When you think of the My Little Pony franchise, what first comes up in your mind? Is it the nostalgia of watching childhood cartoons with your siblings? Is it the saccharine sweet catchphrase, “Friendship is Magic”, or is it your favourite pony — Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle or somepony else? How would you react if I told you that people in its fandom are producing media about Fluttershy’s secret serial killer tendencies, or about how Pinkie Pie is cannibalising all her friends?
This was exactly the wretched state of the My Little Pony fandom back in its heyday in the early 2010s — not that this was, or is, an isolated occurrence. Recently, I watched the movie, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a slasher film where Pooh and Piglet, feeling famished and abandoned without any way of obtaining vegetarian options for sustenance after Christopher Robin had left the Hundred Acre Wood, become vicious, bloodthirsty villains, making poor Eeyore their first victim. When a grown-up Christopher Robin finally returns to the woods many years later with a group of young university women– well, as user NicoPico on Letterboxd succinctly put it in their 0.5/5 rating for the movie, Pooh isn’t himself when he’s hungry. So… why exactly do people create and consume these horrid reimaginings of innocent childhood media? This article will ultimately be an exploration into this phenomena.
Demented Pooh in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, which I have censored. You’re welcome. :)
Subversion
Subversion of the audience’s expectations is a cornerstone of the horror genre. It is the basis upon which the numerous tropes we see in horror are built. The transformation of innocent childhood characters into gruesome monsters is a surefire way to induce a shock factor in audiences.
However, this genre of media also has its fair share of detractors. In interviews, Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the writer, director, and producer of Blood and Honey, revealed that he received comments calling him “the devil” and rebuking him for “destroying [the audience’s] childhood memories” with their “sacrilegious” interpretation of the sweet Pooh and Piglet.
The metamorphosis of a pure, innocent thing into a killing machine is unexpected. It keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. It elicits reactions from them. And, provided that the twists are executed well, people love to be bamboozled by the media they consume. This is exactly why the trope of the creepy young girl exists. Aalya Ahmad, a Carleton University professor who has previously published papers on interpreting horror through a feminist lens, says this about the movie The Exorcist:
“This little girl speaking in a deep masculine voice, talking about extremely sexual things that wouldn’t come out of a little girl’s mouth is frightening. That incongruity of heavily masculine characteristics to the angelic little girl creates a monster that disturbs boundaries between normal and abnormal. The idea that the young girl is fighting back against being sexualised, by becoming a monster it lends a kind of power that draws attention to the angelic identity of the young girl that can actually be oppressive.”
If girls are the pinnacle of innocence, pastel-coloured ponies and squeaky-voiced, plush-toy-like animals are probably right up there alongside them.
Hence, both the evil young girl and evil childhood cartoon character tropes are just two sides of the same coin. Besides, we should take notice of the fact that the characters who are vilified in the My Little Pony creepypasta (short horror content posted on the Internet designed to unnerve and scare the reader) scene and Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, are mostly either female, or else attributed with traditionally female characteristics. In My Little Pony creepypastas, the central characters, which are the main six ponies, are all female. Pooh is naive, childlike, and exceedingly nice, while Piglet is shy, meek, and fearful. They adopt decidedly masculine characteristics of strength and brutality in Blood and Honey, in which they yield sledgehammers and bash people’s heads in with said sledgehammers. Let us continue with this line of thought: Aalya Ahmad brings up an interesting idea that by subverting the “angelic identity” of the character of the young girl, the film offers commentary on the way these societal expectations enslave the mind and self. Pooh, Piglet, and the six ponies are not particularly oppressed characters in their respective original works, but in the wider context of the horror genre, the prominence of these archetypes could mean something more. We could consider Robin Wood’s American Nightmare theory, which explains the Monstrosity as being the “return of the repressed”, in which those who are repressed by society return as monstrous figures and disruptive forces. In simpler terms, “normality is threatened by the monster.” While the dominance of female-oriented characters in horror media may not be a purposeful venture by the creators of Blood and Honey and the various MLP creepypastas, it certainly could be indicative of a larger trend in which women are purposefully positioned as monster or monster-adjacent in order to subvert stereotypical notions of femininity and to upset normative structures.
