Social Commentary in MLP and FiMFiction · 2:58am Mar 3rd, 2022
With the release of chapter 29 in the Enforcer REMASTERED, I thought I'd bring up social commentary regarding our favorite little horses. The G4 series IS social commentary just by existing. MLP G4 shows a world run by women with little help from men, and it works well, thank you. Not very many high-profile mainstream shows with that premise (but we can image how that would work out). What about the G4 emphasis on reform instead of punishment? If you think about it, the show is very subversive.
In that framework, G4 MLP is nevertheless at times self-satirizing. Consider the stereotypes represented by each of the mane 6. Looking closer, consider Rarity. Girly, obsessed with fashion, willing to tell egregious lies (in the first couple seasons). Yet, she is an entrepreneur, a genius creative, and eventually a self-made successful woman. The show pointed out too-familiar female aspects so we could quickly identify with the nerd, the farm girl, the tomboy athlete, the fashionista, the shy one, the clown—and allowed each to evolve and self-actuate. None required a man. (Or meddling parents.) Friends were enough.
This is social commentary.
My stories play with this milieu, as do some of the best stories on this site. In chapter 29: To Ring a Unicorn, the much older male antagonist, Running Mead, addresses Sunset Shimmer with Starlight Glimmer narrating in first person:
"My little filly, Sunset Shimmer—"
"I'm not a filly," she interrupted, surprising me, her ears forward. I expected her to be groveling, but certain types of condescension grated on all mares.
He laughed, gently, and turned to his wine, lifting it in his amber-colored aura. A red; by the light fruit smell, a claret. I could identify it because Sunset Shimmer drank the varietal when she didn't drink hard cider or beer. "They all want to be seen as older until they realize they'd rather be seen as younger. My apologies."
Dominance games, for sure. But language: how it can be used to hurt, how it is perceived, how the perception of it can be manipulated to hurt. This is why the use of non-PC words or obscenity in books can be non-gratuitous, especially if they make a point about unthinking or dominance language—and why stories should not be censored arbitrarily for usage.
In this chapter and the previous one, Starlight Glimmer is knowingly two-faced to her friend, Sunset. It comments on how we don't necessarily let everyone know our secrets, and what that sets up. Sunset Shimmer, for her part, deals with addiction and the story discusses in gory (MLP-centric) details how that is a bad idea, what can go wrong, and why friends should step up and help.
Starlight and Sunset at times discuss sex. Think about how that changes what you think about these mares now that I've mentioned it. Ask yourself why it matters. Why does it matter for a mare and not a stallion, or vice-versa? Why can it not just be "the way it is" and not affect your perception?
Social commentary is good. It should make you think. It should make you occasionally uncomfortable. This is often why a story is "edgy." For me, the highest praise you can give a story is that it made you think.
So, go ahead, point out the social commentary in this chapter, or any of my stories. Tell me what it made you think. I dare you.
Making people think is critical, and it is vital that language not be restricted when it is period appropriate. There is a distinct, strong, and most of all crucial difference between the use of a particular slur in Huckleberry Finn versus it being said aloud today. And the same can be said about just about any kind of slur.
What can sometimes be missed is that while we work on improving our current society for the better, we can't do that in a vacuum. People need to understand history in order not to repeat its mistakes, and that means knowing everything about history, in full detail, without anything hidden or unclear.
Otherwise you end up with situations we have today, such as anti-vaxxers who legitimately believe that vaccinations are awful because they lack the historical understanding just what it was like pre-vaccination and how many diseases were almost entirely eliminated until these morons began pushing back and even getting laws signed in certain places regarding it.
I'm with you on this one hundred percent.