cartoon – Bitch Flicks

The Revolutionary Fatness of ‘Steven Universe’

It does my heart a lot of good to watch this show and imagine a world where no one gives two craps about my weight. But I can only dream of how much this must mean to the little kids watching it. I mean, bear in mind, this is a children’s show. It is meant to be consumed by children. And those children will be watching the wacky adventures, thinking to themselves, “These heroes look like me. That means I could be a hero too!”

Garnet, Amethyst, Steven, and Pearl in the first episode.

This guest post by Deborah Pless appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

I’ve never really been comfortable cosplaying. First and foremost, because it’s always seemed like a lot of effort, but I will admit that a huge part of my hesitance has always come down to one thing: I am way too big to cosplay as any of my favorite characters.

And I know that’s self-defeating and I’m not really because who cares about body type? But I still think that. I think that I could cosplay as Peggy Carter or Xena or Veronica Mars or Lagertha or Maleficent, but I wouldn’t really look like them. And there are loads of people who will do those cosplays so much better than I could. Why bother?

It’s taken me years to break this down and analyze it for what it truly is, because I don’t really like thinking of myself as being insecure about my weight. Well, my weight and my height. I’m a fat, tall person, and frankly, I’ve never really seen a character I wanted to cosplay badly enough to make me want to put my body on display like that. Until I finally watched Steven Universe and saw something amazing: bodies. All different kinds of bodies. Some of which actually look like mine!

Steven loves food and is never shamed for it.

See, what slowly dawned on me as I started watching Steven Universe in earnest is that this show is doing something genuinely revolutionary in children’s animation. Not only is it a really interesting show about space and fighting monsters and being a hero, but it’s also a show that takes representative diversity very seriously. It’s a show that has clearly been designed intentionally, with awareness of the fact that their audience is made up of little kids longing to see themselves as the heroes on screen. And that seeing those heroes look like them would change these kids’ lives.

So for those of you who haven’t yet made Steven Universe appointment television, it goes like this. Steven Universe (Zach Callison) is a little boy who lives with his three mothers (or two mothers and pseudo-sister, if you want to be more specific) in a temple by the sea. He lives with them because he and they are Crystal Gems, a sort of alien superhero species tasked with protecting the Earth from monsters that keep trying to attack it.

Steven’s parents, Greg Universe and Rose Quartz.

Steven is only half-Gem, however. His other half is that of his human father, Greg Universe (Tom Scharpling). Steven’s biological mother was a Gem named Rose Quartz (Susan Egan). Rose tragically died in giving birth to Steven (more or less) – a plot point that becomes more important as the show goes on – and now Steven is raised by Rose’s fellow Gems. The Gems, Garnet (Estelle), Amethyst (Michaela Dietz), and Pearl (Deedee Magno) adore Steven as their own son, even if his human ways confuse them sometimes.

The bulk of the show is your standard Cartoon Network kids’ fare, albeit much more imaginative than anything I remember from my childhood. In any given episode we might see Steven and the Gems fight a horde of centipede monsters or we might just see a whole episode of Steven trying to get his action figure back from another little kid. It’s not the action and storylines that are revolutionary here – well, they are but not in terms of body size and representation – it’s the way the universe is built.

See, in the world of Steven Universe, all sorts of people get to be heroes. All sorts of people who look all sorts of different ways. Steven himself is a chubby little kid with big bushy hair, and no one ever comments on this, says that Steven is fat and should lose weight, or in any way even acknowledges it. Steven is pudgy. So what?

In fact, there is an entire episode devoted to Steven’s desire to start working out and “get beefy” as he puts it – “Coach Steven” – never once mentions Steven getting thin. That’s not one of his stated intentions or even a side effect. Steven doesn’t want to be skinny or lose weight, he just wants to put on muscle so that he can be a better fighter. And though he does corral a group of friends to work out with him, none of them say they want to lose weight either. They’re there to get strong, which is a great message.

The humans of Beach City, where most of the action of the show takes place, are a pleasing mix of races and body types. And it’s clear this is not an accident. The animators have very definitely made a choice here to include body diversity. We can see this most clearly when a close-up shot of a secondary character, Sadie (Kate Micucci) shows her to have leg hairs. That means the animators and artists specifically drew leg hairs onto Sadie’s legs because they wanted kids to see that body hair is normal and okay.

Steven tries to teach the Gems about birthday parties.

But what really gets me is the Gems. Because while the show is unclear on how much control the Gems have over their base appearances, they have the power to shapeshift and can look like whatever they want. So this makes it really interesting that a lot of the Gems we meet are what we would call “plus-sized.”

I’ve already mentioned Rose, who is characterized at one point by Greg as a “giant woman” – she is apparently over eight feet tall and very heavy – but there’s also Amethyst, who although being a very talented shapeshifter (she appears as various animals and at one point a male pro-wrestler), chooses to stick to her main form as a short, heavy-set woman. Garnet is a tower of muscles and black skin, and while Pearl is the most “conventionally attractive” of them all, being tall and thin, that seems more likely to be because that’s an efficient bodytype when your preferred weapon is a fencing foil.

The Gems have complete control over how they look, and they choose to look, well, normal. Frequently plus-sized. Non-white in some cases. They don’t look like glamorous superheroes torn from the centerfold, but like actual people you could meet on the street. If you can get past Amethyst’s skin being purple, that is.

Clearly the Gems have no internalized crap about body image or weight, but what’s super cool is that in this universe, it kind of seems like no one does. No one tells the Gems they’re ugly. A recent episode revealed that one of the recurring characters had a big crush on Garnet and thought she was incredibly beautiful. Which is good, because she is. Rose is established as having been gorgeous and beloved, and no one ever says that she was too fat to fight.

Stevonnie – a fusion of Steven and Connie – overwhelms Sadie and Lars with attractiveness.

And it’s made perfectly clear that the Gems live in a world that doesn’t acknowledge body shaming. At one point Steven and his friend Connie “fuse” into one person, fondly known as “Stevonnie.” Stevonnie is about six feet tall, genderless, and not-white, and the general reaction in town isn’t “Ah, what the hell is that thing and where did it come from!” it’s one of jaw-dropping attraction and general appreciation.

No one in this world seems to care what anyone else in this world looks like, at least not any of the characters we’re meant to like. At one point another Gem seems on the verge of pointing out that Steven is the only boy Gem, but then doesn’t. In fact, it’s never really mentioned. That fact, like the fact of Rose’s fatness or Garnet’s blackness, is never relevant to the story.

I cannot emphasize enough how important that is to a little kid. But I probably don’t have to. Chances are, you remember what it was like to want someone who looked like you in a leading role. You wanted to be able to imagine yourself as the hero, and it’s always been easier if you can look at the screen and see someone up there who looks as fat, as Black, as hairy, as short, as ridiculously tall, as whatever as you do.

The Gems are also presented as historically having these same body types.