Popular Childrens’ Works are Entering the Public Domain
Under U.S. Intellectual Property Laws, all works first published or released in the United Stated before January 1, 1928, have entered public domain starting from January 1, 2023. In other words, these works have been released from copyright protection prohibiting the use, distribution, or adaptation of these media. Without the threat of a possible copyright infringement looming over their heads, moviemakers are likely to flock to create adaptations of works which already have established a solid audience. Especially for indie filmmakers like Rhys Frake-Waterfield, this is a solid way to attract viewership. The amount of public recognition garnered certainly shows, with Blood and Honey becoming a viral sensation on the internet partly because of its controversial nature, and partly because of the popularity of Winnie the Pooh. The budget for Blood and Honey was under $100,000, a stark contrast with the $5.2 million it grossed worldwide. Riding on the financial success of the movie, Rhys-Waterfield already has the sequel in the works for Blood and Honey. He will reportedly also partner up with Scott Jeffrey, another indie horror filmmaker, to produce another slasher film. And this time, it’s our dear Bambi the deer’s turn to receive the Pooh and Piglet treatment in the movie Bambi: The Reckoning.
Bambi will turn into a “Vicious Killing Machine” in Bambi: The Reckoning
However, in the case of The Mean One, a black comedy slasher film starring The Grinch (who stole Christmas), the legality of it was due to parody laws. With The Grinch only entering public domain 30 years from now, its creator had to find ways to bypass the many restrictions. The US Supreme Court explained in the Campbell v, Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. law case: “Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim’s (or collective victims’) imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing.” In order to avoid copyright infringement, the producers of The Mean One made several name changes, including replacing “The Grinch” with “The Mean One” and “Whoville” (the name of the town) with “Newville”.
Anti-Nostalgia
It is impossible not to notice the recent spate of nostalgia media calling back to the 80s, 90s, Y2K, or even the 2010s. Just look at the numerous Disney live-action remakes and the Stranger Things franchise, which racked up 7 billion minutes of streaming in the US in the week after the Season 4 debut. Even McDonald’s Grimace, of the Grimace Shake fame, was brought back to capitalise on this trend. Why else would McDonalds have celebrated his 52th birthday this year, and not two years ago on his golden jubilee? But I digress.
According to some cultural critics, the fourth season of Stranger Things’ is fueling an obsession with the 80s among GenZ, who obviously, have never experienced living through this time period.
And the thing is, nostalgia (pseudo-nostalgia included) is a sort of deceptive coping mechanism — it tints our perception of the past a warm, soothing rose, allowing us to gloss over bad memories and experiences, providing us a brief reprieve from this utterly befuddling world we’re living in. This has several implications. Firstly, by romanticising these periods of time, we distort history. And as people who haven’t actually experienced being a part of those times, we often unknowingly conflate multiple different cultures and events with each other. Secondly, as our nostalgia-pilled generation seek out content which reminds them of a bygone past, producers and corporations take advantage of this trend, pushing out retro-themed clothing and cosmetics and beverages. Any product under the sun, really.
Given the way of the world, it is no surprise that a counter-culture has cropped up in response to this persistent nostalgia-farming: Anti-nostalgia.
Anti-nostalgic media resists nostalgic readings. It tells you to stop feeling fondness for your favourite cartoon character, and see the wickedness which belies its loveable facade. It tells you not to perceive your childhood through rose-tinted glasses. It tells you instead to strip away the fantasising and gain a clearer view of the past events of your childhood.
As such, the horror genre is a prime breeding ground for the anti-nostalgia trend. There is, after all, some pleasure to be derived from being the one to deconstruct an innocent, unassuming childhood classic into a macabre, niche horror flick while the rest of your peers in the film industry trip over themselves trying to appease to the masses with their unproblematic, recycled, and hyper-commercialised reboots of already popular media.
Now, what about the My Little Pony creepypasta case study? Given the prominence of MLP gore fan content a decade ago, it would not be as accurate to attribute the modern anti-nostalgia trend as a reason behind its existence.
