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I have long since realized that FiM will never be what it was when Lauren Faust was at the helm but, to me, this episode was the final nail in the coffin. The male writers built the entire episode with sexist tropes and, in the space of 22 minute, they managed to undermine Lauren Faust's vision in every conceivable way. I was not even going to mention my feelings towards this episode because I find it so depressing, but a tumblr blogger has eloquently described my problems with the episode for me. I strongly urge anyone interested to read his review linked below.
Another ModBlog's "Keep Calm and Flutter On" review: [link]
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Thanks for the link. She actually wrote my sentiment.
Anyway, maybe this episode does have a bad moral, if I recall correctly the one Fluttershy delivered was pretty awful, but everyone will interpret it differently, and it's how people interpret it that matters in the end. I've interpreted a bit differently for a few reasons. First, if you want to look at the episode, if Fluttershy actually continued to just being nice to Discord than he would have had her ensnared forever, just like in an abusive relationship. It was when Fluttershy stopped being kind and stopped trying to be his friend that he cut it out (so in that sense, it is like A Griffin Brushoff). Of course, if you continue with abusive relationships, an abuser would make a compromise when they need to, the victim will think they are making progress, and the abuser will soon continue abuse as long as they still have control over the victim, and the cycle starts anew. So, yeah, that view point that this is a bad influence like that is justified. However, my interpretation of the moral is quite different. I saw Les Mis earlier that day, so I can connect some themes there. We also talked about themes in church about reaching out to people. I got more of the feeling the episode was attempting to portray Discord as more of the weird guy with no friends than someone abusive. I think the intended moral was more that we should look past someones history or whatever and at least give them a chance. Anyway, I liked this episode in the regard that it built Fluttershy's character in a direction that wasn't really explored before. Such naivety and desire to help might put someone at great risk at being abused, but at least it appears to be a nobler trait than just shyness (in both girls AND boys). Same with Discord, though his behavior was less realistic and that's the problem. So it's probably not a very realistic resolution, but I don't think it really undermines Faust's vision that much if it even does.
I think this particular having a failed attempt at delivering the moral doesn't imply that the series is going down, because of the writer behind it. This guy was the same guy who wrote the two most infamous episodes in Season 1, Feeling Pinkie Keen and Over The Barrel. While those aren't related to feminism (or at least I don't think they are), they have morals that have been interpreted as being equally botched and potentially harmful as this one. I don't think there has actually been a significant drop in quality or change in tone since Faust left the team, I see a change in tone for individual episodes, but not the series as a whole. Maybe I just need to look over Season 1 and compare it to the newer ones, I don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure I've seen you say whatever episode has killed the show for you time and time again, but for some reason you haven't stopped watching it yet. Were you now just watching the episodes to critique them, or were you living on some hope it might get better again (now that I think about it that's not too different from an abusive relationship in mechanics)?
I stand by my assessment of this episode as sexist. Fluttershy submits to Discord's every whim with no regard to her own feelings and it is through her submission that Discord spontaneously reforms. She does not create any boundaries for herself, and she ignores her friends accurate warnings that she is being manipulated, and although she does not submit to Discord at the very end, by that point it was far, far, far too late. Discord had absolute and unstoppable power but, because of bad writing, things worked out anyway. What makes this sexist in my opinion is that it is all about a female character giving up all of her personal power (up to and including her only means to defend herself) to an abusive male and hoping that her sacrifice will so move the abusive male that he will decide to treat her more kindly, which he does. In other words, the way Fluttershy is treated is entirely up to Discord and she has no real power to change her situation herself. Fluttershy is the prototypical battered housewife, and this is framed as a positive.
I can see that they might have been trying to go for a moral of looking past someone's history, but I feel that they utterly failed, because Discords past wasn't the problem here. He took advantage of Fluttershy's kindness with not remorse, and manipulated her, and turned her against her friends who were only trying to protect her. It was Discord's behavior in the present that was the problem, not prejudice of past deeds.
And I don't think that this is the point the series has begun going down hill as I felt that happened the moment Lauren Faust left. There are still good things about the series and I can still enjoy it on a certain level, but I feel that without Faust's oversight, the spirit of what the show was originally about is lost, and episodes like this one happen because of it. The reason I continue watching is because Lauren Faust's MLP meant so much to me, and although I know the show will never be what it used to be (to me), there are still a handful of exceptional episodes that remind me what made this show so special in the first place (Wonderbolts Academy, Sweet and Elite, Putting your Hoof Down). And although they are few and very far between, they make the frustration worthwhile.
