Do you wish MLP was made for boys or was gender neutral or do you like it the way it is?

[Paleopony 702]

This question is mostly for the guys on the forums. Do you sometimes wish MLP was made for a male audience or was gender neutral? It would be easier for guys to like it without being made fun of.

I personally like the show the way it is.The fact that it was made for little girls makes me even more proud to be a brony because it shows that even guys can like female entertainment if it's well made.

[Lunaholic 898]

Dedinitely not. I like it the way it is

[Pentium100 2,127]

I like it the way it is.

Yeah, the show could have been made differently, but it also could have been made much worse. Sometimes, "trying to appeal to a wider audience" can make the show or game boring.

[Megas 27,671]

I like it the way it is. The Guardians of Harmony toy line tried way too hard to appeal to boys and it bombed hard, while the later seasons put a bigger effort to appeal to boys compared to the earlier seasons and I feel the quality suffered as a result. 
 

There’s nothing wrong with being gender neutral, and an argument could be made the show was already that, but it shouldn’t try to be something it isn’t and it shouldn’t be ashamed of what it is

though imo, I don’t like how people get defensive about it being called “a little girl’s cartoon” like it’s a bad thing. Like that heavily implies that girl’s show’s, by default aren’t good, and the moment one is good, it has to be classed as “gender neutral” and calling it a girl’s show is somehow degrading, which I think is a lot worse 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Soundwave

[Lord Chin Chin 1,209]

There's lots of boys cartoons and i think its just fine the way it is 👌

Edited August 22, 2021 by Tweek

[ExplosionMare 18,063]

I like it the way it is. If every awesome cartoon was a boy’s one, then the girl’s ones wouldn’t have a chance to shine

[Goat-kun 2,527]

Doing something like that is the same as committing grand treason against the Butthole Jihad.

[Concerned Bystander 2,902]

If the show was different to the show that I started watching, would I even have started watching it?  Who knows.  Basically I was first drawn to the cartoon as it is, and I enjoy it as it is so I have no wish that it had been other than how it is.

[Misty Shadow 7,901]

I like it the way it is. It used to bother me a bit when people called it a little girl's show, not anymore. That's just acknowledging a fact. It's a good show for young girls that appeals to a wide audience. It doesn't need to be made for boys. 

[Tom Gallagher 33,588]

Not at all. It’s perfect the way it is. 

[AppleButt 8,675]

There’s not a thing I’d change about it cause it’s amazing just the way it is.  

[JMTV99 1,353]

As the old saying goes: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it''.

In my opinion, it's fine the way it is.

[Splashee 28,564]

I wonder how it would be like.... if MLP was targeted for a male audience. Would it not have rainbows then? Would the ponies have more muscles? Would they play more sports?

I like it the way it is, especially the later seasons of FIM where they knew about us, their "audience". Sometimes they got a really good episode in, like "Sounds of Silence", which is just good for every one to watch.

[CypherHoof 26,483]

I love Pony how it is.

It is a show with strong female leads that aren't just waiting around for some boy to come and save them, or "take charge", or any of the other nonsense you would need to get in a "boy" show. I think it is only a "girl" show though because the toy line traditionally is - if you contrast with some more recent anime, like "Bofuri" or "God Bless Me?" you can see a lot of similarities - but also differences, in that both the latter have a more "smite with overwhelming force" metric instead of problem resolution by applying positive attributes like kindness, generosity or reliability, as we see in FiM and as is more appropriate to a herbivore herd people like ponies. A show based around, say, lionesses would have a very different feel to it (see, for example, the Chanur novel series from Cherryh for that)

[Flutterstep 47,088]

It's perfect the way it is.  If it did pander to everyone, then it might loose some of it's charm. 

[CypherHoof 26,483]

2 minutes ago, Flutterstep said:

If it did pander to everyone, then it might loose some of it's charm

It did though, sorta. There was a LOT in the series that was only there to please the adult fanbase, starting with Derpy.

[Ice Princess Silky <3 13,940]

Who's to say it isn't for boys? c:
Pink used to be a boys color 
and blue a girl's color....

People are allowed to enjoy nice things, in my humble opinion. Doesn't make them any less whatever concept we have of them, I suppose. Just my own two cents, though.

[Ice Princess Silky <3 13,940]

1 hour ago, Splashee said:

I wonder how it would be like.... if MLP was targeted for a male audience. Would it not have rainbows then? Would the ponies have more muscles? Would they play more sports?

dun dun DUNNNNNN
 

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Star Silk

[SharpWit 2,669]

I don't think our Fandom would exist to nearly the same degree if not for the original intention for little girls, but it's success is less of breaking expectations and more of meeting the demand for family friendly so the parents don't go insane with what's playing in the background.

I would have liked for the show to grow with its audience a little bit more as some of my favorite parts personally were the moments that brought things more down to reality or were darker. Starlight did a lot in those regards.

I was also ultimately more invested in the world building than the life lessons though, so a little too niche for developmental direction.

[JMTV99 1,353]

2 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

It did though, sorta. There was a LOT in the series that was only there to please the adult fanbase, starting with Derpy.

To be fair, I don't mind it as a cute little nod once in a while, but when you using a crap ton of fan references and meta humor into the show ALL the time? Yeah, it's gets annoying and unnecessary.

[Evil Pink One 13,507]

I woish it was made for weebs.... Then the franchise can have a very deep plot and what not. And it's in an anime conventions.... Which usually mlp is sometimes there..... Maybe mlp is already made for weebs...

[Sir Hugsalot 9,348]

No, it's perfect as it is, in fact I consider values it shows essential for any male individual to be respectable in modern society. 

Open mind, honesty, understanding of those around You and respect for them - this is something plenty men should learn. 

Others, the sensitive males, shy ones with lots of insecurities like me learn from the show that we are not bad or lesser men than others. It's a lesson that allowed me to remain who I am, against the endless barrage of attempts to make me "cool", aka - turn an introvert into extrovert. Men need this badly, because I can imagine countless guys like me having their true personalities forever ruined by attempts to turn them into people they are not.

The show is more than fine. Please, Hasbro, never try to change it so it can cater to "manliness". We have "friendship is manly" for that. 

[Pentium100 2,127]

I want to add this:

When you start altering something not to make it better/more interesting, but to reach some other goal (appeal to a wider audience, force this or that message etc) it usually makes the quality go down.

[O-78 28,606]

I like it just fine the way it is! I think the way it grew to have a wide fanbase outside of its initial target demographic is a big part of its charm and appeal. Besides, I don't see why entertainment needs to be segregated by gender anyway.

[Cirrus. 1,089]

Speaking in terms of G4, I think it was done very well how it was. If it was changed to be "for boys" I think it would have seemed forced and wouldn't have been nearly as good or successful as it was.

I think the depth/personalities of characters and writing is more important than what gender the show is "made for." Lauren Faust just happened to be in the right place at the right time to be offered the job to reboot it. In interviews, she has mentioned that she had been disappointed in girls' entertainment since being a young girl herself. She liked the pony toys, but not the show. She made up her own characters and stories with her toy ponies instead, which carried over to the G4 series into the Mane 6 we all know.

The thing is too, for a lot of episodes of G4 you could gender swap most characters in it and it wouldn't have affected anything in the story anyway.

Thinking about it though, I really don't know what else could've been done to make it more "boyish/neutral" besides a couple male main cast members and/or slightly shifted color palette. It just wouldn't be the same though.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by Cirrus.