Izzy Does It... but what does she, exactly? · 1:41pm March 8th
Because of some recent events, I decided to rewatch the first epidode of "My Little Pony: Make Your Mark" Chapter 2 - "Izzy Does It", and it ended up in enough thoughts for a post of analysis. This post is going to focus on the episode's main plotline - the one about Izzy and her search for inspiration.
Before discussing this episode we need to understand the nature of art. It is a form communication, and creator isn't the only one who matters. Art conveys ideas and emotions, and even if one's target audience is defined as "anyone willing to listen", it is still there in their mind: otherwise there is no point in publishing, showing off, giving gifts and doing anything else to let pieces of art get from one person to another. That audience also plays a part in deciding if the work is successful: the creator might want it to be loved, hated, understood in a particular way, to provoke a discussion, anything. What matters is that they aim for a more or less certain reaction from other people, and when these people react, their reactions influence further decisions of the creator. Sometimes the audience even becomes a co-author of sorts, as seen by the existense of this very site where we share the different ways of understanding one particular animated show.
Now, with this in mind, let's turn to the episode itself.
The first three scenes featuring Izzy set up the conflict. First Izzy's workflow is depicted as very random, relying mostly on subconscious inspiration and personal connections: Izzy builds a tower from random things as a birthday gift for Sunny, then accidentally finds a bracelet and gives it instead, and when Sunny uses it as a hairpin, Izzy approves it (proving the point about audience-co-author). And then Pipp posts that hairpin online as "the trend of the day", quite inconsiderately calling her fans to "get one for yourself" on a craft-fair in Maretime Bay. Izzy becomes so nervous that she sneaks into Sunny's wagon and asks her for advice, questioning if she'll be able to make another hairpin and further reminding how the one Sunny wears was made at random... and somehow specially for her. But Sunny and Pipp continue to push Izzy into working for the fair, they encourage her to use her creativity in new conditions.
However, these scenes are not enough on their own. Depending on how Izzy would interact with her customers at the craft-fair, they can produce different episodes. For example:
- The customers follow "the trend of the day" to the letter and demand exact copies of Sunny's hairpin. Izzy tries to provide that and has to suppress her desire to make something new while doing a boring, repetitive work to earn money or fame, please people or for some other reason. She then resolves the conflict by finding the ponies who value her creativity, whether they would be her friends or a particular group of strangers.
- Izzy foolws Pipp's advice, lets her creativity fly and brings her random crafts to the craft-fair. The customers still decide to buy them instead of the literal thing Pipp had advertised, and so Izzy aquires her own brand. This leads to another type of conflict, where Izzy has to make new stuff very fast and grows tired of it, however genuine her creativity might have been. Again, she can resolve this conflict by leaving, finding a new workflow, asking the fans to stop demanding so much or doing something else entirely.
- Izzy confronts her fear of the craft-fair rather than actual fame. She is pushed into a new evironment by her friends and tries different ways to adapt until she finally finds the right one or decides that this isn't her thing.
What happens in the actual episode? Nothing of this and nothing else which continues the line of Izzy facing the craft-fair. After the scene in Sunny's wagon the fair is never brought up as the source of Izzy's problems with creativity. She might have forgot about it halfway through because upon coming to the brightouse for supplies her plan is to "make something that's better that another thing". She also describes her creativity issue as "can't decide what to make", and Pipp's first advice about copying yourself with a twist vanishes without a trace. This allows only to guess if in the brighthouse Izzy tries to come up with a hairpin design or anything at all, and when she visits the craft-fair again, it looks more like a way to take ideas from other ponies as Pipp advised. There is only one scene with one stallion who discarded the hairpin, and his explanation for it ("This isn't the special thing you made before") due to lack of context can mean "not a copy of Sunny's hairpin", "not looking like it came from Izzy being Izzy", or maybe something else. It is unknown if there were any others before him and before Izzy gave up and turned to Sunny for another advice, so whether she was actually famous or just freaked out, remains a mystery. The ending scenes, where Izzy runs to Bridlewood, crafts several things for herself and returns to the brighthouse with them, say nothing about whether she decided to return to the craft-fair or is going to keep her art close and personal.
The episode seems to treat creativity as some kind of magic and art as just releasing this magic into wherever. Izzy struggles to do anything for unknown purpose instead of anything for the craft-fair (not even talking about something specific for the craft-fair). And because there is so much uncertainity, it's impossible to know if she actually learned something new about how to not have creative blocks: the block she went through might have come from her actual inability to emotionally connect with the customers, from catastrophizing imagination or from something entirely unrelated to the craft-fair like nostalgia for Bridlewood. The "lesson" at the end could explain what was different between failed and successful attempts to craft, but instead it presents a vague non-explanation about being yourself. Izzy is always herself, everypony is themselves, and there is no way to not be what you are. That's a fundamental law of logic: A = A. But can Izzy be herself at the fair and still find ponies who value her art? Why wasn't she being herself when she tried to craft her undefined "something" from random stuff in the brighthouse while seemingly not keeping the fair in mind? These questions remain unanswered, as the initial conflict has been supplanted with something about magically finding a magical spark of creativity for unknown reason and purpose.
I did, but that wasn't my issue. My issue they don't have jobs, they have hobbies (and no I don't count Pipp being an influencer as one. Unless she's backing up hocking shit based solely off being herself, she'd better be doing some great shit to justify it.
Of course that still wouldn't make some people happy
I know it seems like Im harping on it, but this deal just speaks further to how hollow this show is