It would be massively overstating it to say that Steven Universe has solved all of our representation problems forever. It hasn’t. Representation is still an issue that needs to be addressed. But this show is a massive step in the right direction. Fat characters whose weight is never the punchline or even the storyline. Black characters who have natural hair and are called beautiful. Women with leg hair. Women with big butts. Little boys who cry and talk about their feelings a lot. It’s all there, and it’s all really important.

In a world where the most common representation of fat women is as a problem to be fixed, where we are generally considered sexually undesirable, and where our bodies are viewed as public property to be commented and acted on at will, Steven Universe is, well, revolutionary. It gives me hope. It shows me that I can be fat and beautiful and loved, and it makes me think that just maybe there’s a little kid out there who is going to see this show and never think that being fat means they can’t be everything good too.

Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a freelance writer and editor in western Washington when she’s not busy camping out at the movies or watching too much TV. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr just as long as you like feminist rants, an obsession with superheroes, and sandwiches. Also, she’s totally going to cosplay as Rose Quartz this year at GeekGirlCon.

Fatphobia: What ‘Daria’ Got Wrong

She tells the girls she isn’t supposed to eat chocolate, but she’d like to buy some anyway. Then, she faints as a result of hypoglycemia and possibly exhaustion, the results of her being so large. Daria and Jane stand still for a moment, startled and clueless, and then Jane takes a picture.

This guest post by Maggie Slutzker appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Daria might be my favorite show in the entire world. In the last two years, I’ve watched the series straight through at least four times. I love almost everything about it— the way Quinn pimps high school boys, Ms. Barch’s misandry, Mr. DiMartino’s dry sarcasm, and everything about Jodie Landon. Helen Morgendorffer is my idol, and I long to spend a weekend with the Lane family. Most of all though, I love Daria and Jane’s friendship and how it survives every obstacle it encounters. Daria is the only show that makes me laugh, motivates me, and reminds me to appreciate my friends and family, all at the same time. But, since the very first time I viewed the series, there has always been one thing that made me uncomfortable. Through its five seasons, Daria was able to tackle so many issues with grace—being ditched by your best friend, alienation by your peers, sexism, racism, elitism, marriage, the true tedium of high school, and douchebag boyfriends. So what isn’t on this list? Fatphobia.

There is one notably fat character on the show, but if you aren’t an obsessive watcher like I am, you may not remember her. Her name is Mrs. Johanssen, and she’s probably diabetic.

Mrs. Johansen never appears for very long, but she’s always a source of comic relief. We first meet her in a season one episode (“Cafe Disaffecto”) in which Daria and Jane are selling chocolate bars for a school fundraiser. She tells the girls she isn’t supposed to eat chocolate, but she’d like to buy some anyway. Then, she faints as a result of hypoglycemia and possibly exhaustion, the results of her being so large. Daria and Jane stand still for a moment, startled and clueless, and then Jane takes a picture. Mrs. Johansen wakes up and insists on buying every single chocolate bar they have. When Daria and Jane leave without selling them to her, Mrs. Johansen calls up legendary principal Angela Li and complains. When Ms. Li suggests that maybe Mrs. Johansen wanted the chocolate for her family, Jane says, “She has no family. She ate them.”

In her handful of appearances throughout the series, Mrs. Johansen is always depicted in a very specific way: short, messy hair; usually panting, sweating or having some sort of physical trouble; always wearing a muumuu; and of course, always obsessively pursuing some sort of food, whether chocolate bars or cheese logs. This is briefly explained in the episode “Psycho Therapy,” in which she is speaking with a psychologist about using food for comfort her parents didn’t provide. There is emotional trauma behind her fatness.

One of the great things about cartoons is that they have a unique opportunity to make characters of literally all shapes, sizes, and colors, and treat every single difference, no matter how bizarre, as completely normal. The fact that Skeeter from Doug was blue or that Arnold and Gerald from Hey Arnold! had some non-standard head-shapes were acknowledged, but in the end these features were only background to the real problems characters dealt with. Daria too never ignored a character’s appearance, from Brittany’s chest, to Trent’s tattoos, to Jodie’s Blackness and related struggle. The show was excellent at revealing new sides and dimensions to characters, and seemed to take pleasure in showing hidden strengths and weaknesses. Mr. DiMartino had a gambling addiction and a sensitive side, and vain Quinn turned out to be pretty clever and even kind. Daria was excellent at showing that there was always more to a person than an image or stereotype. So why make the only fat character utterly one-dimensional, more a device than a person?

It’s also interesting to me that a show so centered around teenage-hood barely seems to mention fatness, something most teen girls hear about constantly. Among Daria’s own struggles with body image, weight is never mentioned, though a lack of curvaceousness is. The only other characters who discuss weight and fatness in detail are, of course, the Fashion Club. The Fashion Club quartet are beloved to me, especially Quinn, whose developmental arc in the series is one of my favorites. But they are— and of course, they’re intended to be— problematic and ridiculously, hilariously superficial, and the episode about weight gain is no exception. The episode in question, “Fat Like Me,” begins with the Fashion Club deciding whether to set a weight limit for its members. Just minutes after the topic is introduced, club president Sandi Griffin falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her leg. She manages to stay out of school for several weeks, and when she returns…she is “fat.” (If we assume all members of the Fashion Club are under a size four, then I’m guessing “fat” means maybe a size seven or eight?) At Daria’s thinly veiled advisement, Quinn becomes Sandi’s coach after the weight gain threatens to destroy the Fashion Club, and Sandi loses the weight. For Sandi, a fat body is an obstacle to overcome.

In writing this, I don’t mean to say that you’re a bad person if you laughed when Mrs. Johansen and Mr. DiMartino faced off over free sample cheese logs. Nor do I mean to claim that there aren’t fat people who are unhealthy or even whose lives are threatened by a condition related to their weight. What I’m saying is that this is not the only way fat people exist. There are plenty of of healthy, happy, stylish people who are also overweight or obese. There are fat people who exercise, and there are fat people who aren’t obsessed with food. To put it plainly, fatness isn’t automatically a problem. But Mrs. Johansen embodies every negative fat stereotype there is. Her fatness is a medical condition, a consequence of excessive and unhealthy living as well as possible abuse. When Sandi gets fat, it is a result of forced inactivity and again, something that she and Quinn have to solve. When, at the end of the episode, Quinn suggests the Fashion Club ease up on weight limits, it is another suggestion that weight gain is a consequence of unfortunate circumstances, another implication that fatness is a problem to be pitied.

