MLP Family?

This is suppose to be a My Little Pony Family set that was just released by hasbro.... It might just be me, but it kinda looks like something is missing....I just can't quite put my finger on it... one mom, One kid.....

Yeah, no Dad.

well lets look at what else MLP is releasing this year...



A mommy pony with a baby pony going shopping.....

Do I really even need to say anything at this point?

Hasbro: Little Ponies are Little girls
Ponies should be single moms, take their baby with them when they go fulfill their gender role and go grocery shopping, and whats more they need to like it.

Material girl in a material world

I discovered these this weekend:



I think I may need them to live. I have succumb to the spectacle of platform boots for a while now, but these by far are my favorites.

But at nearly half a grand, I suppose I will just have to lead an incomplete life, or possibly sell some part of what remains of that soul thing that seems to be so popular these days.

now if you think those are rediculous, look at these:



you know there's something wrong if even I think something is overboard.

More on MLP

another thing I have been pondering on the subject of MLP is the fantasy world aspect of it. certainly there is nothing wrong with a little creative fantasy, in fact I would say we need more such fantasy and adventure based toys for little girls rather than the mountains of fashion doll and maternity prone toys. But does this fantasy world image perhaps have a negative side to it? Or am I just being cynical?

here's why I thought of it: as a child I was obsessed with pretend play imaginary worlds, mlp was not small part of that, in fact so much so that I refused to play any game that required me to pretend to be human. Now, it may just be that I was a particularly jaded child and saw the human world for what it is sooner than most, or that I have some form of peterpan syndrome, but even into early highschool when asked what I wanted to career wise I would respond with: I want to be a pony. ofcourse this was in part a joke, but... on the other hand it wasn't. If given the choice, hell yeah I would rather be a colorful little pony who plays games all day and defeats magical vilians. Now maybe I am just exposing my crazy, but I can't help but wonder, do such fantasy based images of mass produced toys, from companies that do their best to sell them not suggest that "this could be your life" in a fantasy world (if you buy this colorful plastic 5 inch toy)?

On the one hand, ofcourse a child should be given that time of their life where they get to live in a fantasy world, but at the same time, does it not make it all the more difficult to accept the reality? for instance I have always thought that lieing to a child about figures such as santa or the easter bunny or the tooth fairy, etc, is a sick joke, that entertains the parents at the child's expense. this may just be cause my parents never tried that crap on me, but thats just what it seems like to me.

But thats all for now, I have to go brush Sky Skimmers hair.....

My Little Pony's Image?

just some ideas I am listing to focus on my My Little Pony artifact.

My little Ponies are...

Innocent
Fantastical
passive
colorful
"girly"
soft, light/ pastel colors
long hair
friendly
sweet
forgiving
young
small


Hasbro's reps have said that my little ponies are not little colorful horses, but rather little girls. Which makes sense, they are, they talk, and do things that girls (supposedly) like to do.

So, My Little Pony's image says that: Girls are:

Suppose to be innocence, naive, playful, sweet, forgiving, uninformed, soft, helpless, etc.

ok, lets look at the (very very few in comparison to females) male ponies that were made/ presented in the cartooon.

As toys, there was only a handful of male ponies,Including the adventure and career based Big Brother Ponies (and also the Mountain boy ponies in the UK, and other non-US countries), Peak-a-boo Baby Brother Ponies, 2 or 3 individual male ponies available through mail order offers including the one and only groom pony (in comparison to the 7 bridal ponies), and then the 3 Male father ponies (and their 3 sons). I will ponit out here that there are HUNDREDS of different ponies that have been produced over the past twenty something years. Many of them baby ponies, Just as many of them Mother Ponies.... only 3 father ponies in all that time and through all those single mothers.

Now, I realize that these are girls toys, so why should they produce that many male toys? Not producing male ponies isn't the problem, producing fatherless baby ponies is, allong with mother, baby duo's, sans dad.

Also, the majority of the male ponies produced were adventure or career themed. What was most of the hundreds of female ponies themed? : Objects, such as candy, flowers, toys, and other nouns. In other words, Males do thing. Females are things? Idono, maybe I am reading into it too much, but thats what I get out of it.

This is reanforced in the cartoon. in the second season of my little pony hasbro finally decides to include the male ponies (in only one episode). In said episode, the female ponies are awaiting the male ponies' return from their round-the-world trip, talking about how much they've missed them, and how dreamy they are.... need I say more?

...ok, I think I have food for thought now, I'll get back to this in a part two.

Switching gears

Alrighty, I am changing from Tank Girl to My Little Pony. Why? because A) Tank Girl is a detournment in itself of comic book women, B) I love Tank Girl too much C) I don't think its main stream enough, although it is most certainly pop culture, it's not mass production, mainstream media pop culture.

So why then MLP? because A) I love my little pony, and what better thing to destroy than a pop-culture figure you adore? B) because I am lazy and want to use something I already know allot about (so sue me) C) I am so submersed in my My Little Pony culture (yes there exists a My Little Pony culture) that I am having trouble seeing the image, which is ridiculous, because its such a massive franchise, and it most certainly HAS an image. All the more reason why this should be my artifact, what is easy in research is countered by what is difficult in seeing the image.

So lets see if I can ruin one of my childhood .... one of my life long obsessions =D