Discovery Family Show ‘My Little Pony’ To Introduce Lesbian Couple
According to HuffPost, the episode will air Saturday and introduce the characters Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty, who both take care of the character Scootaloo.
"The characters previously appeared in the 2017 book 'Ponyville Mysteries: Riddle of the Rusty Horseshoe,' but this will be their first appearance on the Discovery Family series, a reboot of the Hasbro 1980s original," reports the outlet. "One of the series’ writers, Michael Vogel, pointed out the perfect timing of the episode’s June 15 air date."
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Speaking to BuzzFeed, the openly gay Vogel said that diversity and representation is always "my first priority on everything I work on."
"Diversity and representation are important for kids for so many reasons, and it’s my first priority on everything I work on," he said. "'My Little Pony' has always been about friendship and accepting people (or ponies) that are different from you. So it just felt like something important to do."
"Nicole and I thought this was a great opportunity to organically introduce an LGBTQ couple in the series, and we asked Hasbro and they approved it. With Josh and Nicole running the final season together, it was something we all wanted to do — bring this out couple into the final season and make them ‘officially’ a part of the MLP world."
The inclusion of LGBT characters on "My Little Pony" follows the PBS Kids show "Arthur" featuring a prominent character in a same-sex marriage, which earned the praise of multiple LGBTQ organizations while alienating conservatives.
"PBS Kids programs are designed to reflect the diversity of communities across the nation," the public network said in a statement at the time. "We believe it is important to represent the wide array of adults in the lives of children who look to PBS Kids every day."
The episode featured Arthur's teacher, Mr. Ratburn, tying the knot with his same-sex partner. Alabama public television chose to ban the episode from airing and play a re-run of the program. APT’s director of programming, Mike Mckenzie, said the station thought the episode would violate parent trust.
"Parents have trusted Alabama Public Television for more than 50 years to provide children’s programs that entertain, educate and inspire,” Mckenzie said. "More importantly – although we strongly encourage parents to watch television with their children and talk about what they have learned afterwards – parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision. We also know that children who are younger than the ‘target’ audience for Arthur also watch the program. The vast majority of parents will not have heard about the content, whether they agree with it or not. Because of this, we felt it would be a violation of trust to broadcast the episode."
HuffPost reports that Hulu will be breaking barriers with the upcoming debut of "The Bravest Knight," which tells the story of "Sir Cedric and Prince Andrew, an interracial couple raising an adopted daughter, Nia."
