Equestria Girls: Better Together

Slice of life shorts starring the HuMane Seven at Canterlot High. Maud’s in it, too. We’ll be watching the first of the two seasons except for the Choose Your Own Ending shorts tonight. The shorts will be presented in three compilations dutifully made by Aer which should add up to around 70 minutes overall.

The Owl House

To fill the extra time left by splitting the Better Together shorts across two nights, we’re watching the first three episodes of this show suggested by either Chapo or Aryu, I can never remember. It’s a popular Disney cartoon in any case that apparently has some of the same “special sauce” as MLP:FiM, and I’m up for trying something new, so let’s see how this goes! Plot description from IMDb:

Accidentally sent to the world of the Boiling Isles before a trip to summer camp, a teenage human named Luz longs to become a witch and is aided by rebellious Eda and pint-sized demon King.

I am quite fond of anything involving witches in training — Little Witch Academia, Ojamajo Doremi and what have you — so this looks like it’s gonna be a good 'un.

Content warnings are unavailable for Equestria Girls: Better Together.

Content warnings for The Owl House include:

• Decapitation and amputation (played for laughs and the character is fine)
• Implied child abuse and domestic violence
• Stand-in for alcohol
• Animal abuse, death of a pet
• Stalking
• Bugs, bees, spiders, and snakes
• Characters turned into puppets
• Characters are drugged
• Potential sexual harassment
• A character’s mouth is covered
• Eye mutilation
• Body horror
• Et cetera

You may wish to read a more comprehensive list of content warnings here:

• https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/79293
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8050756/parentalguide/

Equestria Girls was made on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ land

Equestria Girls: Better Together was animated at DHX Media (now Wildbrain)'s studio in the unceded shared homeland of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. More specifically, the DHX studio in question is located just southeast of False Creek in central Vancouver: this creek was a vital source of sustenance for the three Salishan-speaking Pacific Northwest Indigenous nations in question, providing them with ample sea asparagus, berries, camas, oysters, clams, wild cabbage, and mushrooms. Settler-colonial land reclamation projects and settler-capitalist industrial pollution destroyed these traditional food sources, and the food sovereignty that came with them.

The majority of British Columbia was annexed by Canada without any treaties signed with the local Native groups. This lack of Indigenous treaties presents unique legal challenges for Natives of British Columbia compared to Natives elsewhere in Canada.

The Owl House was made on Tongva land

The Owl House was animated at Disney Television Animation’s studio in Tovaangar, the unceded homeland of the Uto-Aztecan-speaking Tongva people. More specifically, the animation studio in question is located in Glendale, Los Angeles County, near the historical Tongva villages of Wiqanga, Tujunga, Hahamongna, Ashwaangna, and Maungna, between the Verdugo and Santa Monica mountains whose springs had long provided fresh water for the Tongva. The streets of Los Angeles were built by the slave labor of Tongva people arrested by settler police for “vagrancy and public drunkenness” after Seppoland annexed Tovaangar without treaty. The Tongva people today are still unrecognized by the governments of California and Seppoland.

California Natives who did sign treaties with Seppoland never had those treaties ratified. Similarly to British Columbia Natives, this lack of Indigenous treaties in California presents unique legal challenges for the state’s Natives compared to Natives elsewhere in Seppoland.

Conclusion

The economic prosperity of Vancouver and Los Angeles that allowed animation industries to develop in these cities necessarily has its basis in the continuous and systemic disposession of Natives from their land that I’ve just described. The Native groups in these areas had no say in approving the construction of the animation studios in question, and see none of the profit generated by the cartoons drawn on their land. And although piracy avoids putting money directly into the pockets of settler capitalists, unpaid fan labor such as pirate uploading still contributes to the overall values of the intellectual properties in question, just as any other labor adds to the value of any other commodity.

The Tongva, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ peoples still exist and still live in their homelands today. They still fight, as they have for centuries, to exercise their sovereignty over their homelands and their resources. These nations are not monoliths nor are they in any way static: these nations are stratified by class like any other nation under capitalism, they adapt new technologies to their needs like any other nation, and like any other nation they have individual members intersected by every axis of oppression and each with their own individual perspectives.

Here are some relevant charities:

• https://slcc.ca/donate/
• https://twnsacredtrust.ca/what-you-can-do/
• https://www.tongva.land/

I would also recommend listening to “An Indigenous Perspective On The Chicano Movement”, as it is very relevant to the topic of Mexican colonization of the Southwest and its lingering impact on the settler-colonial contradiction in e.g. Tovaangar today.

SOLIDARITY WINS THE FREEDOM OF NATIONS!