For Daria to indicate that fatness comes solely from inactivity and junk food is particularly frustrating because Daria herself adores junk food. There are frequent mentions of cheese fries, and pizza plays a pivotal role. She drinks soda. Quinn chides her for eating hamburgers, chocolate cake (for breakfast), and a cartoon version of Pop Tarts. Quinn herself is an embodiment of popular beauty standards— one of her first priorities is “bouncy hair,” and though boys are constantly fetching her soda, we’re pretty sure that it’s diet. The show repeatedly uses Quinn and the Fashion Club to poke fun at all things superficial, and Daria to expose the hypocrisy behind the messages we send teenagers and consumers. But while Daria doesn’t diet, rarely puts on makeup, and never lets fashion dictate her wardrobe, she also never gets fat. So why the automatic connection between fat and food when the TV show itself acknowledges that skinny people can easily love and eat junk food?

Now, Daria may be a slightly older program, but its narrow depiction of fat characters is part of a problem we’re still dealing with today. It is rare to see a fat character whose fatness isn’t made into comic relief (think Bridesmaids), an embarrassing history (Schmidt from New Girl), or some sort of terrible consequence (Precious). It is nearly always a negative, something to be pitied. Daria strived to point out that nothing is perfect, not all is as it seems, and everyone is vulnerable. But sadly, for a show so determined to point out the absurdities of societal expectation, Daria really didn’t shed any light on fatphobia other than to contribute to it.

Maggie Slutzker is a writer, feminist, and fervent Daria fan. You can follow her on Twitter @SuchaSlutzker.

‘Steven Universe’: Many Dimensions of Fat Positivity

He is soft. He is round. He is squishy and loving and completely without pretense. There is no guarding wall around his heart, no desire to compete with other boys, no need to be seen as “cool” or “tough” or “edgy,” and no compulsion to become anything other than what he already is because he knows that “what he already is” has value.

This guest post by Anthony DellaRosa appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Steven Universe is a kids’ cartoon show that’s made a lot of noise lately, especially in circles having to do with feminism or social justice, and looking at even the most basic summary of the premise, it’s not hard to see why. For one thing, the show stars a radically non-nuclear family. For another, it’s a family made up partly of a son who totally disregards the conventional standards of modern American masculinity and three adoptive moms, all of whom are non-binary people who choose to use feminine pronouns, two of whom are strongly coded as People of Color, and one of whom is literally the physical manifestation of the unconditional love between two same-sex lovers who actually share a kiss on-screen.

Now, that’s a lot to take in, and if you’re not previously familiar with the series, it might already sound a bit overwhelming, but the important thing to remember is that any show that can help teach our kids about the diversity that exists in our world instead of flagrantly ignoring it — and, specifically, anything that can do that teaching in a colorful, exciting, adventurous way that can also spark their creativity — is something worth looking at. And that’s Steven Universe in a nutshell. Of course, we can dissect the show’s approach to diversity in any number of ways with any number of focuses, but the one that’s perhaps the most immediately evident, requiring nearly no specific in-depth knowledge of the lore and mythology, is the very visible presence of many, many fat characters in the show’s core cast. So, how does Steven Universe tackle weight?

Well, the main character is Steven himself (voiced by Zach Callison). Steven is a boy who sits right on the line that divides childhood from adolescence, and in the show, he’s specifically defined by his incredible empathy and his unparalleled protective instincts. Those are the elements of his character that make him a hero, the elements that allow him to see any situation through to the end with the best possible results, and those are the elements that his weight serves to underline. He is soft. He is round. He is squishy and loving and completely without pretense. There is no guarding wall around his heart, no desire to compete with other boys, no need to be seen as “cool” or “tough” or “edgy,” and no compulsion to become anything other than what he already is because he knows that “what he already is” has value. That’s not to say that he’s necessarily complacent – because he’s incredibly energetic and always eager to learn new things about life, about himself, and about the world around him. It simply goes to say that he is consciously aware that, whatever else happens, he has an intrinsic worth that can never be diminished as long as he keeps his mind open and his heart warm. He is effortlessly endearing and unabashedly vulnerable, and that is what makes him strong.

Steven’s mother, Rose Quartz (voiced by Susan Egan), is also fat. As a matter of fact, she’s canonically over eight feet tall, and she wears a 2XL T-shirt, which fits snugly, with pride. She is unapologetically huge in every possible regard — in height, in weight, in love, in mercy, in joy, in optimism — and she is completely and unflinchingly comfortable within her own skin. She is beautiful, inside and out, and that’s just not my own personal judgment. That is a fundamental fact of the series, an opinion shared by every character who ever knew her and every character that matters, including her most bitter and longstanding enemies. That belief is a condition of entry for any aspiring viewer. It is necessary. It is real.

Now, Rose is a lot of things in this show. She’s a mother, first and foremost. That’s how we’re initially introduced to her, more or less — as the saintly woman who, in the series’ backstory, traded her own life force to bring Steven’s into existence, and her weight does emphasize the cuddly, maternal aspects of her character. She’s pillowy and soft. She’s warm and round and comforting, without any sharp edges, devoid of all straight lines.

But she’s also a warrior. She’s fat, beautiful, feminine, maternal, and the cunning leader of a ragtag alien strike team who came to Earth over six thousand years ago to conquer and colonize it for an outer-space empire, but when she found the planet and its people too rich and too precious to harm, she turned traitor. She stood on the front lines of a war against her own kind as Defender of the Earth, and because she loved the members of her team, and because they loved her back, they stood with her, protected in battle by her legendary shield, and they won. She is fat, and she is beautiful, and she is cuddly and soft with a big, goofy smile and huge, expressive eyes, and she is also the glorious rebel queen who saved a planet from an imperialist regime, and the wonderful thing about this show is that none of this — absolutely none of it — is ever presented as a contradiction. It’s not “oh, she’s fat, but she’s beautiful” or “she’s fat, but she’s strong.” There is no doubt, no dismay, no disbelief, and no fanfare for the fact that she can be all these things at once. It’s a given. She’s fat, she’s elegant, she’s drop-dead gorgeous and wickedly silly, she’s a mother, she’s a commando, and she’s so much more all at once because, simply, why not? Why couldn’t a person be all those things?

Rose exists to show the kids at home that a person can be endlessly generous, magnificently compassionate, feminine, flowery, funny, principled, decisive, and completely kickass while also refusing to be ashamed of her curves, rolls, folds, and bulges.

