Lauren Faust is widely admired for not only her work on the PowerPuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, but also for her work on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and lately, the Superfriends series of shorts for Warner Bros. Well a long long time ago, there was a post on Cartoon Brew (not this one) where Lauren’s husband Craig McCracken was quick to defend her work on MLP because it was the best girl-oriented show going and it was only after facing many defeats pitching her own show to the networks.
At the time, Laruen didn’t really comment on the pitching aspect, but in a recent interview with LA Weekly, we get a bit of an answer as to why she was never able to successfully sell her own show, and not through lack of talents on her part:
On pitching animated shows for girls:
If you talk to the people in charge — the people looking to invest in these things and, unfortunately, the people who usually tell you no — they’ll tell you that girl things just don’t get the numbers. It’s a business and you need to make money. The girl books don’t get the ratings, the girl books don’t get the sales. Unfortunately, a lot of people will tell you that this is because girls aren’t interested in cartoons or girls aren’t interested in comic books.
I don’t think that’s true. I think the reason that might be is because most of the stuff for girls isn’t hitting them in the right place. All too often, “for girls” means “for little girls.” They won’t target an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old. An 8-year-old isn’t going to be interested in something that’s aimed for a 5-year-old. And, when they do gear stuff for 8-year-olds, it’s all about combing your hair and clothes. I don’t think girls are interested in that kind of stuff. I think they’re interested, but I don’t think that they’re interested in stories about it or characters whose lives revolve around it. I just don’t think that enough people have made stuff that was good enough or compelling enough to bring the girls in.
Girls’ stuff doesn’t get the same kind of budget that the boys’ stuff gets. It’s usually lower quality and kids can tell that stuff. Instead of blaming it on the quality, they’ll blame it on the gender. They’ll say the stories are for girls. That’s what’s making it not work, where I feel that it’s the quality and the content that’s making it not work. I’m hoping for people to put a little more faith in girls. Too much stuff for girls is about tea parties and holding hands and skipping down the lane.
Someone please give this woman a TV show!