Cultural exchanges were becoming fairly common for Equestria, what with recently forming alliances with Dragons, Griffons, Yaks, and Changelings (who were themselves trying to rework their own culture from a parasitic to symbiotic one). And with that, came the occasional film or two that went over better with one side of the exchange than the other.
Granted, in this case they weren't as offensive as a Changeling play called 'The Sun Falls' (which the Changelings had tried to rewrite into a parodical comedy with...mixed results. In part because the only talented Changeling writers had been taught from birth to write propaganda or ego stroking plays for their queen). But there were still some...issues.
The films in question were an adaptation of an old Griffon play called the 'Terrible Tofu Turkey' and its direct sequel 'The Return of the Tofu Turkey.' A fairly simple plot: a fanatical griffon with a cult that carried a dark secret under the surface. It was what the dark secret was that was the problem, as the group discovered when Twilight decided to invite Fluttershy over to test screen it with her and Starlight.
When the second movie had ended, they were left staring at it more than a little conflicted.
“Well...that was...” Twilight started, trying to be composed here. “The production values are very good and the acting is stellar...”
“Um...well...it was...” Fluttershy started, sounding uncertain about what she'd say next.
“It was kind of offensive...” Starlight said in the blunt way she sometimes had.
“Starlight!” the lavender Alicorn chastised, giving a stern look.
The unicorn gave a small blush. “I did it again, didn't I?”
“Yes...though in this case you're right...”
“Right about what?” asked Spike, the baby drake wandering into the room. He'd decided to have his 'Guys' Night' with Discord and Big Mac while they were watching the movie (a movie with tofu in the title hadn't sounded very appealing).
“About the movies being offensive...” Twilight replied awkwardly.
The little drake raised an eyebrow. “How can a movie about a tofu turkey be offensive.”
“Because of...how it was done...” the lavender Alicorn answered, her look making Spike sit down and await the incoming analytic speech. “The basic plot is these Griffons visit this village of vegetarian Griffons and everything seems happy and nice, they even have this big happy musical number to invite them (which was admittedly catchy). Everything seems nice, but then they discover the leader of the village is brainwashing griffins by locking them in houses and playing over and over how great being plant eaters and how awful being meat eaters is. And of course they're all spying on each other to keep anygriff from 'slipping.'”
“Huh...and I thought it'd be silly b-movie about a tofu turkey that came to life and went on a rampage...” Spike admitted.
“...Given some of those movies, I'm honestly surprised that doesn't exist...” Twilight replied, her tone not as critical as one would expected. While content was typically not the best, she did appreciate the craft of film making and many of those films did warrant plenty of praise for special effects. “But that wasn't the offensive part of the whole thing! The offensive part comes when it turns out the guy is just a hypocrite! That's how they make the whole thing be resolved: they reveal he's a hypocrite and his followers just decide to dump being vegetarians on the spot!”
“Apparently one of the reviews for the original play said it 'beautifully and concisely argues against vegetarianism!' That's not an argument, that's shooting the messenger!” Starlight added. “Sure, the way they DID it was wrong, but being vegetarian isn't a bad thing.”
While ponies could eat meat, it was considered a serious cultural taboo to do so.
“...They didn't even mention that Griffons are primarily carnivorous in nature...They can eat some plants, but a purely herbivorous diet would make them very sick or even kill them...” Fluttershy suddenly added, earning herself stares that made her blush. “...I know carnivores...and I talk to the griffon who gets me fish for my meat eating animals.”
Twilight suddenly recalled an instance where they'd seen a Vampire Jackalope and Chupacabra fight to the death over the chance to eat Twilight and her friends while Fluttershy had been rather interested rather than horrified.
“...She has a good point,” said Twilight. “That'd have been a good argument! And then there's the sequel where the Griffon is back for revenge and drops all of his good intentions! He was just a generic vengeful baddie who becomes a proud meat eater in the end! He completely dropped everything in his character that was about the good of being vegetarian!”
Spike tapped his chin. “You know, this all sounds kinda familiar...Oh! Isn't that exactly what happened with Starlight?”
The room was suddenly silent as that sank in. Going from anger...to thoughtful...to uncomfortable.
Starlight blinked...and started sweating a tiny bit as the implications of that idea sank in. “I...I suppose there are some similarities to me back when I was totally evil, but-”
“...There's enough that I guess maybe we shouldn't judge it all that harshly given what happened...” Twilight said, turning to her graduated student with a solemn look as she ran the events of Our Town through her mind. “Starlight...what you did WAS wrong. You WERE the bad guy and we did the right thing by stopping you, that is true...but you weren't 'totally evil'...The point is...you weren't so much wrong as taking something good too far and in the wrong direction.”
The light heliotrope mare stared wide-eyed. “W-What?”
“...Everypony being equal and being treated like it would be nice...I would've liked not being treated worse for being slow learning to fly...” Fluttershy admitted, coming over.
“And there's plenty of ponies in Canterlot who need to realize their money and bloodline doesn't make them better than anypony else,” Twilight admitted, recalling Blueblood, Jet Set, and Upper Crust among others. “But getting everypony to give up their Cutie Marks or flat out taking them away was wrong. Brainwashing ponies was wrong. There's this Manega I've read with Spike where this villain who wanted to seek knowledge and perfection to the point he'd murder kingdoms and force a cosmic entity to bond with him. At the end, that being calls him a fool and sentences him to his doom and all he can scream is what's wrong with seeking those things, blind to the fact it's HOW he was seeking them that was...it wasn't wrong to want equality...” she continued, then gave her former student a hug. “You can feel guilty about the way you went about it, you can feel guilty about your revenge plan, but you shouldn't feel bad about what you wanted at its heart...”
“And you shouldn't stop trying to do it the right way...” Fluttershy added, giving her a hug.
Starlight's eyes went wide and she looked...uncertain. “T-Twilight...I-I'm not sure...”
“Why?” Twilight asked, looking at her as reassuringly as she could.
The mare looked down. “I...I'm just scared...that me...destroyed Equestria so many times...I...I don't like the thought of being her...not again...”
“Is Trixie still the same mare who took over Ponyville with an evil artifact?”
“...No...”
“Is she still an over the top ham and showmare who is absolutely thrilled to be 'somepony' like she always wanted and brags the ears off of anypony who will listen?”
“...Yes...”
Twilight gave a smile. “Then you don't have to be a completely different pony and give up everything that made you you either. You can still want equality without going to the extremes you did...Do you still want that?”
Starlight looked down thoughtfully. “...I...I admit I don't need it anymore. I've got Sunburst back and have friends now that don't care about special talents or anything else, and I accept Cutie Marks aren't the root of it all...but I still want to see ponies being equal with each other.”
“...Want to go to the library and start talking about ideas to get that working?” Twilight questioned.
“...You'd do that?”
“I'm a Princess. I'm supposed to help my subjects as best I can. So what kind of Princess would I be if I didn't?”
“I think it'd be a really good idea,” Fluttershy added, giving a smile.
The trio shared a hug...
“Uh, girls...”
They looked over to Spike, who was holding one of the film reels. “Shouldn't we do something about these? We probably don't want to have our cultural exchange offend half the country...”
Twilight gave a blink. “...Yeah...I probably should send Gilda a letter that it might not be the best film for this...then we'll work on some ideas to do what Starlight wanted the right way.”
The End