Contextualising The Bronies
Contextualising The Bronies
EWAN KIRKLAND
University of Brighton
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article critically situates My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–19) brony
and the ‘brony’ following it has attracted in terms of age and fandom, discourses cult media
of quality television, cult media and interactions between fandoms and cultural cultural capital
producers. Far from unprecedented, the show’s unexpected male audience reflects fandom
adults’ historic appreciation of media for children, the increased mainstreaming of My Little Pony
animation, and the already infantilized persona of media fans. Aspects of the reim- quality television
agined series reproduce characteristics of ‘quality television’ concerning charac-
terization, genre, authorship and political intentionality. Simultaneously the show
corresponds with overlapping aspects of cult television and cult cinema, crucially
affording both cultural and subcultural value. Finally, examples of the series delib-
erately courting adult fan audiences are presented as reflecting reciprocal rela-
tionships between show producers and its mature viewers. The brony following
consequently reflects changes in contemporary fandom dynamics, and the increas-
ing mobility of twenty-first-century television viewing.
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Ewan Kirkland
INTRODUCTION
The surprising, controversial, potentially subversive adult male fandom for
Hasbro’s animated television show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–
19) has already been the subject of several academic studies. These explore
the subculture surrounding the small screen spin-off of the 30-year-old toy
range from a series of perspectives. Bethan Jones (2015) examines the extent
bronies, as the series’ male fans have been labelled and self-identified, have
been subjected to ‘anti-fandom’ practices. These include being stereotyped
and pathologized along lines of gender and generation, both outside and
within the fandom itself. In an article focusing on the subset of ‘military
bronies’, Maria Patrice Amon (2016) considers the complex ways fans within
the armed forces justify and negotiate the challenge to gendered identity their
enthusiasm for pony culture entails. Andrew Crome (2014) analyses another
subgroup, religious bronies, and their use of the show’s characters and rela-
tionships to engage with the teachings of scripture; while Christopher Bell
(2013) details the controversy surrounding a pony known as Derpy Hooves,
a co-creation of the show’s producers and the television series’ fandom. Each
study reveals specific cultural struggles entailed in the enjoyment of Hasbro’s
show by what Claire Burdfield (2015) labels the ‘unexpected audience’ of the
series.
This article seeks more broadly to explain the situation whereby adult men
gain conspicuous pleasure from an animated television series about colour-
ful talking horses. With a further reboot of the franchise destined for 2020,
ten years after the latest version attracted so much attention, this represents
a timely moment to place this fan phenomenon in broad critical and histori-
cal context. While gender remains the most prominent framework for inter-
rogating the franchise, as ably covered elsewhere (Kirkland 2017), this article
is more concerned with the generational transgression the series’ appropria-
tion by adult men entails. Brony fandom emerges from, reflects and contrib-
utes to changing relationships between age and consumption practices,
discourses of quality and cult connoisseurship, long-running series’ relation-
ship with audiences, online cultures and merchandising strategies. The series,
and the success it has achieved with older viewers, relates to trends in screen
media making television animation, and its appreciation, more mainstream.
The nature of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (MLP:FIM) the show and
My Little Pony (MLP) the brand mean fans might justify their pleasures via
both discourses of quality television and notions of subcultural capital asso-
ciated with denigrated culture. As much contemporary scholarship suggests,
fandoms, even the unexpected ones, are frequently co-opted by established
media organizations as a means of securing loyal audiences and maximizing
profits on ancillary products. Despite its apparent transgressive, subversive or
inexplicable nature, the fandom for this show makes more sense when situ-
ated within such frameworks.
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Ewan Kirkland
fans become more astute, gaining economic, cultural and social capital which
allows them to participate in activities differently to their younger equivalents.
Such tendencies can be observed in the acceptance many find in the brony
community. In the under-explored area of female MLP fandom, narratives of
women’s lifelong fan participation entail an extension of fan activity alongside
adults’ greater freedom of movement and access to resources. Although the
authors focus on how fan attachments change over time, Harrington, Bielby
and Bardo cite ‘bemused speculation about older fans’ interest in the Twilight
series, Justin Bieber or Gossip Girl’ (2007–12) as examples of the confusion
such developments produce (2007–12: 577). Brony fandom incites the same
sense of bewilderment.
