A grown man tells you he’s obsessed with a cartoon intended for little girls. What’s your first reaction? Do you raise your eyebrows, cross your arms in front of you, and say, “What the eff?”
That was essentially Ashleigh Ball’s reaction when she first learned about Bronies, the adolescent and adult male fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
To many Vancouverites, Ball, 31, is the lead singer of indie alt rock band Hey Ocean!. To TV watchers around the world, she’s the voice artist behind dozens of characters on cartoons like Littlest Pet Shop, Care Bears, and Strawberry Shortcake.
But it’s her ongoing gig providing the voices of Applejack and Rainbow Dash for the mega-hit My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that’s garnered Ball a global legion of teen and adult male fans (so-named “Bronies”).
When she first heard about Bronies back in 2012, she was disturbed, and not simply because she was receiving fan emails from grown men (although that did factor in).
“You’re made out to be a superstar in these people’s eyes, and I’m just doing my job,” says Ball on the phone from New York City, where she’s attending the world premiere of A Brony Tale, a documentary about Brony culture from Vancouver filmmaker Brent Hodge. “It’s a fun job and I’m grateful that I get to do it as much as I do, but it’s people idolizing you. That blows me away still.”
A Brony Tale – which screens at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival on May 11 – follows Ball on her journey into the fandom (culminating with an appearance at BronyCon 2012 in NYC) while introducing audiences to an array of individual Bronies.
The documentary is the first feature for Hodge, 28, who met Ball in 2012 when he approached her to appear on a CBC Radio music series he was producing.
It was during a casual conversation over drinks that Ball first told Hodge about the emails she was receiving from grown men about her My Little Pony day job. “I asked to see these emails, and they were really weird,” says Hodge on the line from New York. “I thought, ‘This is so fascinating, we have to start filming this.’”
Hodge says he didn’t have time to fundraise or apply for grants. The Brony community was building up in real-time, and if he wanted to tell its story, he had to act, fast.
But self-financing afforded him the freedom to set his own schedule, and spend time getting to know his interview subjects.
What Hodge learned as he travelled across the United States in search of Bronies is that there isn’t just one type of Brony. They’re body-builders. They’re war veterans. They’re college students. They’re deejays. “A lot of people would say, ‘Oh, they might be brain smart but they’re not socially intelligent,’’ says Hodge. “But these guys are culturally very intelligent.”
What connects them isn’t simply a passion for the animated ponies, according to Hodge. Like those ponies, Bronies recognize that friendship is magic – and they want to make friends.
This is something that Ball witnessed firsthand at BronyCon 2012, as documented in A Brony Tale’s final moments.
We watch as an apprehensive Ball (who Hodge calls a “filmmaker’s dream; she has her heart on her sleeve and she says what she means”) enters a New York City convention centre packed with men and boys in pony costumes. They want her autograph. They want to give her gifts. They want to hear Applejack and Rainbow Dash.
“It’s something you can’t really prepare yourself for,” recalls Ball. “The energy is insane, and a lot of them have only been friends online and all of the sudden they’re meeting in real life. It’s this chaotic, crazy, magical energy.” Now, as in the film, Ball is clearly blown away by all the love.
“[Bronies] are caring, kind, loving people that just needed a place, and they found a place for themselves,” she says. “There’s so much hate in the world, and people are going to hate on these guys because it’s not normal, but they’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just celebrating friendship.”
A Brony Tale is finding an audience outside of the Brony community. Last week, it was a critical hit of New York’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival (and the top pick of festival co-founder Robert De Niro). It’s been picked up for distribution by Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me infamy) and will soon play in more than twenty theatres across North America.
