Time for talented horses to take back horse roles in pantos

[Comebyshep]

It’s the 21st century and yet pantomimes insist on getting two human actors to play a sad parody of a horse. Meanwhile equine actors
sit at home wondering where the next job is coming from.

The offensive stereotype of a
clumsy, ridiculous, uncoordinated beast is presented year on year. It’s insulting. Surely we’ve moved on from this? The only way of tackling this is to hand the roles over to actual horses.

AIBU?

I'd like to shower you with sugar lumps...

😆 Brilliant @Comebyshep 😂

I think any actor who is willing to portray a horse is disgusting, it's quite clear that their only possible motivation is that they are a secret 'furry' and are getting off on mocking the animal kingdom. Anyone who colludes in this behaviour has been brainwashed, won't someone think of the children! Woke gone mad.

I assume that all actors are perverts, I feel that’s the safest assumption. Animal actors are the worst, I believe the dog that played Marley in Marley in Me was a womaniser and enjoyed playing in the snow.

Come to Bournemouth, we had real panto ponies this Christmas pulling Cinderella’s glass coach.

Last time I saw a live horse in panto, a member of the front row shouted ‘why the long face’. The equine promptly leapt off the stage and decked him. With those clunky shoes the audience member got quite the shiner!

Ah, now this one I can get on board with 🤣🤣🤣

I'm not against horse actors at all.
I find the front end, equipped with the big horsy teeth type grinn very appeasing.
But the rear end is another matter all together. I fear for humans, cows or geese who happen to be in the firing line of unpleasant air or the iconic giant droppings.

Statement from The Equity Equine Rep:
”This is not our first rodeo, we have been nagging theatres about this for years.Their mane objection concerns manure but as managers they don’t come up smelling of roses. We bridle at their suggestion that our point of view is not stable : we say ‘Hey, don’t say nay!’

AND GIANTS!

Real dwarves play dwarves, as is only right and proper but the FEE FI FO FUM community are stereotyped in grotesque papier mache .

Blatant discrimination.

What are you suggesting, OP? DNA checks at the audition? That would be outing for pantomime horses, a violation of their privacy.

This whole moral panic is also damaging to those assigned horse at birth. I know of several horses whose presence at auditions has been challenged just because they 'look a bit stitched together'.

Do we think donkeys should be allowed to play the pantomime horse? A zebra? Lines must be drawn to protect spaces for horses.

Dd1&2 have been rats and Ds has been a (pink) bunny in a panto.
They've also been monkeys and a fox at other pantos.

This is clearly not fair.

I don’t think anyone would find a zebra wearing horseface to be acceptable in this day and age.

There will be somebody along in a moment to say that the Bolshoi still do it, but it’s traditional for them.

I am in Tbilisi at the moment and have booked to a famous marionette performance at Gabriadze Theater to see Ramona, which apparently tells a love story of two steam locomotives.

The website says... 'The action takes place after the WW2 at a small railway station Rioni. Ermon, the powerful locomotive, is sent to the far away parts to ‘complete the 5-year plan in 4’, while Ramona stays at the station, waiting for her husband. Her days are filled with sweet memories and sadness at missing Ermon'.

As lovely as it all sounds, and I get Gabriadze being a multi award winner for his puppetry etc, I am howevwr shocked that real steam locomotives have been overlooked and instead they are using puppets! No wonder steam locomotives are practically redundant these days.....

I think your example is fine but the real crime is using dancers to portray swans!

How many out of work swans could be employed in a small production of swan lake. Instead we have ballet dancers, highly trained as they are, with a poor representation of the true grace of a swan.

How can do you know theyre not real horses? I know loads of pantomime horses and if you saw them you'd have no idea they weren't assigned equine at birth.

A swan can break a grown man’s arm.

I played a sheep in a nativity play when I was at school in 1972.

It was acceptable then but you'd never get away with it now.

The GRASS ceiling surely? 🤣🤣

@Ilovefriday Damn it. I wish I'd thought of that.😂

True Grace is one thing but to be fair most human dancers can be relied on not to terrorise the front row for their sandwiches

Also, can swans perform on pointe? On dry land?

Disgusted with this thread but not surprised. As usual for MN, so many TURFy viewpoints as soon as anything equine is discussed.

I once saw a production of Cinderella where they had Shetland ponies onstage pulling the coach (nobody was inside it).