea.
"Dr. Whoof, resident Time Lord of Ponyville, has an hourglass on his flank."
The weird thing is, it’s stated in the series that ponies don’t know what their mark is going to be until they get it. So how the hell do their parents know what to name them? What if Rainbow Dash had a single-colored mane and was terrible at flying? What if Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark had been a circle? WHAT IF APPLE JACK HAD GROWN ORANGES? There’s no accounting for what life would be like if their cutie mark and their name didn’t match up. It would probably be chaos!
"It would be like Cthulhu’s cutie mark being Euclidean Geometry. "
But there’s a strange implication here if you take the nature vs. nurture argument into account. If a pony’s cutie mark is entirely up to their nature, then it doesn’t matter what their family’s traits are or their given name is, their cutie mark will develop on its own, and could possibly be completely independent of other factors. But we haven’t seen this happen at all within the show. At least, not yet.
What evidence points to instead is the nurture theory. It’s clear these motherfuckers pigeonhole the living shit out of their offspring. I mean, if you don’t want your daughter to be an Apple Farmer, why name her Apple Jack? Why not name her something normal, like Susan, Shaniqwa, or Jenny? It’s not like normal names don’t exist… look at The Amazing Trixie. Even ponies who actively defy their parents’ wishes, like Pinkie Pie, still are implied to have the name they were born with (Pinkie Pie’s birth name being Pinkamena Diane Pie). Changing your name is even more taboo in Equestria than it is in real life. Your name isn’t just your legacy… it’s who you fucking are.
Pinkie Pie is pink, Apple Jack grows apples, Rainbowdash flies really fast and has a multi-colored motif, Fluttershy is really, really shy, Rarity is kind of stuck up, and Twilight Sparkle is a nerdy magician who spends most of her night awake studying. You don’t get a name in Equestria unless it has something to do with who you are, what you look like, what you do, and how willing you are to put up with abuse if your name is a pun. You don’t get a cutie mark in Equestria until you figure out who the fuck you are. I suspect that every pony just kinda accepts that they were named what they were named and runs with it, but it’s gotta cause a lot of angst.
"My Little Emo, My Little Emo…"
So is Equestria a communist country? Maybe, maybe not. The evidence I’ve provided is certainly compelling towards the argument, but there’s always room for doubt.
Come back next week when I fill that room for doubt full of my theories about Chairman Celestia and why her dictatorship is the most far-fetched and successful one EVER.
So tune in next week, same Lazy-Ass time, same Lazy-Ass website. On behalf of myself, this has been your friendly neighborhood Lazy-Ass Librarian.
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