Of course, if Steven’s mother is the kind of person we can all aspire to be like, Steven’s father, Greg (voiced by Tom Scharpling), is more like the kind of person we might see every day. Greg is fat. He’s also technically homeless, living in the same old broken-down, rusted-out hippie van he had when he was a teenager, and, frankly, homeless people and fat people do end up on the receiving end of a lot of the same stereotypes. They’re lazy. They’re dumb. They have no ambition. They have no drive, perseverance, or passion. They have no self-control. They’re pathetic, contemptible, a burden, or an eyesore. They’re an unsightly, unseemly, disgusting waste. But that’s a list of everything Greg Universe isn’t. It’s not that he has no drive, and it’s not that he has no passion. It’s that, in a world controlled by the wealthy for the wealthy, even the hottest passion and the hardest work in the world make for no guarantee of comfort or success. Unlike Rose Quartz, Greg Universe is a product of the planet Earth, and the planet Earth is not a meritocracy. People don’t just get what they deserve here, so Greg was chewed up, spit out, and left to pick up the pieces on his own, with no support and no safety net, by a series of institutions that were never designed to work in his favor, and his weight, like his living conditions, can easily be read as a function of modern American economics. Greg keeps his head above water — barely — by working every day at a car wash at the edge of town, and for people like that, for the working poor, meals, by necessity, have to be cheap, easy, and quick, and it’s not a coincidence that the cheapest, easiest, and quickest-to-make meals in the country tend overwhelmingly to be the greasiest and the most fattening. Healthy eating is not a privilege we can assume Greg has, especially when the only prominent purveyors of food in the show are a donut shop and a French fry stand, and that reflects a truth that affects millions of people every day, generation after generation.

Still, while Greg’s weight is a constantly present piece of his character, very little — if any — specific attention is actually ever drawn to it in dialogue. Instead, the show’s focus consistently rests upon his grief for his wife, his bombastic love for his son, and his tremendous (if not profitable) expertise in the fields of music and sound design. He’s a hardworking, vulnerable, sincere, and well-meaning man who tries his best to be there for the people who need him, and in a show full of sweet people, he’s one of the sweetest of all. He is fat, and he is kind, and his son wouldn’t have him any other way.

The only main character who ever gave me a bit of pause on a personal level is Amethyst (voiced by Michaela Dietz), one of the members of Rose’s old rebel team and one of Steven’s current guardians. Amethyst is short, stout, and pudgy, and at first glance, her character actually does seem deliberately designed to invoke a lot of the most degrading fat stereotypes. She’s wasteful, rude, crude, generally unmotivated, unorganized, full of obviously bad ideas, and low on impulse control. Now contrast that with her foil, Pearl (voiced by Deedee Magno Hall), who is a fastidious, relentlessly goal-oriented perfectionist with the rail-thin body of a ballerina, and it becomes more than clear why the creators of this show designed these characters the way they did: They were channeling one-dimensional stereotypes and the shallowest expectations of the audience to shape these characters and inform their traits. Of course the perfectionist is thin and the loud, immature, goofy slacker is fat. Of course they are — because fat is imperfect, right? Fat is wrong. Fat is bad. So, the perfectionist wouldn’t be fat, would she? The lazy one is fat. The gross one is fat. That’s what the audience expects because that’s what the old stereotype is, so that’s what the creators of this show did when they made these characters: They tailored them to specifically fit the stereotypes for maximum convenience in lieu of more creative, subversive, or interesting concepts.

That bothered me for a long, long time. It didn’t invalidate the good the show was doing, but it certainly accounted for quite a bit of bad, and it colored the way I saw the show and limited who I felt comfortable recommending it to, but then came an episode called “On the Run,” which honestly changed a lot about how I thought about Amethyst as a character. She was the star of the episode, which was all about her self-image, her self-esteem, her most deep-seated insecurities, her worst fears, and her biggest, proudest, most personal victories. The big takeaway from the episode was that Amethyst isn’t Rose. She’s not graceful. She’s not perfect. She isn’t always comfortable in her own skin, and she isn’t always okay with being who she is, with being born where she was, or with feeling the way she so often does. Deep down inside, she can actually be viciously self-loathing, and she does what she can, day to day to day to day, to be happy, to be comfortable, and to care for herself, and in the episode, the point is made explicitly that there is no one alive who has a right to try and judge her or make her feel bad for that. She is who she is, even if “who she is” isn’t always conventionally appealing or easily digestible to more quote-unquote “mainstream” sensibilities. Her fundamental rights to dignity and happiness are completely inalienable, and anyone who dares to infringe upon them is doing something unspeakably despicable.

In a way, she’s a lot like Greg — a necessary and more realistic counterpart for Rose and, to an extent, a counterpart for Steven. The way Rose is written and portrayed, she’s effectively a goddess on Earth, a perfectly balanced master of all things who demonstrates what we can all aspire to, and Steven follows in her footsteps. But Greg and especially Amethyst show us that we don’t always have to be like that and that it’s okay if we’re not. They show us that, as imperfect as we can be sometimes, we are still beautiful, loveable, admirable, and valid, and at the end of the day, even if Amethyst has a unique outlook on life and a bawdy sense of humor, she’s portrayed as no less heroic and no less worthy of worship and care. Steven looks up to her just as much as he looks up to Rose and Pearl and all the others, and she lays down her life to protect the beauty of the Earth and every single living being on its surface every bit as quickly.

And, after all, that is the key idea. In the end, Steven Universe is a show that doesn’t always get everything right and certainly isn’t always perfect, but it’s a show built around the idea that all life, regardless of where it comes from or what it looks like, is inherently precious and worth protecting, and the creative team’s steadfast dedication to building an emotionally complex, rich, and diverse cast is a demonstration of its commitment to that concept.

Anthony DellaRosa is an amateur critic and aspiring author with a particular passion for the stories we tell our children. He can be found on his blog, where he does informal reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, and books, and also on Twitter.

Sophie in Don Bluth’s ‘Anastasia’

Sophie is still exceptional among animated characters, and even live action characters. Though a fantastic character, she should not be the exception. She should not be a rare case of fat-acceptance. It should not be rare that a fat woman loves herself and is loved.

Written by Jackson Adler as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Don Bluth’s animated film musical Anastasia is incredibly historically inaccurate, and even offensive in how it depicts the Russian Revolution, its aftermath, and various historical figures. However, it also passes the Bechdel Test (and in more than one scene!), which is extremely rare for children’s films. It also shows the heroine and her love interest saving each other – with the heroine taking down the villain at the end. Possibly even more notable, the film also portrays positive representation of a fat woman in its character Sophie.

Before the audience meets Sophie, we hear of her from the character Vlad, who calls her “ravishing” and like a cup of “hot chocolate” after a “walk in the snow.” Sophie is indeed ravishing, and she certainly has a warm personality. Sophie (voiced by Bernadette Peters) is a fat woman who is independent, caring, sexy, confident, smart, savvy, sensitive, and powerful. She loves Paris, flowers, fashion, and the Russian ballet. As if she were the bubbly younger sister of Ursula, Sophie is confidant in her body, and seems to care little about respectability politics. If she wants to wear an off-the-shoulder dress that shows off her cleavage and has a very short skirt, she does! And she’ll roll her shoulder and shake her tush in it! And wear bright colors? Why wouldn’t she? She likes them! Eating good food and drinking champagne? Again, she likes them, so why wouldn’t she? She dances with multiple young and handsome men, and has lots of fun doing it. She takes Anya, Vlad, and Dmitri for a night on the town, introducing them to all the things she likes about Paris, and having just as much fun as them.

