Posey the Karen · 10:52pm May 26th, 2022
(Spoilers below)
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When My Little Pony: A New Generation come out, it did something totally different and totally new for MLP. It explored racism - not just in terms of individualistic fears like Ponyville's terror of zebras. It dug deep and gave a bold commentary on actual systemic racism. Season 8 had touched on the subject with Chancellor Neighsay, but even then, it was all about the personal prejudices of individuals in power, not systems of power in action, nor deep rooted cultural fears.
I've wrote about this in multiple essays since the MLP: ANG dropped last September - how, in Maretime Bay, hatred and paranoia are actually an industry - a foundation for a society - an economy of fear.
In the latest special, Make Your Mark, we get to see just a little bit of how that culture continues to linger, even after magic is restored to Equestria. In Make Your Mark, prejudice is painted as a type of petty jealousy hiding behind a faux concern for public safety. A unicorn filly accidentally ruins an earth pony's sandcastle with an umbrella that she couldn't hold on to with her unstable magic. Pegasi drop from the sky, hurting earth ponies. And there's bitterness. Resentment. And something of a grass roots anti-immigrant movement fomenting.
The whole dynamic takes on fascist undertones as Posey galvanizes this general discontent into a rallying cry against magic itself, and the foreigners who use it. To understand fascism, you have to recognize that it's not simply emperors like Sprout commanding from on high - it's also an invitation for members of socially dominant groups to actively engage in the repression of marginalized groups. This, historically, takes the form of violence, discrimination, ostracization, and cries for the state to intervene with yet more violence.
Posey is hardly charging down the street with tanks, or breaking windows, but we still see in her the tyranny of everyday people, and her actions should be hauntingly familiar to anyone paying attention to the state of America today.
Posey is a Karen.
She routinely insists upon appealing to societal authorities to enforce her personal prejudices. The most horrific example of this is when Posey flat out goes to the police station, demands to fill out a report, and attempts to bully Hitch into blaming the entire unicorn race on her misfortunes.
In real life, this kind of behavior has lead to wrongful imprisonment, police harassment of minority groups, and even lynchings. To list both the historical and recent examples of this modus operandi would require me to exceed the character limit of this platform, but suffice it to say that it has happened thousands of times over, and continues to happen right now. Posey's actions mirror our current reality in the most horrific way possible.
In the end, of course, everypony forgives everypony else. Bitterness resolved. Magic restored and stabilized. Even new forms of magic are discovered!
But I think the figure of Posey bears serious discussion nevertheless, as an example of everyday tyranny that doesn't go away the second that the Emperor Sprouts of the world are deposed.
MLP deserves praise for daring to go there.
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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Hmm...
I see where you're coming from... and I agree with much of it... that said, well, here:
Faux concern.. As in artificial. Fake. Now keep in mind Posey may very well be a fraud or just a bitch, but we can't just dismiss others concerns because we dislike them.
Ponies fears here are valid if their expressions are not.
For example:
Sufficient to the day is the evil there of, and of course we shouldn't judge others solely based on what others have done or what they could do. I think we can be a bit more forgiving here for Posey is all, even if we detest her bias.
Actually I think MLP might be one of the best examples of this sort of thing frankly. Beastars and Zootopia are often praised for it, but l don't think those two are the same. The former actually gives valid reasons for prejudice (look, I'm sorry, but when my interacting with my fellow citizens might end up with me getting eaten or mauled, caution might over ride feelings, and some inconvenience might be prudent for the physical and psychological well being for all involved.) and the latter... well, it was hardly fair to paint a rabbit for being a bigot because she was scared of a fox. What they actually planned for the movie might have suited it better
A bit heavy handed I suppose, but you'd be surprised how many people are perfectly fine with such indignity both in film and reality
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The thing with Beastars is that the predator/prey dynamic is really a metaphor for gender. Women have to live with fear of rape, and are subjected to rather a lot of intimidation, but are expected to play nice with people who see them as meat, and would treat them thusly if they believed that they could get away with it.
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Oh I agree, that's definitely an aspect of it, and are those who see it that way, but remember a lot of times it's involuntary. Instinct takes over and sexual attraction and deep affection makes it worse and when it happens to one who isn't a monster the affect on their psyche is near ruinous.
I will contend somewhat with it solely being a female thing though, at least solely within the confines of the works itself since their females who have mated and subsequently killed their partners.
I hope though I haven't come across as overtly abrasive or dismissive this time. I do believe such things more then warrant discussion, but sometimes my passion get the best of me and I insult folks
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I'm not saying that women can't kill their partners.
I'm saying that a man can walk alone at night, casually pass a woman on an empty street, and not have to worry about meeting a tortuous fate.
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Well, I was of course speaking within the context of Beastars. I've managed to flub a discussion haven't I. I apologize for the misunderstanding
I do see where you're coming from though. That said, if we may get back to ponies, I didn't hate it. I don't much care for the songs and the models leave a bit to be desired. I'm also hoping they flesh out the characters more, but let's face it, gen 4 was an anomaly. To its credit it's not trying to be gen 4, but still... Also the alicorn thing kind of sucks
"not just in terms of individualistic fears like Ponyville's terror of zebras"
And that was more focused on the unknown and the distant other, IIRC. It wasn't that the ponies of Ponyville had some prejudice against zebras, it was that they didn't even know what a zebra was, and just saw her as this weird striped sort-of-pony doing strange things and living in the scary forest. Now, that could still have applicability to real-world racism, particular for children (for whom more of the world is unknown, and the border with the distant other closer), but it's pretty different from the sort of racism where everyone around you "knows" that "those people" are "[stereotype]".
...Which, reading further, does appear to be a key point of this blog post.
Still, the above is at least more substantive commentary than just thanking you, again, for posting, so I think I'll leave it in. :D
Also thank you for sharing your thoughts, though, of course. :)