Hay, everypony—
We have been watching MLP:FiM together every Saturday for just under a month now, and next Saturday we’ll finally be starting season 2. Two weeks after that, i.e. three weeks from now, we will reach the batch of episodes that includes S2E14, “The Last Roundup”.
The only problem is, there are two different versions of that episode: the version of the episode as it originally aired, and a later edited version for reruns, official downloads, and streaming. The changes made to the episode concern the scene immediately after the intro — a scene which was criticized for its depiction of an intellectually disabled character.
I hold that the original version of the scene; the context behind the original version of the scene; the backlash to the scene, and the resulting changes to it; and the brony fandom’s backlash to the changes to the scene in turn; are all important to acknowledge as a part of the history of ableism and ID representation in children’s media, and an important but uncomfortable part of MLP:FiM and the brony fandom’s history — in the same vein as we didn’t skip “Bridle Gossip” and “Over a Barrel” just because those episodes are fucking racist. So all in all I would like for us to experience the show “warts and all”, and to be critical of our own nostalgia for it.
However, this still leaves the question of whether we actually watch the original or edited version of the episode, and how (and for how long) we cover “Derpygate” after the episode. I’ll leave that one up to you all.
I say we watch the original. I’d like to know more about this. I remember the character, but I don’t specifically remember the controversy.
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Certainly not, no.
A summary of the scene
A pegasus with unaligned (strabismic) eyes and a Down syndrome coded voice, referred to by name as “Derpy”, has been paired with Rainbow Dash to help restore an old building. The strabismic pony, however, keeps obliviously destroying parts of the building, causing Rainbow Dash to get mad at her. After she asks if she can help Rainbow Dash in any way, Rainbow Dash angrily tells her to “just sit there and do nothing” (paraphrase).
The edited version of the scene (partially) realigns the pony’s eyes, changes her voice, and removes the mention of her name.
Wasn’t “Derpy” a fan invention or am I wrong? I seem to remember fans finding a screenshot of a cross eyed pony and then proceeded to invent a bunch of lore around it. I thought the show makers took this and stuck in something as fan service, but I could be wrong in how I remember it.
That’s exactly what happened, yes.
I don’t consistently tune in (was really busy yesterday), but I’d say to watch the original. Like you’ve said, racist episodes weren’t avoided, and I think the same should be done with ableist episodes. I would go into more, but it would just be re-stating what you’ve said, which I’m in complete agreement with. It seems better acknowledge it’s existence rather than avoid it.
there’s an episode called ‘Over a Barrel’???
Yes, we watched that episode just last night, and basically everypony unanimously agreed that it was the single worst episode of the ones we’ve watched so far, if not the worst episode of the entire show in general.
The episode depicts a conflict between “settler ponies” who have built a Wild West-style settlement called Appleloosa, and a local herd of feather-war-bonnet-wearing buffalo, who live in tipis and have names like “Chief Thunderhooves” and “Little Strongheart”. The conflict concerns the settler ponies planting an apple orchard in the middle of the buffalo’s “traditional stampeding grounds”, and includes among other things Twilight Sparkle both-sidesing the issue; a literally pie-in-the-face slapstick battle; and concludes with the buffalo agreeing to a compromise that just unambiguously screws them over, but hey, the buffalo sure seem happy about getting ripped off, and it’s presented as a good ending and a good moral lesson for the kids at home, so there.
Episodes like “Over a Barrel” are why I think MLP:FiM is best looked at as having an unreliable narrator. My own headcanon is that the show is based on a translation of Twilight Sparkle’s letters to Princess Celestia, as well as the Journal of Friendship and other texts.
At least the title is applicable then, if still pretty nswf
Isn’t “in the barrel” the phrase that references gloryholes, and “over a barrel” the phrase based on whipping people?
spoiler
I haven’t heard ‘in the barrel’ used before(other than ‘shooting fish in a barrel’ as a metaphor for something easy,) but having someone ‘over a barrel’ means to have someone in a vulnerable position/‘at your mercy’ where they’re unable to resit, google shows yes origin is based on whipping people over a barrel in the navy
I see. In the barrel is a phrase that I’ve personally only really heard in the 1998 video game Half-Life (and its remake Black Mesa), in one of the security guard’s lines, however while the phrase is apparently not as fashionable nowadays, it’s still notable enough to have its own Wiktionary entry. In the barrel basically means “in an unpleasant or dangerous situation”, so it can have some overlap with over a barrel in terms of meaning. That’s why I thought you might’ve confused these two phrases.
The origin of 'in the barrel', courtesy of Urban Dictionary (NSFW)
A sailor on a Navy ship had been out to sea for weeks, and was beginning to go through sex withdrawals. Fed up with the lack of sex, he asked one of his shipmates what he did when the pressure was too much to take. “Well, there’s a barrel with a hole in it near the mop storage. When it gets to be too much for us, we use that.” So the sailor went over to the barrel and decided to give it a go. Finding it was better than he’d expected, he began using it regularly, and his problems seemed to vanish. After a couple of weeks, his commanding officer began to take notice, and said, “You seem to be a lot more relaxed. What’s your secret?” The sailor, embarrassed to give a straight answer, simply said he’d been getting better rest. “Well good, sailor. You’re going to need it,” replied the officer. “Today’s your turn in the barrel.”
