Deconstruction is Magic: A My Little Pony Retrospective (S1E9)

Grrrrrrrrrrrrreetings everypony, and welcome back to Deconstruction is Magic, my Retrospective/Review/Analysis of every episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is magic ever. I'll admit, yesterday, I dropped the ball a bit with my Look Before You Sleep analysis, as there was a bit more I could say about the worldbuilding details. So today, I will make up for it by including some of that discussion in today's analysis, discussing the nature of prejudice and skepticism, with Bridle Gossip. Without wasting any more time, let's get on with the analysis! I am the Mage of Mind, reminding you, as always, that even a cheeseburger can be deconstructed to its source.

This episode marks the debut of Zecora, one of the first non-standard ponies we see in the series. Due to her mysterious nature and her home in the Everfree Forest, she is looked on with great fear and scorn by Ponyville citizens, including most of the Mane Six. Twilight and Applebloom are the exceptions, seeing all the excuses ponies make for their fear to be rather shallow, at best. Since the airing of this episode, there has been much discussion over whether or not this episode serves as an allegory for racism. I think there is merit to that reading, since Twilight notes that Zecora's stripes are a natural part of who she is, not an exotic accessory like Rarity thinks they are.

However, I find that, while it may be closer to xenophobia, this episode is an allegory against prejudice in general. Prejudice is defined as an unfavourable (and often hostile) negative bias against someone based on their perceived status as part of a different group. This often goes for race, sex, gender identity, sexuality, religion, and many other factors. While some prejudices are given greater weight through systemic biases, be they cultural or political, that is largely outside the scope of MLP, so I'll focus on the subject of general prejudice for now. In psychology, there is something called in-group, out-group theory. This is essentially an us vs. them narrative which paints outside of a particular social circle as a threat, though this is often done in relatively arbitrary differences.

(I still need to write that MLP/Uzumaki crossover.)

What I neglected to mention in my last review is that, to some extent, magic is a science in Equestria. By this, I mean that it is a measurable, testable and tangible force that can be demonstrated easily. Weather work is, to some extent, a science, since it requires the pegasi to know how much rain is needed for any given day, in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem. While in urban spaces like Ponyville, this is all done to order as needed, the Everfree forest is truly wild. There is no direct control over anything, and combined with the many magical plants and animals which live there, the pony fears over it are not entirely irrational.

The problem comes when they judge anything that comes from it as dangerous. This is where the in-group/out-group bias comes in. They are so preoccupied with fearing the everfree forest that they don't stop to think if Zecora has demonstrated a real danger or not. When the mane six become the victims of poison joke, this factors into their existing conformation bias. Conformation bias, often displayed as the texas sharpshooter fallacy, is where we selectively interpret data that confirms our existing bias, to the exclusion of all other data that may prove this bias wrong.

(Haha, dangly parts.)

Twilight is not immune to this, either. She has a bias against hexes, considering them to be pure superstition, as opposed to real magic that, as I stated earlier, is demonstrable. While this may be seen as a "take that!" against skepticism in general, I find it does just the opposite. It teaches children that no one is immune from their bias, and that we all need to look closely at what the evidence tells us before we reach a conclusion. Contrary to popular stereotype, skeptics don't just dismiss the supernatural out of hand, like Twilight did. Rather, we try to use the principle of Occom's razor, which suggests that the explanation with the fewest possible assumptions is usually the correct one.

Let's use the soft magic system of Equestria as an example. So far, we know that unicorn magic as a whole is quite malluable, suiting many tasks, from levitation to small, temorary body modifications, as seen with Spike's moustache in Boast Busters. However, so far, we've seen that it cannot make major changes to a pony's body, like size changing, tongue swelling, or making somepony's voice deeper. As such, it's easy for Twilight's friends to label this as a "Hex" from Zecora, since it fits in with their existing negative bias about her. Twilight, meanwhile, is fixated on finding an existing explanation from her library, excluding the possibility of new information outside the traditional concepts of unicorn magic.

(Remember kids, correct grammer makes a world of difference!)

As skeptics, the supernatural is usually used as a stand-in excuse for unexplained phanomanon. We don't understand something, so it must be a ghost! We have a very hard time accepting that we don't know how something might work, so it's easy to reach for these stopgap explanations without ever examining them closely. We don't know how hexes work in Equestria, as there is no methodology or study on them. So, if we are open to new information expanding our existing knowledge, we can avoid rash judgements that put outside groups at a disadvantage. My complaints of this episode are relatively minor, but there are a couple of points that stand out. For one, I think the dialogue gets a little repetitive, with the mane six constantly repeating that Zecora is an "evil enchantress", without even the slightest hint that there maybe more.

It all feels like they are being pidgonholed into sharing the same anxiety for the same reasons, without it reflection on how their personal life may have factored into these biases. We could have seen Zecora carry small animals in cages with her, or seem to only arrive on sunny days (without prior knowledge of weather schedules). Essentially, if the reason to fear Zecora was personalized, or at least related in some way to the poison joke effects, they would feel less like they've been reduced to a single, shared character trait for the sake of thhe plot.

Additionally, the Flutterguy vocal joke does feel a touch transphobic to me, since it's about a usually quiet, feminine character suddenly sounding masculine. However, this is likely unintentional and done out of ignorance, rather than malice. If anything, it shows how we can unintentionally hurt people based on existing cultural biases, which is part of the message this episode is trying to send.

(Long, empty-eyed horse faces. The universal greeting of friendship!)

Conclusion

Bridle Gossip is another highly recognisable episode in season 1, introducing us to a reoccurring minor character and using it to teach kids an important lesson about prejudice, which I find is sorely needed these days. It shows, though Applebloom, that kids are often free from these conformation biases that form adult prejudices, and that even the best people among us aren't completely immune to making mistakes because of it. While I do think the dialogue is a bit repettitive and one-size-fits-all for the characters, the inventive humour makes for some amazing jokes, that carried through meme culture for many years following!

On this basis, I will give the episode a final score of 8/10. What did you think of this episode? Does it handle the subject of prejudice well? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on this blog! Until next time, take care all~.