Adult male MLP:FIM fandom therefore reflects the historic permeability
between adult and children’s culture and audiences. This may be exacerbated
by recent social developments which have impacted upon contemporary
consumption and fan practices. The show’s animated content also facilitates
its relationship with older viewers. Although commonly aligned with juve-
nile audiences, fairy stories and children’s television, animation has always
enjoyed a broad audience of different age groups. Theatrical cartoons were
originally part of the mixed bill of entertainment screened to cinema goers
of the pre- and post-war periods. Animated fairy tale adaptations continue
to attract mainstream audiences, indicative of their stories’ origins in pre-
modern oral popular culture. As noted, historical evidence suggests adults
have always watched television scheduled for children, including anima-
tion. The emergence of continuous channels dedicated to animation and
children’s media has extended the cartoon beyond its segregated slot in the
schedule, developing late-night adult audiences for The Ren & Stimpy Show
(1991–95), SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–present) and Adventure Time (2010–
18). Indeed, Marsha Kinder (1995) claims that in its early years kids’ chan-
nel Nickelodeon deliberately courted both adult and child audiences, and
cultivating older viewers is a strategy employed by many similar broadcasting
platforms. Indicative of the further expansion of animation into mainstream
television, Kevin Sandler (2003) argues that cartoons function well within
a multi-channel branded environment to distinguish one broadcaster from
another. In a similar vein, Paul Grainge argues that animation has become
increasingly central to a film industry preoccupied with franchises, interna-
tional sales, character-based commodities, marketing and the creation of
multimodal ‘total entertainment’. In such a context animation becomes ‘a
locus of corporate identification and revenue potential’ (2008: 114). The visible
presence of animated film and television characters from Pixar, DreamWorks,
Disney, Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera across mainstream cinema,
financial and Internet services promotions, live entertainment and a wide
range of licensed products suggests the significance and popularity of the
genre extend well beyond young consumers. Such developments, along with
the unprecedented longevity of The Simpsons (1989–present) and the success
of rivals South Park (1997–present) and Family Guy (1999–present), have led
to the mainstreaming of television animation, severed from its alignment
with child audiences, and many brony fan histories attest to a long apprecia-
tion of the format.
Placing bronies in the context of ‘geek’ subcultures and anthropomor-
phism, Venetia Laura Delano Robertson draws connections with other under-
ground texts featuring humanized cartoon animals. Although MLP:FIM
appears far removed from the ‘gritty, drug-fuelled, and sexually explicit
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Ewan Kirkland
Figure 1: The extensive world of MLP:FIM laid out in ‘The Cutie Mark Map: Part 1’.
anime on the show, alongside references to Japanese kawaii, chibi and moe
culture. Such components appeal to adult animation fans and allow further
mobilization of geek subcultural capital (2014: 28–29). The fantasy show’s
development of a particular visual style, as Johnson observes, also serves the
promotion of ancillary products easily aligned with a series through aesthetic
continuities (2005: 109). While Johnson’s observations relate to more contem-
porary developments in the merchandising of mainstream television to teens
and older audiences, this particular series already had such an established
aesthetic, resulting from the show’s origins as a toy brand rather than screen
entertainment.
Although MLP:FIM fans might mobilize proximities between cult, fantasy
and quality television, as Derek Johnson observes, several factors potentially
compromise the show’s claim to cultural value. These include the series’ use
of animation software associated with online sites, its commercial rather
than artistic motivation, its hyper-femininity, and the brand’s association
with young girls (2013: 138). However, such lowbrow aspects afford audi-
ences a more complex form of capital, more associated with cult cinema
than cult television. Bronies characterize the film spectatorship practices
Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton identify whereby audiences use screen
media to construct communities and, more importantly, as a means of ‘chal-
lenging taste and acting outside of mainstream consumption norms’ (2011:
59). Suggesting significant divergence between the ‘quality’ of cult televi-
sion and the ‘degradation’ of certain cult cinema, Sconce discusses ‘badfilm’
as a form of para-cinema historically consolidated through such publica-
tions as Zontar, Subhuman and Trashola. These encompass diverse lowbrow
cycles such as ‘splatter-punk, “mondo” films, sword and sandal epics, Elvis
flicks, government hygiene films’, the celebration of which gains coherence
through collective efforts ‘to valorize all forms of cinematic “trash”’ (2008:
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Ewan Kirkland
Figure 2: A bright and bouncy musical number opens ‘Magical Mystery Cure’.