I still don't find it sexist because sexism requires discrimination to be made, and I don't see any evidence of discrimination here. In order for this to be sexist either the plot would have had to have been influenced by their genders, or the selected character's genders would have been influenced by the plot, gender needed to play some sort of actual role, even if subconscious, in the development of the episode. The latter almost certainly isn't true as the entire main cast is female, so they can't really choose a male character for the role, and I highly doubt Discord was picked because he was male. Now, I don't think there is any evidence for the former because 1. I don't think they are picking lessons specifically for girls, the lessons should be viewed as being gender neutral, else it would sexist and 2. likewise, it would be more sexist to avoid topics because they are stereotypically associated with girls (part of Laura Faust's original vision was that there is all types of girls, and that's ok, even being a "girly girl"), and since the main cast is entirely female when this subject comes it would be by default assigned to a female, not for sexist reasons. It's like if a tv show centers around an African American family and in one episode one of the main characters is seen eating water melon. It's not a racist gag, a character is just eating a water melon, the stereotype is coincidence. As for why this subject even came up in the first place, it can be explained by bad writing and naivety on the writers part, I doubt Dave is trying to preach that girls should be submissive, I think his intended message was first, not supposed to be preaching submission in an abusive relationship, and secondly, not targeted specifically at girls. Yes, it can easily be said to be in bad taste and to be bad writing, but I don't think it's actually sexist.
Yeah, I see what you are going with, the intended message failed to be delivered as intended. That seems to be something that is fairly consistant with his episodes.
I see your last point. On a side note, it's sort of funny how it seems that half the fandom is divided on half of the episodes (at least after the first season, I didn't see any of the reactions in the first season as I didn't start watching the show until the summer break), but it's not that one group of people consistently finds the episodes bad and the other group finds them bad, and there isn't even fairly consistant groups about which people find which episodes bad and which ones good. The real variance in opinions for the episodes is quite a bit, but then there is THAT part of the fanbase that seems to insist that EVERY episode is good and drowns out any opinons saying otherwise.
As for the fan reactions, I would say that the division is due the polarization. Because half the fandom insists that an episode is absolutely perfect and beyond criticism, people who would otherwise have have a moderate opinion adopt a more extreme one in response to the extreme opinions of the "it's beyond criticism" group. I've found myself doing the same when I used to discuss Season 2 on a forum, after getting frustrated that almost no one would concede a single imperfection.
And I think that some people refuse to make or hear criticism of the show because they base a big part of their identity on it. They are BRONIES, they name themselves after their love of the show, so if the show sucks then it reflects badly on themselves and threatens their self esteem. They don't just love the show, they ARE the show so they have a great personal stake in the perceived quality of each episode. I don't like to make these assumptions about other people, but I have no other way of rationalizing their attitude and behavior.
The thing is I don't think fandom isn't really polarized persay, I mean there is of course the division between the people who will handwave everything and the people who are more moderate, but among the people who are moderate there is still no consistant consensus upon what is to a problem, and what imperfections can be excused, among the more moderates there is definitely people who have higher standards than other's, but there is still variation that's more complex.
I agree on the final point, vocal parts of the fandom can be really dumb and annoying like that. In the end it's really just a show.
The most I learned about the more specific philosophy of feminism came from reading the comments on this [link] , which I did awhile ago. For the record, I disagree with that author on the grounds that from Edmund McMillen's other games he seems to in the very least less sexist than your average video game designer so he doesn't strike me as being misogynic, and I interpret the game as being blatant satire, so absurdly offensive that it isn't really offensive anymore, but if the game is to be taken just at face value than it's of course extremely misogynic.
Also, you seem to think that misogyny is entirely localized in individuals. It isn't. Misogyny is a system, not a person. People don't have to be "a sexist" to act in sexist ways as it is so widespread it has become the norm. When people act in sexist ways it is general without the intent to do so.
Anyway, what I do find to be an example of sexism in the show is the portrayal of Snips and Snails vs that of Derpy, what I find makes it sexist is 1. The village idiot is pretty much always portrayed as males by the media 2. The cast of the show is overwhelmingly female, so it stands out a bit more when minor characters are male 3. No one had a problem with their portrayal, but people did with Derpy, and I think a large point of that boils down to gender, Derpy was "offensive" because she was more real, Snips and Snails weren't "offensive" because they were cliche caricatures, and part of the cliche is them being male.