She deeply cares about family, especially her cousin, the Dowager Empress Marie (voiced by Angela Lansbury). She is supportive of other women, taking her cousin’s interests to heart, while also helping Anya. She enjoys luxury, but is willing to share her wealth with others, even taking Anya shopping for clothes in which to meet her possible grandmother. While a bit of a romantic, she doesn’t let the possibility of romance dictate her entire life. She has a short hair cut suitable for a “modern” woman of the time. She is her own human being, with her own interests, and who has pastimes other than supporting the skinny heroine in getting a make over or getting to the ball or getting the guy. She does not compete with or try to tear down Anya (or any other woman), either. It’s just that being kind to Anya, or “motherly,” is not all that she is. She is kind, but she has a personality and her own desires.

Sophie singing on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Sophie is neither fairy godmother nor villainess. She does not exist only for comedic relief. She does not exist to fawn over other people, nor does it occur to her to hurt anyone. She helps to reunite her cousin with her cousin’s granddaughter, enjoying her relationship with both, and enjoying doing things with both – whether shopping on the streets of Paris or attending the Russian ballet together. She supports the women in her life doing whatever makes them happy, tearing up when Anya chooses to elope with Dmitri instead of taking her place as Empress of Russia. By the same token, no one slutshames or fatshames Sophie or attempts to tell her not to do what she likes (as if she would listen to them!).

Sophie is a fun supporting character who keeps the story going. While there is nothing wrong with that, portrayals of characters like Sophie are incredibly rare, and viewers deserve to have more Sophies on their screens. While there have occasionally been other fat women in animated children’s films, they are side characters whose own narratives are rarely told, and who instead make their lives entirely about the skinny heroes and heroines, whether as mothering and mammy types or as villains. Sophie is not a fairy, like Flora or Merryweather or the nameless Fairy Godmother, nor is she a sea witch. Sophie is a human being who deserves to be seen and treated as such, which, in the film, is how she is seen and treated. She is not just respected, but admired. She is not just accepted, she is praised.

Sophie does not just move, she dances. She does not just talk, she sings. She does not just serve the heroine, she is kind to everyone and expects the same kindness in return. When someone is overstaying their welcome, she is not afraid to say “Out!” or “Bye, bye!” When a man isn’t what she wants, she finds another man, or even just dances by herself. Sophie’s confidence is rare for women on screen in general, but especially for fat women – and she’s not there to be laughed at (like Merryweather) or sneered at (like Ursula), either.

Ursula showing off her curves and celebrating "body language." — Ursula showing off her curves and celebrating “body language.”

When are confident fat women like Sophie going to get their own film? We have a Malificent, but where’s Ursula? When is Disney going to make that film? We have the live action movie musical Hairspray, but audiences deserve many more films that celebrate fat bodies. And what about fat Women of Color? There should be many more than Precious. What about fat lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, and genderqueer women of all ethnicities?

Sophie is a complex female character (which, alone, is still quite rare) who is also fat. She embraces and loves her fatness. She and her fatness are also loved by others. Not every woman has the same body type, and not everyone finds skinny to be the only body type worth admiring. In Hairspray, Edna has Wilbur and Tracey has Link, and Mercedes and Sam dated in Glee. Slowly, representation of fat women who are happy in romance is expanding, but in 2015 the Disney princesses are all still extremely skinny. Ursula herself has had skinny makeovers, or often been left out of Disney villain media. Dreamworks’ Home features a mixed race middle-school heroine who has hips, but her waste is still very small. Meanwhile, Disney is making a sequel to Frozen, further featuring White skinny heroines.

Don Bluth’s Anastasia was released in 1997. It’s 2015 now. Dreamworks and Disney have made small strides in showing complex female characters, and have had a (very) few female character of Color. However, by mainly depicting skinny bodies, especially as leading characters, these companies are participating in fatshaming. Sophie is still exceptional among animated characters, and even live action characters. Though a fantastic character, she should not be the exception. She should not be a rare case of fat-acceptance. It should not be rare that a fat woman loves herself and is loved. Sophie is still a “cup of hot chocolate” after a “walk in the snow,” only it’s not just because of her warm personality, but because she is a symbol of not just fat-acceptance, but fat-love. She knows that she is “ravishing,” and she and the characters who love her won’t let anyone forget it.

Disney’s ‘Oliver & Company’: Rita’s Voice in Dodger’s Song

Though the villain of ‘Oliver & Company’ is a loan shark, the film mainly portrays poverty as something that just happens through strokes of bad luck, and which doesn’t have institutionalized causes via intersectional oppression from a capitalist society.

Written by Jackson Adler.

Disney’s Oliver & Company (1988), which is very loosely based on Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist, is about an anthropomorphic ginger male kitten named Oliver, voiced by Joey Lawrence, navigating New York City and trying to find a sense of belonging. In his day-to-day-survival, Oliver in confronted with issues of class, race, and gender. The title of the film is both indicative of a stage musical “company,” as the animated film is a musical, that of a business company, due to its economic and capitalist themes and its taking place in bustling metropolis New York City, and even to companionship itself, highlighted by most of the characters being companion animals. Oliver eventually finds a friend and what Bitch Flick’s Brigit McCone refers to as an “unruly mentor[s]” in Dodger, a mutt Terrier voiced by Billy Joel, who introduces himself with the song “Why Should I Worry?”

While Oliver may seemingly be the protagonist of the film, the audience in encouraged to see Dodger as the hero that Oliver learns to see him as, and the story is largely from Dodger’s White cismale heterosexual perspective. While Dodger is a flawed character, he is also shown as the ideal urban dog/man, who is going to “cross that line” into success despite his impoverished past. He states that he belongs anywhere, and that he is “love[d]” in every part of town and by all kinds of people/dogs. In the same scene, if not sentence, he switches between slang, Spanish, and a use of language showing “higher” learning. As Natshee Blu Barnd states in her essay “White Man’s Best Friend: Race and Privilege in Oliver and Company,” Dodger is representative of a mixed European heritage, a sort of White “mutt,” and is representative of a blue-collar worker who feels he can “own” the town and is capable of “wear[ing] the crown” of fame and monetary success.

Dodger is able to feel comfortable wherever he goes and with whomever in the city, but Dodger’s friend, Tito, a Chihuahua voiced by Chicano comedian Cheech Marin and whose character is written to exhibit some harmful stereotypes of Latino men, does not have this same privilege. Both Tito’s speaking patterns and behaviors are frequently criticized by other characters, including Dodger. In order for Tito to be even slightly included by mainstream or upper class White society, or even in Dodger’s company (in every sense of the word), he is pressured to change himself, such as when the wealthy White Georgette attempts to make him wear clothing she finds more acceptable of a romantic partner. While Dodger’s appropriation of various cultures is considered “cool,” Tito’s very identity is considered comic relief, at best, despite both him and Dodger being poor, both stealing, both wearing bandanas, and both being able to switch back and forth between English and Spanish. The fact that Dodger is voiced by Billy Joel, a musician capitalizing on a working class background and appropriation of the musical styles and culture of People of Color, is not coincidental.