MLP:FIM AS FAN-FOCUSED
Many studies of contemporary television highlight the growing significance of
fan cultures and expressions of fan creativity for media producers, industries
and institutions. In the introduction to their much-cited collection, Jonathan
Gray et al. suggest the past decades have seen fans and their practices becom-
ing increasingly ‘mainstream’ as a consequence of shifts from broadcasting to
narrowcasting, deregulation of media markets, and new communication tech-
nologies (2007: 4–5). There are many recent examples of fan practices being
appropriated by official culture in a manner which challenges received popular
and academic perceptions of fans as outsiders, tricksters or thieves. This model
has been replaced by a more nuanced appreciation of the mutually beneficial
if imbalanced relationship between fans and the organizations whose intel-
lectual property they poach. In a chapter exploring Enchanted (Lima, 2007),
Maria Sachiko Cecire considers the profusion of references to Disney movies
within the feature film as echoing the kind of fan activities Henry Jenkins
famously explores in their seminal study (2012: 247). Given the Corporation’s
historically aggressive response to the unauthorized use of its trademarked
characters, the recognition and appropriation of fan practices throughout this
animation-live action hybrid are particularly significant. However, the tacit
exoneration of fan activity inherent in Disney’s Enchanted pales in comparison
to the celebration of fandom represented by MLP:FIM’s hundredth episode.
‘Slice of Life’ was organized entirely around the activities of characters
popularized through the adult fan base (see Figure 3). In an inversion of stand-
ard practice, the main six characters feature only as background ponies. This
was not the first instance where online communities were explicitly acknowl-
edged. The most notable was the aforementioned naming of Derpy Hooves. A
grey and yellow figure with mismatched eyes, this pony appeared on the show
Figure 3: The range of background ponies featured in MLP:FIM’s 100th episode, ‘Slice of Life’.
with increasing frequency after being spotted and adopted by fans, although
the moniker has subsequently been retracted due to disability sensitivity (Bell
2013). ‘Slice of Life’ starred an un-named Derpy alongside a British scientist
character with an hourglass cutie-mark dubbed ‘Dr Whooves’ by audiences
after the long-running television time traveller (see Figure 4). Octavia Melody
and DJ Pon-3, a character whose fan name was similarly adopted by producers
(Amon 2016: 95) were another frequently fan-matched couple shown sharing
a house together. A third popular pairing, Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon, was
also depicted, with sly references to the latter’s alternative name of Sweetie
Drops. The canonization of these couples not only indicates the blurring of
boundaries between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ cultures, but questions assump-
tions concerning the ‘subversive’, ‘transgressive’ or ‘queer’ nature of slash
fiction. As Jones argues, if media producers and media texts are complicit in
the generation of slash pairings, this challenges traditional understandings of
such practices as necessarily oppositional. Instead, ‘the exotic erotics of slash
fiction look much less like instances of “resistance” and much more like exten-
sions of cult television’s own contra-straight logics’ (2002: 89).
Crome observes that one trope of cult media that MLP:FIM frequently
employs is the integration of popular culture references which reward careful
repeated viewing (2014: 403). Many of these increasingly prominent allusions
belong to media with pre-existing cult status. A bowling alley scene featured
ponies resembling characters from the Coen Brothers’ cult film (Klinger 2010)
The Big Lebowski (1998). The season two finale closed with a shot-for-shot
homage to another cult movie (Hills 2003) Star Wars: A New Hope (Lucas,
1977). ‘It’s About Time’ references Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981) and
The Terminator (Cameron, 1984) (see Figure 5), 1980s science fiction classics
which would not appear out of place in a late-night movie screening. The cast-
ing of John de Lancie, known for playing Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1987–94), as the voice of recurring trickster character Discord further aligns
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Ewan Kirkland
Figure 4: A popular grey and yellow pony, alongside ‘Dr Whooves’, reluctantly identified as a Time Lord by
his striped scarf.
Figure 5: Future Twilight Sparkle materializes in a manner similar to The Terminator’s time traveller
in ‘It’s About Time’.
MLP:FIM with the most well-known of television fandoms, and another show
which graces the cover of Jancovich and Lyons’ (2003) edited collection on
quality television. Mainstream filk musician ‘Weird Al’Yankovic, whose songs
include parodies of nerd culture, Star Wars and Internet downloads, also
voiced the character Cheese Sandwich in the episode ‘Pinkie Pride’. As further
shout outs to cult, fan and geek media, throughout the series characters have
been magically transported into a comic book (‘Power Ponies’) (see Figure 6),
a role-playing adventure game (‘Dungeons & Discords’), and attended a fan
convention in cosplay (‘Stranger than Fan Fiction’). As Robertson suggests,
the nature of these references implies a ‘tailoring to the geek demographic’
(2014: 29–30), aligning the series with other cult texts, culture and activities.
