My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)

Our first foray into Pony History will be the 1986 MLP movie starring Danny DeVito and Tony Randall among others. Plot description from IMDb:

Ponyland comes under attack from the Smooze, a massive purple ooze created by an evil witch who plans to destroy the ponies’ annual spring festival.

The Owl House

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 the pint-sized Demon King.

Content warnings for My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) include:

• Sad animals, rabbits harmed
• Screaming
• Natural bodies of water
• Fourth wall break
• A character is watched without their knowledge
• A character is restrained
• “Mild” bullying
• Children in peril
• Spider-like or otherwise creepy monsters
• Beauty standards

Content warnings for The Owl House include:

• Implied child abuse and domestic violence
• Stand-in for alcohol
• Animal abuse, death of a pet
• Stalking
• Bugs, bees, spiders, and snakes
• Characters are drugged
• Potential sexual harassment
• A character’s mouth is covered
• Body horror, bodily transformation
• Children in peril
• 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/

My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) was made on Lenape and Tongva land

My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) was produced by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions, with animation production outsourced to Tokyo-based Toei Animation and Seoul-based AKOM. Marvel Productions was headquartered in Hollywood in Tovaangar, which is the unceded homeland of the Tongva people (see below). Sunbow Productions was headquartered in the Chanin Building on the island of Manaháhtaan in the east-central part of Lenapehoking, the unceded homeland of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape (Delaware) people. Manaháhtaan is specifically part of the territory of the Munsee division of the Lenape people. Manaháhtaan’s “sale” to Dutch colonists in 1626 was illegitimate to begin with, following from that the island’s later conquest by the British Empire and now its present administration by Seppoland as a borough of New York City.

The vast majority of Lenape people today live in diaspora. Three of these diaspora communities — the Delaware Nation in the Wichita homeland, Delaware Tribe of Indians in Wažaže Mązhą (Osage homeland), and Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Omǣqnomenēw-Ahkew (Menominee homeland) — are recognized by the government of Seppoland. Among the Lenape who fled to the Canadian-occupied parts of Anishinaabewaki and Haudenosauneega, the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations are currently recognized by the Canadian government. The Delaware Nation sees all other self-designated Lenape tribes as fraudulent.

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. 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 New York City 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 produced 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 Lenape and Tongva 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://lenape.center/donations
• 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!