My Little Pony pushing anti-reasoning + religious faith on young children?

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is a cute children's cartoon that went on air last year. I would like to bring this particular episode to this community's attention, though.

While wrapped in a cute, friendly, and fun loving appearance, this episode is actually pushing anti intellectualism and religious faith as values that children should adopt. This is not a Christian themed cartoon, and this them only appears to be slipped in this one episode somewhere in the middle of the season.

I would like to hear comments and opinions from anyone interested in Christian influence in children's media that is supposed to be for everyone. (or opinions from anyone who has 20 minutes to spend chilling out to My Little Pony)

Comment by kOrsan on June 18, 2012 at 1:00pm

You figured that out quick man. ;D

Comment by Rob Klaers on June 18, 2012 at 1:02pm

Well, I had to cued up to watch later... later finally came.. LOL

Comment by Brent on June 18, 2012 at 2:48pm

At first I was very confused since the new link that was posted is actually to a parody called "Friendship is Witchcraft" I thought all the comments were taking the parody as an actual children's video. (not too many children's videos reference Fahrenheit 451)  

Then, since the original link is now dead and the full title of this particular episode is not mentioned in any of the posts, I was not able to view what everyone was writing about. If someone could give the full title of the episode I would appreciate it. 

So my comments are more general about magical thinking in children's media.  Get over it!  It has been there forever.  It is escapist entertainment.  My 4 year old loves this show, loves fairies, unicorns and Pegasuses, but she knows that none of them are real.   Many Disney movies have some sort of magic.  Frankly, the sexism in many Disney films is more upsetting.  I imagine that there are fundamentalist Christians who are upset about this series because the magic in it is not being credited to their god, jesus or their prophets.  It sounds as if there is a few minutes of this particular episode that are particularly upsetting, but in my opinion it is not worth this sort of discussion.  This reaction reminds me a bit of when Jerry Falwell attacked ?? (now I can't remember the show) becasue of a character that he said was secretly gay because it had an unspecified gender, was purple, carried a purse and had a triangle on its head (what was that show?  it was before I had kids).  

Next Week's Topic :  Does Curious George undermine our children's natural curiosity?

Comment by Rob Klaers on June 18, 2012 at 4:41pm

Brent.. here ya go. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IP65cpdcwM


and my response to the video is "C-C-C-C-combo B-b-b-b-reaker!!!"

Comment by Cara Coleen on June 18, 2012 at 5:30pm

Brent, I'd generally agree that people should relax a little, but this was pretty heavy-handed I think. I'm not going to write Cartoon Network about it or anything, but this definitely had a clear message throughout the entire episode of "Don't think; just believe." I felt like it was specifically targeting science and skeptics. It wasn't just one scene.

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on June 18, 2012 at 5:39pm

And you weren't the only one to clearly see that message, Cara.

Comment by Paul Prescod on June 18, 2012 at 5:59pm

<blockquote>The show isn't biased in either way, you're reading into a single episode that had nothing to do with faith.</blockquote>

I don't think anyone claimed that the show IN GENERAL is biased. That particular episode had a bad message embedded in it. Lauren Faust (to her great credit) admitted it, so I'm not sure that you must dogmatically defend an episode that even the creator agrees was flawed. 

Put aside your love of this show (which most of us agree is generally a great show).

Now read this quote:

"I am happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in this world you just can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means you have to choose to believe in them, and sometimes it takes a friend to show you the way."

Imagine if that quote came from a Christian site. What would you think about that?

If you cannot explain something, you should fucking keep researching it until you can explain it. You don't just give up on explanations and "believe".

 

Comment by Daniel Sweeney on June 18, 2012 at 6:03pm

Paul mentioned a letter Lauren Faust wrote. Here is some of it and a discussion of the episode so we do not repeat the discussion: http://www.mylittleponynews.com/2011/02/feeling-pinky-keen-controve...

Comment by archaeopteryx on June 18, 2012 at 8:40pm

What happened to the video? It says, "Pulled by user." Why is a year-old discussion with a pulled video being featured - is somebody on vacation?

Comment by archaeopteryx on June 18, 2012 at 9:01pm

Found it. One might also note that "Pinkie" is a mindless twit.

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