Essays Are Magic: Ponies and Escapism · 6:37pm Jan 15th, 2014
“Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”
—J.R.R Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”
“I think that pretty much every form of fiction (I’d include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, while you’ve escaped, actually teaches you things you need to know when you go back, that gives you knowledge and armour and tools to change the bad place you were in.”
—Neil Gaiman, on Tumblr
I have noticed a pattern in the way how non-bronies write about bronies in blogs and articles, all over Internet. When they try to explain the phenomenon, many of them use the word “escapism”, referring to the idea that these people need a way to escape from the harsh reality into a world of fantasy. Often times this supposed habit is not condemned but sympathized with and even praised; it’s a fundamental part of the human nature to defend oneself from the evils of the world with filters such as pastel coloured ponies.
But there is another way to interpret this supposedly instinctive and natural behaviour. It’s not unheard of to see the escapism of bronies interpreted as denial of growing up. Escapism, according to this view, is bad because problems in real world shouldn’t be just denied or covered, for this solves nothing but only makes the situation more acute. At worst this behaviour which some call natural part of the human condition turns into the addict’s crave for another fix, for another way to deny both oneself and the cruel reality.
We find ourselves with to polar centers here, and it seems that the question of escapism is understood much like the question of drugs is. It becomes a question of whether one has a right to elude oneself with ponies and other forms of fantasy, and what are the correct quantities to take advantage of that right. This dichotomy I find lacking in many respects, mostly because it treats the ponies as something fundamentally different from and alien to reality, as something even opposed to it. The following question of whether this externality of the ponies is a good or a bad thing has only bad answers, because it’s a bad question to begin with.
What is escapism?
Few terms resist definition so well as this one, few are so misleading as that drive, instinct, or behaviour called “escapism”. Indeed, one of the key notions one can make about the concept of escapism is that it describes more the way how the consumer of fantasy relates oneself to one’s object than it does depict the original object itself. As such it oozes with imposing value judgements, and is far away from being a simple ism of literary analysis. The word carries a strong moral connotation, although the fact is often left unsaid.
It would seem to me that nowadays the lighter side of the aforementioned dichotomy persist and triumphs over the more pessimistic attitude. Many acknowledge the fact that people need comfort and happiness in the oppressing world, and that some young men get it from talking ponies originally meant for little girls’ entertainment. This article is one classic example of this attitude that Tolkien himself coined in the essay cited above. The father of fantasy literature even went as far as calling the experience of reading fantasy “spiritual” and compared the habit with the fulfilment brought by religious conviction, although he did not go so far to call religion as fantasy or escapism.
But even when escapism is understood as a positive thing, it is sometimes referred to as mere fantasy, as mere illusion that stands in opposition to reality and to the serious literature and other forms of art. The world of ponies is an utopy that serves a useful purpose of relieving the anguish of the reality, and in this sense it’s still considered as a drug. It may not have the same physically harmful effects, but it might still become an obsession, or at the very least it becomes very easy for people to treat bronies who take the show too close to their heart as abnormal. As long as the show is treated as something external and different to the reality there remains the possibility to accuse people of stepping over the line, to become obsessed with something that is not real.
There is another way to consider the concept of escapism, not as an escape from reality, but as a way to interpret it as a way to live in it, even to change it. According to this view, the immersion offered by fantasy doesn’t merely cover the real world, but colours it, offers meaning and structure to it. An artefact of fantasy, like Equestria, doesn’t stand as an alternative to the everyday life, but as a way to reflect the experiences, emotions, and rational of the “two worlds” in a way that creates a fusion between them. Tolkien himself hints at this direction when he says “On Fairy-stories”: “It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown.”
The more accurately fantasy reflects reality, the keener the interpretations it makes about the world, the better fantasy it will be. This was Tolkien’s central idea when he wrote his masterpiece, “The Lord of the Rings”, and why the work reflects so well the moral landscape he himself lived in. The ponies of our time serve the exact same purpose, although not in the same way. While the moral messages that many of the episodes carry within themselves are valuable, it is not often for their sake that adults follow the show. We follow it because we find so much to identify with outside the moral schemas and maxims, because we find a way to talk about issues such as politics, music, and even sex in the context offered by the show. And not only to talk, but create art based on these ideas.
How far can we take this creative immersion that some call escapism? How far we can go to create Equestria on Earth? What does such a concept even imply? Is it taking the admiration of a certain tv-show a tad too far? Indeed, I have often find myself in a position where the good taste comes into the question concerning the “proper way” to express one’s love for the show. They are simple questions, like “Can I wear this pony shirt in my workplace?” or “Can I use the word ‘everypony’ in my conversation with a non-brony?”. They are questions where the supposed border between the real world and fantasy shimmers, shakes, and at times breaks down. They are questions I ask from myself from the point of view of an Other, of the superego that sometimes tries to tell me that I have lost the sense of reality, that I have become obsessed, that I’m an addict.
It is not a simple question of mannerism. It is a question of how we relate to fantasy, to religion, to culture as such. Is it an escape that at least partly denies the social, political, and economical realities that we keep on finding depressing, monumental, and hostile? Are ponies an ideology in the sense religions are? Small question pave way for the big ones. Religions are born from myths. ”History often resembles “Myth,” because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.” (Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”).
For me, the ponies of Equestria are not a desperate attempt to deny cruel reality, nor are they a mild drug I use with moderation. They are the lens through which I gaze the world. They are not only part of this world, but the very center of gravity from which meaning flows and according to which it shapes itself. Reality is nothing but a story, either told by a politician, a priest, a scholar, or a warlord. Why it couldn’t be told by a lavendel pony with a star as her cutie mark?
This tale may travel on the far side of exaggeration, but only because other stories, stronger and older than the one presented here, deny it. Escapism as such can be viewed as a story, told either by a pessimist calling oneself a realist or by a relativist calling oneself an optimist. Ultimately it is the reader or the viewer who decides both the reason and depth of his “escapism”, not the Other storyteller, although the link between the two can never be severed completely.
Very nice diatribe my friend.
1721164 It's good to let off steam every once in a while, be it through an essay about ponies or writing clop. Thanks!
This is an interesting point. I would upvote this blog post if I could.
1912394
It's the thought that matters. Thanks!
I think MLP:FIM is a wonderfully accurate portrayal of the difficulties we all face in real life. It's about about as brutally honest about life as a show about cartoon ponies could ever hope to be.
2033022 The show certainly has a tendency to translate complex human affairs into apparently universal form.
Do you think that you could do me a favor and ask Saara Reinikainen why she made her picture so darn creepy?
2734572 What picture would that be? The one on Equine?
Propably because I asked her to.
You're right though: it is very creepy.