Given the franchise’s entrenchment in toy culture it is unsurprising that
certain ranges of merchandise are implicated in this appeal to fandom. The
feature-length spin-off, including Equestria Girls (Thiessen, 2013), Rainbow
Rocks (Thiessen, 2014), Friendship Games (Rudell, 2015) and Legend of Everfree
(Rudell, 2016), in which pony characters appear as high school students,
constitutes a nod to fan art traditions of redrawing the characters as humans,
as well as a means of promoting Hasbro’s new doll range. Alongside other
favourites such as Dr Whooves, Lyra and Daring Do, the latter being the
object of an in-show character’s fan devotion, the pony formerly known as
Derpy has been memorialized as a vinyl figure, which retails at a signifi-
cantly higher price than traditional MLP toys. Collectable versions of these
characters commonly sell in comic shops, fan conventions and stores
specializing in geeky merchandise. Further show-accurate figures have been
made of Gilda the Griffon, Queen Chrysalis, Granny Smith and photogra-
pher Photo Finish, a character designed after Barbara Hulanicki. These prod-
ucts are far outnumbered by those stocked by traditional toy stores, sold
at pocket money prices, aimed at the franchise’s traditional demographics.
Figure 6: MLP:FIM characters transformed into Radiance, Zapp, Mistress Mare-velous and Masked
Matter-Horn, superheroes based on DC and Marvel characters.
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Ewan Kirkland
CONCLUSION
Stories of adult men happily watching a television show made for young girls
may represent a positive sign that boundaries segregating male and female
culture are, for some generations at least, becoming less rigid. At the same
time, the negative reactions the brony phenomenon has attracted, in popu-
lar media and online, suggests there remains something taboo about crossing
such borders of taste and consumption. More complex is the possibility that
the transgression of these lines constitutes part of the pleasure of the show
and the formation of the brony community. Moreover, these audiences are in
numerous ways being actively facilitated by show producers, suggesting a less
transgressive practice than may first appear.
In contrast to media whose initial remit was a deliberate multigener-
ational audience, the adult male fandom for My Little Pony: Friendship Is
Magic, whose diversity is obscured by the discursive label of the ‘brony’,
seems to have taken all concerned by surprise. Nevertheless, as this arti-
cle has argued, the fandom for the show corresponds to patterns of audi-
ence appreciation circulating fantasy, quality television and screen media
on the borders of legitimate culture. The adult male MLP:FIM enthusiasts
might draw upon a range of established cultural and subcultural capitals in
justifying their viewing practices. Moreover, MLP:FIM can be understood
as a franchise facilitating various aspects of contemporary fandom. Based
on a pre-existing range of toys, the series can be readily incorporated into
an array of official merchandise ranges targeted towards audiences of vari-
ous ages. The series features a plethora of regions, cities and countries
with various proximities to actual locations, inhabited by a host of charac-
ters, cultures and species, thereby providing fertile ground for fan-authored
fiction. Its anthropomorphic protagonists, in contrast to other animated or
live-action characters, are relatively straightforward to reproduce within
fan art. A pony’s individualism is simply distinguished through their colour,
mane, accessories and the icon-like ‘cutie mark’ on their flank which signals
their special talent. The straightforward displacement of this distilled image
onto a lunch box, earing, cufflink or woolly hat immediately transforms that
object into a piece of pony merchandise. Such brandability suits produc-
ers of both official and unofficial products. Ponies are eminently themable
and customizable, providing a blank slate to be appropriated by any artist in
producing crossover ‘ponified’ protagonists from other franchises or origi-
nal characters. These can, in turn, be coherently re-orientated back into the
show in a manner which satisfies fan’s desire for recognition, and producers’
interests in securing a loyal audience. Although it may have taken many by
surprise, the structures of fandom surrounding MLP:FIM have a traceable
history, with interactions between fans and television producers reflecting
mainstream trends in contemporary media more acutely than either party
might acknowledge.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Kirkland, E. (2020), ‘Contextualizing the bronies: Cult, quality, subculture and
the contradictions of contemporary fandom’, Journal of Popular Television,
8:1, pp. 87–104, doi: 10.1386/jptv_00012_1
www.intellectbooks.com 103
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CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Ewan Kirkland teaches screen studies at the University of Brighton. Their
research interests include children’s media, horror video games and popular
representations of dominant identities. As well as being a regular speaker at
My Little Pony conventions, in June 2014 Kirkland organized the first one-
day academic conference on the franchise. Kirkland is the author of Children’s
Media and Modernity: Film, Television and Digital Games (Peter Lang, 2017),
which explores media for children across modern history and contains case
studies of Hook, Teletubbies, Little Big Planet and the Children’s Film Foundation.
In addition Kirkland has published chapters and articles on The Powerpuff
Girls, Robin Williams, Twilight, Battlestar Galactica and The Lego Movie.
Contact: School of Media, College of Art and Humanities, University of
Brighton, 154-5 Edward Street, Brighton, BN2 0JG, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7036-2259
Ewan Kirkland has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.