Tito, representative of a Man of Color, gets more screen time than Rita, a character coded to be a Woman of Color, most likely Afro-Puerto Rican. Both Rita’s speaking and singing voice actresses are Black (Sheryl Lee Ralph and Ruth Pointer), while she is drawn as an Afghan hound (a dog breed often incorrectly referred to as an “African hound”), but having a light brown coloring (though there are black Afghan hounds), and has a name often associated with Latinas. Rita is Dodger’s second in command of Fagin’s “gang,” Fagin being a White semi-homeless man who occasionally but often unsuccessfully steals and cons in order to survive, and who is voiced by Dom DeLuise. Rita and Dodger are good friends and possible love interests, and while they both show sexual interest in other dogs, Rita and Dodger are close and flirtatious with one another. However, Rita, the only female in Fagin’s “gang” of dogs, is always second to Dodger, and even though she questions him and makes fun of him, they do not have an equal partnership.

Rita is the closest character in the film to Dickens’s character Nancy, the sex worker with a heart of gold who protects Oliver. Oliver Twist was serialized from 1837-1839, and yet, sadly, Nancy has a more active role in the original story than Rita does in Disney’s 1988 film. Nancy goes against the wishes of her abusive boyfriend, Bill Sikes, to return Oliver to his grandfather and a wealthy lifestyle. She defies the men in her life, Bill and the successful criminal Fagin, for Oliver’s sake, and risks her own life to do what she thinks is right. Fagin manipulates Bill into murdering Nancy for this attempted act, since he fears it could compromise his safety and his pickpocketing business, but it is the murder of Nancy that brings down not only Bill, but also Fagin and his entire enterprise. Without the threat of these men, Oliver is able to live in safety and comfort with his wealthy grandfather. Though hardly a feminist character, Nancy is crucial to the story of Oliver Twist. Rita’s character in Oliver & Company has much less of a role, is no longer the leading lady, and is much less defiant to the male characters.

Rita briefly “mammies” the young White Oliver in her song “Streets of Gold,” encouraging him to see New York City as less threatening and to see survival via crime as fun, before Dodger and the others push Oliver into being their “lookout.” Dodger talks before the song, makes room for Rita’s song, then abruptly ends the song, showing his dominance over Rita and controlling her contribution to the story. When it comes to physically protecting Oliver, the closest Rita comes to it is when she sees Oliver blissfully sleeping in Penny’s mansion, and says to Dodger “Honey, let’s just forget the whole thing” about taking Oliver back with them and into poverty once more. Dodger instead chooses to listen to Georgette, a rich White dog show champion, over Rita. The gang then successfully kidnaps Oliver, though it is later shown that Rita was correct in that Oliver is happier living with a rich young White girl than he is with them. Though Dodger declines a romantic or sexual entanglement with Georgette, he still prioritizes the opinion of a rich White poodle/woman over that of a poor Woman of Color’s, even despite having just met Georgette and having worked and lived closely with Rita for what appears to have been a very long time. It’s also sad that while Rita is based on a lower class character from the film’s source material, the film added in a new female character who is wealthy and who takes up more screen time, contributes more to the story, and has more of a character arc than Rita. Wealth and Whiteness are clearly privileged over poorness and Blackness, despite the supposed but badly executed moral of the film being acceptance of one another.

Dickens’s novel addresses poverty and crime in 19^th century Britain, specifically London, though Dickens largely blames these issues on Jewish people, specifically “the old Jew” Fagin, though Dickens also in part blames unjust laws and political corruption. Though the villain of Oliver & Company is a loan shark, the film mainly portrays poverty as something that just happens through strokes of bad luck, and which doesn’t have institutionalized causes via intersectional oppression from a capitalist society. In fact, the film largely blames poor people for being poor, tells them not to “worry” about the challenges and the kinds of stigma they face, glamourizes acts of survival, and overall tells oppressed peoples to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, as it were. Rita shows how this oppression has been internalized when she tells Oliver she will teach him how “the best survive,” implying that poor and oppressed peoples who have difficulty surviving just aren’t “the best,” or at least need to trying harder at their survival. She “others” people who are like her, and teaches Oliver this “othering.” These “others” are implied to be unwilling to learn the “best” ways of surviving, and to be lazy. The story harmfully moralizes that if poor and oppressed people cannot get by without government programs such as SNAP, then they are just lazy, or at best just need to learn the correct way to “survive.” Instead of addressing the underlying causes of poverty and oppression, Oliver & Company gives the conflicting messages of “Why should [you] worry [about your own poverty]” and the message that if you can’t get by in life, it’s largely your own fault. Yet, even characters who find economic success are criticized.

Roscoe and Desoto are Dobermans coded as Black, and having shiny black fur; they work for the loan shark Sikes. Sikes demands strict obedience from Roscoe and Desoto, while the hierarchy in Fagin’s gang is more relaxed. Roscoe and Desoto are drawn very similarly to one another, differentiated only by their voices and their red and blue collars. Roscoe criticizes Rita, saying, “You know Rita, I can’t figure out why you’d rather hang around a dump like this when you could be living uptown with a class act, like myself.” Though the male dogs in Fagin’s “gang” are the ones to respond to Roscoe’s statement, criticizing his intellect and ego, Rita makes her reason in choosing to stay in Fagin’s “gang” clear. When Sikes summons Roscoe, Rita says, “Run along, Roscoe. Your master’s calling,” her speaking voice actress Sheryl Lee Ralph emphasizes the word “master” and Roscoe’s fierce loyalty obedience to a rich White man. While Rita is loyal to Fagin, a White semi-homeless man, and to Dodger, she is not under contract to heed their every call, unlike Roscoe is to Sikes. At the end of the film, Rita interrupts Dodger’s reprise of “Why Should I Worry,” changing it to “Why Should We Worry,” and pulls him away from ogling other female dogs, though this hardly upsets their status quo, and Dodger’s position of dominance is not undermined by the inclusion of her voice in his song.

Rita joins in Dodger's song. — Rita joins in Dodger’s song.

Sikes and his henchmen/dogs are shown to be the villains of the story due to their physical violence, but Dodger’s violence in interrupting or censoring Tito’s and Rita’s words and actions are harmfully shown as good leadership. Rita is permitted a short song of her own so as to benefit Oliver and Dodger. Tito, and other characters representative of People of Color never have their own songs, while White characters Dodger, Georgette, and Jenny do, with Dodger’s song being not only reprised, but being the film’s main theme. Inclusion in an oppressive system/Dodger’s privilege does not result in equality or equity for People of Color. As Audre Lorde famously said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Dodger allowing Rita to change his “I” to her and Tito’s “We” does not negate that Dodger constructed the song, and it is his words, his tune, and his message that he is permitting them to support. America is run by a White capitalist patriarchy, and like Dodger’s song, its occasional and token inclusion of People of Color does not make a post-racial and post-feminist world.

