My Little Pony

The My Little Pony teapot cafe is a rococo concoction. No curve is left unswirled; no swirl is unembellished; no embellishment untopped.

I can’t find a photo of it online - there’s a newer Hasbro product along the same lines which comes up instead, so I shall attempt a word picture. It is a teapot shaped cafe, which opens along a central hinge. The teapot is pink with a white cream roof topped with green sprinkles, and purple and pink faux spoons which rotate the central turnpike. The handle is rounded and curved, it has hearts down the side and ends in swirls.

One side of the teapot is decorated with two blue windows, topped with arches and featuring flowers in bas relief. Inside the windows are stickers of ponies looking out at the viewer. The centre of the teapot is taken up with a green, bowed door, decorated with white flowers, a pink teapot and a heart-topped cupcake in bas relief. It features a pink sign which reads OPEN and which is, naturally, decorated with a flower.

The base of the teapot shows flowers and butterflies set against the pink background. The whole thing sits on a purple, irregularly and gently indented base.

I’ll skip over the other side and go on the shop interior which features, from top to bottom, the following:

stickers of flowers;
bas relief of ionic columns;
bas relief of lattice work;
decorative indentations;
a curlicued spiral staircase in bas relief;
a sticker window within an embossed window frame,
shelves in pink with white trim;
more stickers of teapots and cups;
a pink, curved bench;
more pink and white shelves with bas reliefs of cupcakes, a birthday cake and tea cups;
a white teapot and pink teacup;
a poster of pictures of cakes and pies on a fake window;
a yellow, round bench with a barley twist column standing on a purple turntable decorated with spirals.

I may have missed some details.

My first response to the Teapot House was to despise it as a plastic, pink pile of commercial sexism, but I have reconsidered this position.

It is plastic. But it is surprisingly well designed and well made plastic. Pearl inherited virtually all her My Little Ponies from op-shops and yet the ponies and their playhouses are all in quite good condition. I think they moved to the new pony designs in 2009 (is that right?) so they’ve lasted quite well.

It is certainly pink. Very pink. And swirly. With hearts and cupcakes and sugar on the top.

But, actually, why should I dislike this? What I am really saying is that it is rococo, that it is exaggeratedly, stereotypically feminine in its design, and what is wrong with this?

I now offer two possible readings.

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I am torn between these two interpretations.