honest question, please don't cancel me · 3:24am April 5th
Does Misty have the n-word pass?
My take: Maybe, but does it matter?
Equestria, in spite of its many conflicts and centuries of wars and unrest, has no history of discrimination or enslavement on the basis of color. Even Lauren Faust stated "Color has never, ever been depicted as a race indicator for the ponies. When your characters are purple, blue, orange, yellow, black, white, red, green and pink, who’s to say which is supposed to signify a white person, a black person, an Asian person?" and by that same argument, skin color has no cultural significance* in the Equestria Girls world, with multicolor humans.
The racialization of unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi have far more significance in Equestria than any other racial indicators. This has been true in both G4 and G5. However, there is some bleed-through of human racial concepts in Equestria. Saffron Masala/Coriander Cumin can be argued to be South Asian, Pipsqueak can be implied to be British, kirins can be implied to be East Asian. But these ponies are racially coded not by their color, but by their manes, their accents, or their environment/upbringing.
As Misty has afro-textured hair, it has been argued Misty is similarly implied to be black, and therefore, in the context of Western English-speaking culture, she should theoretically have the n-word pass. But if Misty's hair texture is the only indicator that Misty is black, that's a tough sell for me, because there are human groups far removed from Africa that also have afro-textured hair (Native Australians, Melanesians).
But even if we assume Misty is implied to be of African descent, in the same way that the kirin are implied to be East Asian...again, does it matter? Misty doesn't live on Earth**. The concept of race in Equestria is so fundamentally different that I question if the n-word has any inflammatory, unifying, or otherwise socially significant meaning in Equestria. The n-word has etymological origins in the color black, but we have already established that color is not an indicator of race in pony society. It is unlikely the n-word would even exist as a concept in Equestria.
Therefore, even if Misty had the n-word pass, it would have no meaning if she said it in Equestria. It's just gibberish/filler to ponies, like it is to Japanese and Chinese people***.
*Now if only that were true here on Earth...
**Though alternatively, it could be argued that the My Little Pony universe, being created in US/Canada, mirrors Western English-speaking culture. And by extension, Misty should be assumed to be living and speaking in the context of Western English-speaking culture, in which the n-word and the n-word pass would indeed have cultural significance. But the irrelevance of color is still true in pony society, so I feel this argument is tenuous.
***Case in point, my 11-year old half brother, who is born and raised in Singapore, frequently says "that" in Mandarin Chinese, which, in his accent, sounds identical to the n-word. No one bats an eye in public.
i don't have the n-word pass
The real question should be "Does she have the Z-Word pass"
5775310
No. She's not a zebra
Saying the n-word in Equestria would have the same effect as if you called somebody a dingle-floople.
5775311 Ergo she cannot use the Z-Word
I agree that it’s really only Misty’s mane that make her feel African-coded, and honestly that’s far more of an executive thing for diversity that most people don’t even notice than anything else, given her voice sounds fully “normally” American English. It was the same with the last-minute decision to give Zipp’s character model slanted eyes to make her vaguely Asian.
Anytime they have tried to do things of individual ponies representing different earth races purely on the basis of their colour or mane style or accent, it always feels weirdly token, given tribal group is the only real difference in Equestria. But, that’s modern entertainment companies for you. Other species representing different cultures tracks, sometimes clunkily, sometimes not. But short of finding another species/tribe of ponies far away from existing ones, they’re all the same at that point, wings and horns notwithstanding.
Tl;dr – the N word or an equivalent wouldn’t mean a thing in Equestria. Only slurs based on tribal groups would.
5775324
“Screwhead”, “featherbrain”, “mud pony” have mild to no offensive connotation to us on Earth, but would be probably be the equivalent of the n-word in Equestria in terms of offensiveness
From Hasbro’s standpoint I think Misty also helps black kids in the audience maybe identify better with the ponies?
IDK if Zipp is supposed to be East-Asian though. As a ethnic Chinese, I don’t see it
because my monolid eyes are too small lawl5775355
Pretty much their thinking, yep. I really don’t think she “reads” as black in any clear manner, between the pony colour thing and having a voice that lacks any Earth racial signifiers (which of course is the case for most non-Caucasian Americans these days – just makes this kind of token representation more muddled).
But, I’m neither American nor coloured (👻), and also a kid of the 90’s/2000’s, so I can hardly go around claiming that’s true for the Generation Alpha tykes that Hasbro’s press releases is so hell-bent on courting. Especially the non-Caucasian ones.
It’s not quite in the way of Misty. On the movie, all development art and released models by the crew (like the one you used for a piece of cover art last year
had Zipp will the same type of eyes as all the others. Then, in the final film, her eyes has been adjusted to be of a narrower slant, one that no other character or background pony possesses. It’s a small thing in stills, but in movement it is very noticeable as the change, likely corporate-mandated, came late enough that the character rig couldn’t be properly adjusted for this, which leads to many uncanny valley transitions in her facial muscles.
Not all viewers will feel or notice this, of course, but I’ve seen far too many animation professionals break it down on top of my own observations to deny it. Some have speculated it’s a play at the “smart jock Asian” type for Zipp that some executive put their foot down on at the last possible moment.
Where all this fits in with Zipp being the most stunt casting in both the movie and show, and with a black actress in both cases, I cannot say. In any case, it’s not as noticeable in he show with all the other visual issues to distract, of course.
Her hair seems to be similar to her VA who is Canadian/Guyanese. I have 0 idea if that counts as black so Misty herself might be less black-coded and more coded to her VA.
5775363
You’re almost describing me, but maybe not so much the jock part
Now you mention Zipp’s eyes…I think you’re right…! Now I can’t unsee it lol…and it does put this earlier blog post of mine into context. I guess my mom was right all along.
5775398
The heavy lead times for designing and developing a character model for a 3D show, especially one as budget-starved as this, means Misty’s design would have been well locked by the time she was cast. Were this a show with humans, I’d say they thus cast such an actress to have the actor’s race match the character as seems to be coming more common lately even in voice acting (there was that thing recently of all non-Caucasian characters on The Simpsons getting recast to be played by actors of the matching ethnicity), but with how hard that is to tell on MLP and how easy it is for people to change hairstyles (voice actors go into the booth far more casual than the premiere walkways photos on the internet) it makes it even more unlikely.
There’s still always the possibility that Hasbro attached a note saying “this character is an analogue to these ethnicities, please try and cast someone within that wheelhouse”. But given both voices for Zipp, Asian-coded, are by black celebrities, they’re clearly not too fussed about having it be super-accurate.
How can she have an n-word pass if it doesn't even exist in her world?