“Grimdarks”, which is another term for “creepypasta” used almost exclusively by the My Little Pony fandom, were at the peak of their popularity during the early to mid-2010s. This was because the increase in their fandom size happened at the same time as the rise in popularity of creepypastas. Many of these new members of the fandom were notably not the young girls you would assume to be the show’s target audience. In fact, they were often grown-ups who even had a special fandom name — Bronies, a portmanteau of “bro” and “ponies”.
While most Bronies were attracted by the comfort the show brought to them, some Bronies recognised the horror potential in the cartoon itself, and merrily utilised this in their own fanworks.
Dark Aspects of the Original Media
Having horror elements in children’s media is not uncommon. Even in a seemingly innocent cartoon such as My Little Pony, there are some details which stir up a sense of unease. In the Season 1 episode, “Party of One”, Pinkie Pie investigates why her friends avoid her and turn down her invitations to her party. After repeated attempts at finding out the cause, she becomes convinced that they just do not want to befriend her anymore. Consequently, she goes crazy, talking to inanimate objects and displaying generally insane behaviour.
Pinkamena Diane Pie in “Party of One”… don’t the paint splatters remind you of blood splatters?
Pinkie Pie’s overly upbeat and clown-aligned personality provides a good contrast to the excessive gore and horror, and this episode further cemented the validity of the concept of a crazy Pinkie Pie, which the creepypasta MLP fandom named Pinkamena Diane Pie. This concept was intriguing to a segment of Bronies, who made fanwork expanding on this concept, giving rise to an unprecedented number of horror/gore fanfiction for a piece of children’s media.
There are many more examples of children’s cartoons which explore horror themes. Courage the Cowardly Dog is a classic example of this. There is also no shortage of horror-adjacent plotlines in the beloved cartoon, Adventure Time. Among the many episodes which dipped into the realm of the horror genre, the Season 5 episode, “All Your Fault”, which was ripe with body horror, is one of the most memorable. The images of the malnourished lemons of the Lemon Kingdom walking around with stick-thin bodies and howling in pain as they shed their peels are extremely unsettling to any viewer.
Poor thing :’(
All in all, while it is good to have fun with whatever our unlimited imagination brings us, and to flourish in communities which share the same interest, people’s concerns about the adultification of children-centred content and the infiltration of children-centered spaces by NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content are definitely valid. Youtuber Izzzyzzz, who made the video titled “My Little Pony Creepypastas: A Deep Dive”, which I referenced several times in this article, said this of her experiences in the My Little Pony fandom when she was younger: “I couldn’t engage in any fandom content without engaging in any NSFW gore or disturbing content that really wasn’t appropriate for someone my age.” Content creators and fandom creators need to be mindful of their young audience, in order to refrain from traumatising an entire generation of children.
I, however, am intrigued in this genre of media and see huge potential in them to leverage upon the yet-to-be-explored subtext of the original characters. Despite this, the market and fandom spaces for this type of content are undeniably saturated with badly-written stories and cheap-looking gore which are played out excessively for shock value, as well as copycats and rehashings of the same few concepts and tropes. Many commenters use “so bad it’s good” to describe them. I personally think many of them are just bad. But, of course, there definitely exists some gems among the scraps. These come to mind: Story of the Blanks, a fanmade 8-bit MLP horror game, Suicidemouse.avi, an infamous “lost episode” of Mickey Mouse walking for 9 minutes while the footage gradually gets more distorted and disturbing, and The Lure, a Polish musical horror film based on the mermaid myth.
But, if you’re looking for some “so bad it’s actually still bad” -type horror content to destress and have a bit of fun with, try watching Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. You could also try dabbling in a bit of the infamous MLP fanfiction known to be the mother of MLP horror fan-content, Cupcakes. Pooh, Piglet, and Pinkamena Diane Pie will be sure to show you a bad time……
Written by: Cheah Le Han (23S79)
Edited by: Wayne Tan Qi En (23S66), Lin Yukang (23S7D)
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