Let's Look Inside 'A Brony Tale,' Shall We?

Remember when we were all little kids (girls, mostly, I imagine) and we loved My Little Pony? Those rainbow and glitter-encrusted figures dotted with unicorn horns and plastic jewels were right up there with Troll dolls for some of us babies of the eighties and early nineties. But I'm sure nobody — certainly not the producers of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the pony brand's latest television outing — anticipated the new crowd of fans who'd gallup up to the plate: the twentysomething-and-older male crowd that affectionately refer to themselves as bronies. You know, just your run-of-the-mill straight dudes who just so happen to love ponies and friendship forever. It's a truly fascinating and confounding subsect of culture, and their intrigue has managed to make them the subjects of a documentary playing at the Tribeca Film Festival this week: A Brony Tale.

Like Scientology, sugar-free candy, and other things that somehow exist but don't make sense to your average Joe or Jane, bronies take a lot of heat and judgement from those outside of their rainbow-colored walls. But from the looks of its trailer, A Brony Tale looks to change people's minds, as the film follows one of the ponies' voice actors, Ashleigh Bell, as she meets her adoring fans at BronyCon for the first time. The film was directed by Brent Hodge and executive produced by the ubiquitous documentarian Morgan Spurlock. Admit it: you're totally fascinated and unsure whether or not to be a little scared.