I’m awestruck that that episode got all the way through writing, animating, and acting without someone pulling the plug.
March 2011 was a different time…
I’m not gonna copy the whole 'glist (that’s what the cool kids call the taglist) but I can at least tag some of you regulars
@TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net @Carcharodonna@hexbear.net @AernaLingus@hexbear.net @wombat@hexbear.net @Grebgreb@hexbear.net @Sulv@hexbear.net
I’m kind of a regular >:,(
I forgor Wii :nyoron:
i think showing the original would be fine.
if someone explicitly asks not to see it we could try watching it at a different time that won’t interfere with regular pony sessions
That sounds like a good solution, and everyone thus far seems to be in agreement.
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I agree, frankly. Like the problem with the scene in the show is that Derpy is portrayed as good for nothing, and that RD gets mad at her; the edit just hides the fact that she’s disabled, which is just erasure that doesn’t fix the underlying problem of the scene.
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I really just mean that the scene feels to me like it’s written with the assumption that you’re “supposed to” sympathize with Dash’s frustration, rather than sympathizing with Derpy for being made to do something she can’t do, and then getting yelled at when she inevitably can’t do it. Rainbow Dash never apologizes to Derpy, and Derpy is never shown doing something she’s actually good at, which means that as far as her portrayal in the episode begins and ends, she can’t even sit perfectly still without causing problems, and ponies can just freely berate her without consequence. Anything Derpy might be good at is kept strictly hypothetical, and whether Dash’s behavior actually was flawed at all is left for the viewers at home to discuss amongst themselves.
The way the scene should’ve been written, really, at least if I were to write it, would’ve had a third character intervene, tell Dashie that she’s being a dick, and helped Derpy find something that she’s better suited for. The scene as-written, on the other hand, doesn’t really challenge any stereotypes about ID: if you came into the episode thinking it was fine to be a dick to people with ID, as unfortunately many people would, then you’d come out of the episode feeling no different.
Edit: Cf. the season 7 episode “Once Upon a Zeppelin”, which has a character that I read as autistic, who got fucked by his circumstances, and Twilight Sparkle lashes out at him. However, Twilight does apologize by the end of the episode! And I really felt for that character, Star Tracker, I honestly remember getting kind of teary-eyed because his situation reminded me of when similar things have happened to me. I actually kind of disliked “Once Upon a Zeppelin” precisely because I wanted MLP:FiM to just be lighthearted fun instead of reminding me of the hardships of my personal life, but Hell, if you are going to depict this sort of scenario, then that’s how you do it.
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Are we arguing or is one or both of us misreading the other’s intent? I’m already on board with you that many of the fandom’s depictions of Derpy are genuinely great and affirming for people with disabilities, and that the edit of the episode erases a disabled character, and that it’s better in any case to watch the original version of the episode. I was not particularly concerned with whatever role AKR vis-à-vis the editors and other staff had in making the scene as it aired, nor the purity or goodness of the intentions of any party involved in the production, nor how offensive the name Derpy is. My issues with the scene, for that matter, really hold up regardless of whether Derpy’s disability is only intellectual or only physical or if we’re being honest both at the same time.
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I figured it might’ve been that, but it can be hard to read intent sometimes…
I would definitely prefer to see the original! I didn’t make it this far in my as-it-aired watching (fake fan!), and I wasn’t that embedded in the fandom, so I’m really interested to both see the episode unaltered and learn about the contemporaneous discourse.
i do not have strong preferences, but i would prefer the original as that’s the one im used to. i don’t particularly like her name being derpy tbh, but i like her character otherwise
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The buffalo are however seen again in several other episodes, including in the middle of Appleloosa in the season 4 episode “Pinkie Pride”.
The problem with Bridle Gossip isn’t really that the characters learn not to be prejudiced towards Zecora, but more than anything just the whole “Magical Negro” trope.
The zebras in fandom representations are often soviet-coded, following the example of Fallout: Equestria where the zebras fulfilled the role of the Soviet Union from the Fallout franchise. In later depictions in the show, the only canon zebra (Zecora) similarly picks up some Eastern/Asian character traits to accompany the exclusively African traits in her first appearance.
I don’t remember any of that…
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The buffalo do make one final return in the series finale but I don’t think any other times than that. I guess it was seen as too controversial to actually feature them prominently again, which is maybe a bit of a shame. You seem like you might know where to find the good fanfics that would seriously interrogate the colonialism of Appleloosa, though?
and I would consider myself a cultural outsider to most tropes.
I suspect I might know why, but I’m not going to assume.
The show was never as much of a draw for me as the fandom, its art, and the friends I made. I hold the show dearly in my heart, but I always preferred fan content.
Honestly, I became a brony first through fan content months before I got into the show, so I feel you there.
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Unbelievable that there’s so little! But pretty cool that FoE would expand on the Diamond Dog lore. I never could sit down and make my way through FoE so most of my knowledge of it comes through osmosis.
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