Twilight Sparkle vs. Godless Communism

And so, the fifth season of MLP: FIM is coming upon us in 2015. Already, a trailer has been released (in a manner of speaking). In it, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of her team are about to face-off with... the Godless Communism.

Well, no, it will not be denounced directly as that, not on a children’s show, but otherwise... In the trailer, the Elements will come to another pony settlement, whose inhabitants have given away their cutie marks (marks of their individualities) in favor of monotony – the sign of equality (two parallel black bars). They all behave distinctly brainwashed too, even in the trailer, so whatever this town may stand for, it isn’t democracy; and the fact that it is run by a mayor Marx (who is probably a villain – or one of them – of the episode), it probably doesn’t stand for  Nazism either (not on this occasion). 

What can be said? Yes, propaganda is an appropriate federal tool for the USA as well as for any other country, and yes, since the third team of president Putin the relationship between the RF, the EU and the USA have become strained, so some anti-communism slathering is just what the politicians have ordered. But!

Firstly of all, the US is supposed to be better than Them. Do Americans really have to drum the concept of “individuality good, indistinction bad” as such an early age? What, or rather – whom do they expect to raise with such an approach? A variant breed of Orwell’s sheep? “Four legs good, two legs bad”. No, wait – “four legs good, two legs better”! Yeah, that did not work as expected, but that is the only way indoctrination works, whether it is done by the Russian state, the American, or some private company, firm or sect. 

And second, lately the propaganda war is not being waged too successfully by the US. Setting aside the already-established fact that the individualistic Americans tend not react in a positive way when the American government tells them what to do directly – they go and begin to act in a clearly contrary manner – the thing is that lately the American propaganda didn’t work all that well.

As an example, Deadliest Warrior (DW) tried its best to present the States as unbeatable ever since their S1 episode had the American Green Berets lose to the Russian Spetznaz. Naturally, the Americans became upset, and by S3 DW did its best to show the Americans as unbeatable. The result?

A series of rather crude propaganda pieces, and not very successful either – i.e. NKSOF was defeated by the US Rangers only by 0.5%. 0.5%! Keep in mind, that this was some time before the end of 2014, when in connection with “The Interview” movie North Korea had almost put the global community in its place. Ouch!

Needless to say, DW did not fare so good – it was cancelled after the 3^rd season and has not been renewed. Oh sure, the various games that were inspired by it still hang around – if you like playing a bloke fighting other blokes to establish their hierarchy that is the game for you; and if not, there’s always Deadliest Battle, where Rogue fights Wonder Woman, Batman – Captain America, and Gaara – Toph. No political subtext there, no indeed!..

Getting back to propaganda, that discrepancy with reality has plagued the American world for quite a while now. The Punisher and Rambo can kick Vietnamese arse in films and comics as much as they want – in real life the Vietnam War was lost by the USA. DW – that was already discussed above; “The Interview” – that did backfire on Sony very badly, and it was only some real-life Western backbone that the rest of the world was not hit as well; and now – MLP: FIM. Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the elements vs. the Godless Communism in its’ child-friendly incarnation. Ayn Rand and her novella Anthem are spinning in her grave, most likely.

Sigh. On the theme of propaganda, Anthem was a fine piece, completely detached from reality and dedicated to fighting the evils of indistinction in the name of godly individuality and ego. It did not use any colorful ponies to get its point across. It was not trying to adapt to the current global situation either, unlike “The Last Ship” the TV series (the original novel is something). Twilight Sparkle? With the beginning of S5 of MLP: FIM, you just might have been had.

On the theme of MLP: FIM villains. In the first three/four seasons, the elements of the stable and unchanging Equestria fought and defeated villains who were much more malleable: Nightmare Moon, who could turn into fog or other ponies; Discord, who is pretty much protean in shape; Chrysalis and her Changelings, who made change or metamorphosis into their trademark power; and Sombra, who alternated between a unicorn stallion and a cloud of darkness. See the theme? The arrival of Tirek shook that up, and so yes, Twilight Sparkle’s upcoming battle with Godless Communism, Equestria-style, is also a change – now we will only have to see if it is for better or worse.

End