My Little Pony: Fandom Ruins Everything

[swordianmaster]

So. Those who don't follow ponies, feel free to disregard this.

For those who aren't caught up to recent episodes, the latest episode had Derpy Hooves - actually referred to in-script as 'Derpy', at that - have spoken dialogue.

I have heard now more than one person arguing that the slightly dim, low-voiced mare is "mocking people with developmental disorders", such as Downs Syndrome.

Because nobody can be different without being a victim. And because learning disabilities are TOTALLY symptomized by being fucking wall-eyed. And Tabitha St. Germain confused her for a male, has admitted such, and patterned her after a sleepy - but perfectly healthy - boy, the son of a neighbor.

But, well. I'll just repost what I said on AIM at this point.

(3:37:15 PM) swordianmaster: ...
(3:37:23 PM) swordianmaster: Seriously, what?
(3:37:25 PM) swordianmaster: Fuck.
(3:37:36 PM) swordianmaster: The what, by the way, not towards the trivia
(3:37:44 PM) swordianmaster: but towards the fact that people are getting upset about that.
(3:37:51 PM) swordianmaster: Some women HAVE deeper, lower voices!
(3:37:58 PM) swordianmaster: Hell, my mom's one of them!

[...]

(3:39:52 PM) swordianmaster: But yeah.
(3:40:11 PM) swordianmaster: It's a dumb argument and... heh. If I wanted to be a total troll, it'd be a self-defeating argument too.
(3:40:20 PM) swordianmaster: Because all you need to say to win that one?
(3:40:41 PM) swordianmaster: "Sometimes you don't need a developmental disability to be completely fucking retarded. QED."

Comments

/several days late...

[opalinesque]

I'm... actually gonna have to disagree with this. I'm admittedly more of a Derpy/Ditzy fan than a pony fan in general (which is why I ended up watching the bit with her in the first place!), but... I found the scene with her p. problematic.

I'm actually glad to hear the VA was going for "sleepy-sounding boy," but it wasn't really JUST the voice, or just the eyes. It was a combination of her seemingly complete inability to understand what she was doing wrong/that she was breaking things, plus the way Rainbow Dash was treating her, plus the voice, plus the eyes. The combination of those things came off as coding her mentally disabled, with a side of "hey guys mentally disabled people are funny, it's okay to find any mistakes they make hilarious and then yell at them for it." Maybe an adult can look at that scene and follow your train of thought, but MLP:FiM is a show that is also aimed at kids, and not all of the kids watching the show are going to be mature enough to see more than a dumb, klutzy, slow-sounding pony being presented as comedic relief.

Maybe I'm being a bit serious about this, but both my younger brother and I have eye issues too, and while neither of us are quite that wall-eyed it kind of sucks to see a character with issues similar to my own being treated like that.

[fuyu]

Yeah, I'm with Opal. It's not any one thing, it's the combination of everything. I'm glad Tabitha had no ill intent when she used that very slow voice for Derpy, and I'm not mad at her knowing that, but the result was still unfortunate when combined with everything else in the scene.

Being wall-eyed? Not bad in itself. I actually like how unique that makes her. The problem comes in when you look at how being wall-eyed is often used as visual code for "stupid" or "retarded" (with all the negative connotations of that word), and combine it with the scene being about how she destroys everything she touches and doesn't even seem able to comprehend that she's doing anything wrong or why Rainbow Dash might want her to stop. It's just a hurricane of individually not-that-bad choices that become really, really unfortunate when put together.