Hasbro — the toy company behind Transformers, GI Joe and My Little Pony, loves to squeeze every cent possible out of a brand. Hence toys turning into TV shows and movies. And now, with MLP, there's a new "brand extension," Equestrian Girls.
The New York Times reports:
The new property will get the red-carpet treatment when it premieres as a full-length animated feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. The movie, created by Hasbro Studios, the company’s production division, will then be released in more than 200 theaters nationwide; its trailer will start appearing in theaters on Wednesday.
“We are responding to the desire by our fans to experience the brand in more ways,” said John A. Frascotti, Hasbro’s chief marketing officer. “They imagined themselves as which pony they would be or which pony they identified with the most.”
This means that Equestria Girls are My Little Pony characters, reimagined as teenage girls in high school. They are horses. But they are girls. They are horse-girls. They have manes. And hands.
As seen in the trailer, the Equestria Girls are just as confused about their changing bodies as we are. "What am I?" asks Polly Sparkle, after being sucked through a tie-dye rainbow vortex. You're a purple girl-horse. You and your friends are all skinny, with long horsey legs, and clad in skirts and boots instead of pants. Sometimes it looks like you have tails, but no, that's just your long, long, long hair-mane.
Isn't getting obsessed with horses part of preteen girls exploring their sexuality? All the straddling, rippling muscles, snorting and hymen-breaking? If so, what does it mean when horses become teens? IS THERE A TEAR IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM?
I haven't been this unsettled by horses since watching a Tisch School of the Arts freshmen production of Equus.
[NYT]