What is it with cartoons and hating the rich (MLP, Gravity Falls, Danny Phantom)? I know the rich can be massive douches (Donald Trump, those who think the solution for poverty is that the poor should just stop being poor) but I think it's a little unfair to portray them all as money-grubbing assholes who care only about their wealth and prestige and don't give a rat's ass about their kids plus that it's okay for people like us to ruin their parties and treat them like crap because they're all assholes, so who cares. In MLP, the only nice rich we've seen are Filthy Rich (who hasn't done a damn thing about his wife and daughter) and Fancy Pants (who didn't give a crap that the Garden Party was ruined).

This is a trend that I've noticed, too.

Sadly, the one nice rich character (aside from the Princesses), Fancy Pants, was sort of ruined in this season's Princess Spike. Instead of the wealthy, happy-go-lucky pony who didn't care about social class, he was a snob whose main concern was him and his friends receiving privileges.

To be honest, season 5 has had a lot of real ******* characters in general. I mean, the show has always had jerks from time to time, but the ones on season 5 have been absolutely deplorable. Like the griffon shopkeeper who left Rainbow to die on a dangerous cliff edge just because Rainbow ran out of bits to pay. Or Tiara's mom, who openly insults children in front of their faces. And of course, perhaps the worst of them all, Svengallop, who is so over the top in how hatable he is that he's almost more of a caricature than a character.

The funny thing is, all of these characters I've mentioned tie into your post, as they are either already rich, or simply hold money more valuable than others lives.

One last point: I am not penalizing season 5 for its abundance of hatable characters, I am only making a point about them.

The same thing could be said about male characters with royalty status.

4878541 Even Fancy Pants was not spared from the writers' incompetence? Now that's just sad...

Ironic, considering that's Hasbro's primary interest in the firs place. This is either just another means to shift the blame elsewhere or some really faulty self-deprecation.

4907006 Actually, it might well be something else....

Now, this might go into uncomfortable (read: political) territory, so I hope mods are on standby since we all know anything political tends to get inflammatory, really quick. But its something that's been brought to my attention before, as even tho I'm personally not interested in politics I have several friends that are.

And the way they put it, most of television has, quote, a "liberal bias."

(that link goes to a Conservative wiki so it might not be the most balanced view in the world, but it at least gives an example of what people associate with "liberals")

Now, one thing about liberals (which I argue is actually a positive) is that they want to balance the playing field so that the poor have more opportunities and services providing for them, IE ensuring that the unemployed or the blue collar worker doesn't get treated unfairly just because he's poor, while at the same time being rich doesn't become an "I can do anything I want" ticket (its partly because of them that we live in a country where someone as famous as Paris Hilton can still be arrested for shoplifting and face the same penalty as anyone else).

Unfortunately, there are some who take this aspect to extremes. There's a reason that liberals are often associated with communists... and its not always just an ad hominem attack, either. Some really do idealize communist ideas... and recap: communism was basically about the elimination of wealth-based status and setting up a system where everyone gets exactly the same amount of money regardless of what they do (at least, that's how I understand it, but I'm by no means an expert).

And it IS pretty true that in television, 90% of the viewpoints you see presented are ones that are advocated mostly by liberals. This becomes self evident once you know what their positions actually are, then sit down and ask yourself how many times on television you've seen anyone argue against it. Even movies based on Tom Clancy books (Tom Clancy was a hardcore conservative) are often heavily re-written to be more liberal.

The "rich hate" you see in cartoons, then, is basically an attempt to instill a political belief in the very young, who don't yet have the wisdom or experience to make informed decisions and are still being guided by those they perceive as wiser... a position which makes it all too easy to fill their heads with certain ideologies. Sadly this is nothing new, and has been a known thing since the 1980s, though its gotten worse in recent years.

And the thing about it is that the writers may not even be aware that their work has political undertones. They're just repeating what they themselves were taught as kids, what they perceive as "normal." Which is the whole idea: to present one set of beliefs as normal and make anything different seem alien.

I appreciate that this all sounds like a conspiracy theory, and to some extent it is, but like I said once you know their positions on things, the proof becomes self-evident. It's not necessarily a bad thing (I myself have benefitted from policies that liberals championed, so I'm not exactly raging on them) but it IS something to be aware of. And unfortunately its something that I think hurts a lot of American works. Its why for a long time I only watched anime or British television--they might still be political, but because I'm unaware of the situations in those countries they at least seem unpolitical to an outsider. I watch cartoons for escapist fun, not to be reminded of real life, and American media at least seems like it can't exist without shoehorning a political agenda into it. Hopefully this will change soon, as people are becoming more aware of it (in part specifically because shows like MLP are becoming just a little TOO blatant).

Anyway, that's just a theory... a game theory! Thanks for reading.

4907085 I take it back: If not your own book/s, then your own video series. (Similar to, say, A Dose of Buckley.)

Maybe it's because the usual audience member is part of the middle class and it's common view to see those different from us (mostly when they possess some sort of superiority over us) as a threat. So richer than me equals arrogant jerk. Probably he also stole his fortune from other people.
Seriously if we feel pity for the poor is only because we could turn into one. Or because we want a common ally against the mean rich people.

Hey this thread is also two weeks old, neat!

4907085
Yeah, that does sound a bit conspiracy-theorist. You're not Cybernetic Equestria's Princess Celestia trolling us, are you?

In all seriousness, though, I can think of a much simpler explanation: The rich jerks are stand-ins for the writers' hated bosses. The reason why they keep cropping up all the time is simply because there are a lot of writers out there with bosses they hate.

5028006

You're not Cybernetic Equestria's Princess Celestia trolling us, are you?

I'm pretty sure I'm neither a cyborg, a pony, or a girl.

Pretty much any time "those blasted liberals!" are mentioned it has shades of conspiracy theory, yeah. Which tend to make me roll my eyes. The one flaw in EVERY conspiracy theory is they assume the conspirers are really that smart... which they aren't.

I think your explanation makes more sense than mine. Another possibility is just (I think someone else said this) a form of jealousy.... as a kid we all hated that one kid who owned all the cool toys. Why the hell did Philip own a Technodrome playset and not me, man? So this is their revenge. I do think MLP is a little too hateful for its own good tho. "What is a rooster?" indeed....

I'm dissapointed to how Fancy Pants has been degraded to a snobby aristocrat in Season 5. Sweet and Elite got it right with his character and the underlying theme that the story was telling.

I agree that there's a trend in media to antagonize rich class characters and there's nothing wrong with that. But like all stories, there needs to be a reason why they're antogonized and simply being "wealthy" is not good enough. Fancy Pants may have been a nice and rich pony, but he was one out of 99 other wealthy aristocrats who were very self centered and pompous.
Why is Fancy Pants nice and understanding to Rarity and her friends? We don't know specifically, but it can either because he may have also come from humble beginnings or he was groomed from a well-rounded upbringing. Either way, he fancies to see hard-working ponies like Rarity who come from humble circumstances succeed in life.

The media today can't simply antagonize or promote characters just simply because of their social class. What they need to do, is to show that members of the upper class need to contribute to community, look out for the little man, and be sympathetic to others, instead of merely just antagonizing them for being rich.

Whenever, someone tells me that it's impossible to make a wealthy character who is good, I just tell them to look up Bruce Wayne.

5032599

I'm pretty sure I'm neither a cyborg, a pony, or a girl.

Ah, so it was just a case of the characters from my projects getting to me. CE Celestia has a hobby of anonymously trolling or debunking conspiracy theorists online. A good chunk of the conspiracy theories she debunks are ones she started earlier. Not that Twilight is above creating the odd piece of conspiracy fodder either...