Evil-Lyn: Fantasy’s Underrated Icon

A character with few rivals and even fewer scruples, Evil-Lyn was arguably one of the better developed villains in the show. And in the annals of females from sci-fi/fantasy, her name should be spoken of in the same breath as Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.

This guest post by Robert Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

The female antagonist has historically been an underwritten, under-explored, and often under-appreciated role in fiction. Going back throughout history, the female villain has almost invariably been seen as more novelty than respected foe, more a token deviation from the norm than anything worthy of real development. The trend started in the modern era with Irene Adler testing her mettle against Sherlock Holmes in the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” though by the time comics and sci-fi/fantasy had come into their own, most heroes had their “token women opponents.” Going further, we can find a few sparse and rare examples, such as Milady de Winter from Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, Morgan LeFay in the Arthurian Legend, all the way perhaps to Delilah in the Biblical story of Sampson.

While literature was at times more progressive, television and movies still depicted the female antagonist as one who relies on guile and lies (and maybe sex appeal depending on the writers and the era), but rarely if ever are they seen as comparable adversaries. From James Bond to the A-Team, from Flash Gordon to the sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s into the 1980s, most female antagonists were evil queens or villainous witches who send forth minions to do their work. They were bosses or femme fatales who enacted complex schemes but who faltered when confronted directly with the hero. This is often because no matter how powerful they may appear to be socially, their actual might is negligible. And moreover, they tend to disappear as randomly as they appeared, providing a single-story novelty of the woman-villain, or the feminine agent who only seemed to exist to facilitate the plans of their male superiors.

Then came Evil-Lyn.

Joke all you want about the corniness of 1983’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series (and there’s plenty to joke about), but the show’s writers created a wholly underappreciated female icon in Evil-Lyn, the self-titled Sorceress of Darkness. A character with few rivals and even fewer scruples, Evil-Lyn was arguably one of the better developed villains in the show. And in the annals of females from sci-fi/fantasy, her name should be spoken of in the same breath as Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.

The world of He-Man is one of classical pulp fantasy. Science and high technology co-exist on a world that is full of marvels that defy comprehension (and sometimes reason). Benevolent monarchs, feudal societies, and creatures of more varieties than can be imagined, all make up the foundations of daily life. It’s here on Eternia, a world at the center of the universe, that cosmic forces are personified as colorful individuals or encapsulated in simple objects such as rods, gems, staves, and swords.

Over the course of the show, we’re introduced to a menagerie of dynamic characters like He-Man, Skeletor, Orko, as well as many other fan favorites. Among the many characters are three prominent females: the Sorceress (a pseudo-deity who sees over the forces of good), Teela (Captain of the Royal Guard and sidekick to He-Man), and Evil-Lyn. Initially conceived as a counterpart to Teela in the action figure toy line (because this was the 1980s and of course there was a toy line), Evil-Lyn would almost immediately transcend that balancing role and become something different, something outside the hierarchy of power and roles found in most traditional fantasy stories.

Probably the most distinctive element of Evil-Lyn was her thirst for power, which was terrifying considering the power she already commanded. Evil-Lyn’s magical might was matched by very few (principally only Skeletor himself, the show’s primary villain, and the Sorceress of Grayskull). Outside of those two key and central figures, Evil-Lyn had few if any peers.

Also fundamental to her character, as well as underscoring her magical prowess, is that Evil-Lyn never demonstrated any combat prowess. While not unheard of for female characters in traditionally male-targeted shows, she stands out in a show like He-Man because everybody is a master combatant. The aforementioned Teela is the Captain of the Royal Guard and debateably as capable a fighter as He-Man. The Sorceress, from whom pretty much all the powers of good derive their might, gets involved in many a battle (often in the form of a great falcon known as Zoar). Even He-Man’s own mother, Queen Marlena, is actually a combat pilot (Lt. Marlena Glenn, and reputedly one of Earth’s first female astronauts). Every woman in this show was capable of throwing down, except Evil-Lyn.

This isn’t a short-coming on her part, however. It’s a testament. In a world where physical might and combat prowess are universally required, that she doesn’t have (or certainly never demonstrates) the requisite skills speaks volumes to the intelligence, cunning, and magical might that she does command. Unlike the “evil witches” in other fantasy stories, however, Evil-Lyn doesn’t rely on henchmen or artifacts to work her will. She is shown throughout the run of the show to have little need for henchmen or intermediary agents, nor does she often rely on magical amulets or great artifacts. Even her oft-present orb staff appears to be more trinket than necessity. Her magic is her own and she has more than enough for almost any need.

While Evil-Lyn is powerful, she is also ambitious. Her role as Skeletor’s aide is on the promise that he will grant her greater power (or that she will take his when the opportunity presents itself). Beyond working with Skeletor, Evil-Lyn works with anyone else she chooses, more than occasionally executing her own schemes independent of Skeletor’s plans or ambitions, loaning out her skills and knowledge to other malevolent forces in the pursuit of greater power.

The 1987 live-action movie deviated somewhat from the depiction of Evil-Lyn, but only in downplaying the verbose demeanor she showed in the cartoon and replaced it with a colder and harsher, otherworldly presence. Played by Meg Foster, Evil-Lyn showed fewer magical powers and less boisterous personality, but she lost none of her critical role to Skeletor. Indeed, we see instances where he confides that his success in conquering Eternia and holding the people is due almost solely to her, while there are hints of perhaps more than a partnership (maybe even romance?) at play between the two.

Almost two decades after the first series aired, He-Man would be rebooted for the 2002 animated series. This series would develop Evil-Lyn even further as well as more firmly establish her as more than mere henchman to Skeletor. She undermines Skeletor’s plans by aligning with other factions (namely Kobra Khan and the Snake Men), all in the pursuit of power. In the wake of this betrayal, we learn that Skeletor and she once were partners before he was turned into the deformed warrior-wizard we all know today.

Looking at Evil-Lyn as a character, she was almost without peer. Never before in pop culture – especially children’s entertainment – had a female character been so unmitgatingly evil, so self-serving, and yet so powerful. In the He-Man franchise, she is one of the great powers of the world, whom no one dares underestimate. She has no minions, and has no need for any. She is no diabolical queen, sitting scheming atop a throne, and hiding behind others. She is a mercenary who does what she wishes and goes where she pleases.

Robert V Aldrich is a novelist and speaker based out of North Carolina. His most recent book, Rhest for the Wicked, is now available, and he publishes a blog and serials at his website, TeachTheSky.com. You can follow him there, or on Twitter @rvaldrich.

Exploring Imagination and Feminine Effacement in Cartoon Network’s ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’ (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

Written by Jenny Lapekas as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

It’s interesting that Wilt is created with physical defects (his eye and his arm), pointing up the fact that these are not considered flaws by his young creator, but rather just part of who he is, like a hairstyle or shoe size.

There’s a certain level of manic energy present in some of today’s children’s cartoons (see SpongeBob SquarePants), and Foster’s is no exception. It seems as if so much is taking place all at once–most of which is pure nonsense–that we must comb through a cartoon’s goofy dialogue and fast-paced antics to discover central themes of kindness, friendship, and teamwork. I grew up watching David the Gnome, Eureeka’s Castle, Will Quack Quack, Noozles, and Faerie Tale Theatre, all shows that were modest and plodding, patient in their moral messages for kids watching at home. Although Foster’s can be grouped with other kids’ shows that consistently feature a great deal of commotion, this Cartoon Network show boasts some of the most creative characters and engaging plots, even for adults who are fans of clever cartoons with positive messages for everyone. I never had an imaginary friend growing up, and this show is a reminder of that for me.

The commercial for Foster’s states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.” — The commercial for *Foster’s* states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.”

We have an eclectic mix of primary characters who we follow throughout the series. The atmosphere at Foster’s rests somewhere between a low level psych ward and a daycare full of rambunctious trouble-makers. Although female-gendered “friends” are largely underrepresented on the show, the lessons Foster’s has to offer to child viewers are healthy and powerful, as they promote building friendships, using your imagination to have fun, and exploring the world around you.

After a fight with his brother, Terrence, which leaves the apartment in disarray, Mac’s mother tells him that at eight years old, he should have outgrown his imaginary friend, Bloo, by now. The fact that after Mac is forced to surrender his kind imaginary friend, yet continues to visit him every day, is evidence that Mac is not quite ready to grow up yet, and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. We’re never too old to dream, imagine, and tell stories. This pressure to “grow up” translates to a sort of censorship, which inhibits our creative impulses as adults. We can’t be afraid to embrace nonsense; it can always be the root of something spectacular.

We can assume that Mac creates Bloo to cope with the bullying he receives from his obnoxious older brother on a daily basis.

Since the inhabitants of Foster’s are the products of children’s imaginations, it may make more sense to focus on these characters, rather than the humans who help to run the institution. If we simply take a look at the appearance of many imaginary friends, we may surmise that this show is the ultimate lesson in diversity for children viewers. Wilt is very tall with some bodily “deformities,” Eduardo is a Latino creature resembling a bull, and Coco is a bird-like friend whose vocabulary stops at her own name. By observing many of the friends, we get a sense of the psychology behind each creature’s origin. Coco, for example, was dreamed up by a little girl who survives a plane crash and becomes stranded on a desert island; if we look closely, the bird’s head and hair mimic a palm tree, and her body looks like a crashed airplane. In this way, Foster’s can be seen as literally fostering childhood stressors, including the confusion many of us can remember from our early years; the home we find in this cartoon works to make sense of that uncertainty.

Coco’s image is a direct reflection of her little girl’s trauma after a near-death experience.

Because Coco is the only female character within our primary group of imaginary friends, I think it makes sense to focus on her presence in the home. Foster’s houses dozens of more friends, a few of them female, and many of them become entangled in the lives of the main characters. One secondary female character we meet right away is the insufferable Duchess, who believes that she is the best idea anyone’s ever come up with. This leaves Coco as the only primary character who is an imaginary friend in Foster’s (excluding, of course, the humans who help to run the home). What luck that Coco, in spite of her limited vocabulary (or perhaps because of), is simply delightful.

Because Coco is only able to say her own name, she must alter her tone to let her friends know if she’s happy or upset, or if she’s asking a question or giving a direction, etc. This communication has its own set of rules in relation to the other characters (see Stewie from Family Guy). When Bloo first meets her, he repeatedly says “Yes” because he thinks she’s asking if he’d like some cocoa. However, Wilt understands her and explains that she was offering Bloo some juice.

In the first episode of the series, Coco repeatedly squawks “Coco!” at Eduardo as he rescues Mac from a vicious monster created by a “jerky teenage boy,” and Eduardo eventually says in Spanish, “Yes, thanks, Coco, you have a way with words,” clearly an ironic joke that Coco is adept at resolving tense situations, despite the fact that we can’t understand her on some level. It’s also made clear that when we make friends, we eventually begin to speak the same language, even if outsiders are unable to translate it. The show’s inclusion of a Latino character also exposes children to the Spanish language, which can only be a good thing. This scene also solidifies Eduardo as a character we cannot and should not judge based on appearances alone. Despite his large stature and booming voice (not to mention that he’s a bull!), he’s the gentlest friend at Foster’s and is often terrified of children, another example of comical irony in the cartoon.

In season three, Mac responds to Coco’s “gibberish” with an ominous, “Coco, I think if we did that, we’d go to jail,” alerting us to a darker side of Foster’s and its whimsical friends. Like everything else on the show, her thought is left to our own imaginations. What’s convenient and exciting about having Coco around is that she can lay eggs that contain fun prizes. She’s so excited when Bloo arrives at Foster’s that she lays an egg filled with a Ming vase, in addition to a bundle of other mysterious items that Mac carries off when he leaves. Coco also proves her kindness on Bloo’s first night at Foster’s when she gives him an egg with Mac’s photo inside.

Mac is delighted to gather the plastic eggs Coco has laid.

Coco is important not only because she’s one of the only female characters in the house, but because her presence is a mark of understanding: that childhood is its own language, and that play and learning are interconnected and necessary for growth. What children can take away from Foster’s is the understanding that imagination is not synonymous with foolishness, and that it is a muscle to be flexed as often as possible. If this key lesson is instilled in children at a young age, we can expect them to become more creative and tolerant adults who in turn raise their own children to view the world as being full of possibilities, as opposed to the frightening monsters we carry with us from childhood. We may find that those monsters hiding in our closets when we’re kids become the unrealized ideas we hide from as adults. Foster’s materializes this concept beautifully and offers adult viewers the opportunity to live vicariously through each imaginary friend we meet.

Foster’s appeals to kids as it depicts authority figures in a patronizing light, such as the uptight Mr. Herriman, who happens to be a huge rabbit (and also reminds me of the androgynous and high-strung Rabbit of Winnie the Pooh). And yes, most of the friends we follow on the show are males. However, these are forgivable offenses considering the lightheartedness the show promotes, not to mention its celebration of childhood and the endless possibilities of the imagination. Madame Foster’s home offers childhood friends a second chance, proving that imaginary friends don’t die or disappear but are lovingly passed on to the next child who is in need of a wacky companion. Child viewers who actually entertain imaginary friends can easily find some validation in this show’s exploration of that thin line that separates reality from make-believe. Foster’s is a fantastic wonderland for young viewers and a gentle push to adults to pay attention to their child’s imaginary friend, who is always very real for the child.

Note: Season one of Foster’s is currently available on Netflix.

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Jenny holds a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.