Steven Universe – Bitch Flicks

What ‘Steven Universe’ Creator Rebecca Sugar Means to Me as a Writer and a Bisexual Woman

The creator and showrunner of this popular, groundbreaking, and beautiful show is an openly bisexual woman. That is historic and thrilling, and it means that could be me (alas, if only I could write something half as brilliant as ‘Steven Universe’!). … Yes, we need bisexual characters. But even more importantly, we need bisexual creators telling stories…

This guest post written by Heidi Teague appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Identity is fundamental to writing. The stories we tell, the stories we absorb, are vital to our sense of self.

I am a writer. I have been an avid reader and consumer of stories of all kinds, as well as writing in one form or another, for my entire life.

I am also a bisexual woman. I didn’t know or understand this about myself until a couple of years ago, because I never really felt this was an option. It was something some other people were, and not many of them at that. It wasn’t something a slightly dull academic girl who liked poetry and Shakespeare and Doctor Who would be. Bisexual didn’t look like me, so how could it be me?

Character and identity is key to my writing; I love creating nuanced, interesting, and deeply flawed characters and watching them overcome the obstacles I throw in their way. Any truly intersectional feminist writer knows that the best stories are full of beautifully diverse people of different identities and walks of life. What the best TV dramas do, what the best stories do, is find a way to create empathy with people whose lives, identities, and experiences are vastly different to the viewers’ own. To see yourself and your own experiences reflected in a story is a deeply reassuring, transcendent human experience; being erased, seemingly invisible, or mythical is isolating and creates a disconnect where people are able to disassociate people who are different as ‘other.’ Erasure not only breeds hatred and intolerance, but it also means that the people who don’t fit the dominant narrative are unable to understand and express their difference and feel a sense of belonging. That can have a profound effect on a life; mental health issues among those that identify as LGBTQ are troublingly high.

Writing is exposing yourself, opening yourself up to criticism and ridicule, and that is even more pertinent if yours is a marginalized voice and if your stories challenge the dominant discourses, tropes, and cultural hegemony of traditional narratives. Few (out) queer writers have success or freedom within mainstream television networks, with many creatives curbed by executives who fear that anything too radically different might lose money. But every so often, a beacon of brave storytelling on a mainstream network shines the path for others.

Steven Universe is an animated television series on Cartoon Network of 10-minute episodes charting the coming-of-age of half-human, half magical gem Steven, and his unorthodox family of alien Crystal Gems: Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet. Steven and his best friend Connie learn how to fight together and use Steven’s protective and healing powers to help the Crystal Gems protect Earth. It is a highly creative and finely detailed world, with complex character development and story arcs to rival hour-long dramas. It has already explored depression, anxiety, abusive relationships, grief, and PTSD, as well as teaching its demographic-spanning audience to meet hatred, fear, and ignorance with love, compassion, and forgiveness. This is a show that cares, and wants to make the world a better place, and encourages love of all kinds as being central to this vision.

Steven Universe is progressive in many ways. The Gems, despite being sexless space rocks, use she/her pronouns and have femme presentations. They are all voiced by women of color and have shown what could be potentially read as romantic interest in other Gems and also sometimes in humans. The show uses a narrative conceit known as fusion to indicate a relationship of trust and understanding between two or more Gems as they become one being; this has been shown to be anything from platonic to explicitly romantic, with two Gems being outcast from their society for their taboo love which they express through being permanently fused; they literally are a relationship. Outlawed on their Homeworld, and seen by some as a dangerous threat to the hierarchy of Gem society, the parallels with queer marriage are unabashedly apparent.

The Disney-esque episode charting the origins of this love story, The Answer, was nominated for an Emmy this year, and has just been adapted into a children’s book of the same name.

This cartoon queers more than just one relationship however; there is no tokenism here, as a queer perspective permeates the whole show. Female characters are drawn with visible leg hair and shown to be desirable within the same episode; the main character is a 14-year-old boy who has been shown wearing a skirt, crop top, heels, and make-up and it wasn’t played even slightly for laughs.

A boy and girl fuse together to become a beautiful genderqueer character that is flirted with and admired by both men and women that are otherwise coded as straight, and this is never questioned, lampshaded, or ridiculed.

It has some of the most inclusive and progressive characters on TV as a whole, let alone children’s TV; beautiful characters of different sizes, shapes, genders, presentations, races, and sexualities; characters that are fully rounded, flawed, and story-worthy, not just curiosities or a lazy stab at inclusivity.

Steven’s mother, Rose Quartz, is a large, curvy Gem that was seen as unquestionably beautiful by everyone who encountered her. There is also a lot of subtext to suggest she was not monosexual; in so far as we can label the sexuality of a sentient rock from a matriarchal alien race, it is not binary. She had a highly charged relationship with Pearl, who has openly admitted she loved her, and Rose also loved Steven’s human father, Greg Universe, amongst other humans.

Although there are no characters on the show that are explicitly labelled as bisexual, this is undoubtedly a show with a beating, queer heart.

I already adored Steven Universe, and found joy and solace in it. When I heard Rebecca Sugar publicly identify as bisexual (at Comic Con, filmed here by Felipe Flores, relevant part at approximately 46:30), I simultaneously went, “Of course!” and whooped and punched the air. The creator and showrunner of this popular, groundbreaking, and beautiful show is an openly bisexual woman. That is historic and thrilling, and it means that could be me (alas, if only I could write something half as brilliant as Steven Universe!).

Characters can be inspiring and life-affirming, but giving and seeing real life bisexual folks out in prominent and powerful positions, especially in the entertainment industry is part of creating an environment where queer characters can have full and rich stories that aren’t only centered on coming out or perpetuating harmful tropes. Instead of straight writers profiting off the relative zeitgeist of queer characters, with bisexual characters often falling foul of this as they are seen as the “easy option” — ‘Janet can leave her husband, have an affair with a woman, have a breakdown as she is outed to her children and work colleagues, then go back to her husband… that’s the LGBTQ quota met!’ — having actual bisexual writers allows truth in television, and gives us the honest and complex characterizations we deserve.

Yes, we need bisexual characters. But even more importantly, we need bisexual creators telling stories and letting those nerds in the middle of suburbia know that there are people out there like them that they can aspire to emulate.

Rebecca Sugar, if you’re reading this, know you are loved and admired by so many. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Strong in the Real Way: Steven Universe and the Shape of Masculinity to Come
The Revolutionary Fatness of Steven Universe
Steven Universe: Many Dimensions of Fat Positivity
Steven Universe: A Superhero Team We Can Believe In

Heidi Teague is an aspiring British screenwriter and an accomplished nerd. She sporadically updates her feminism and pop culture blog Shrewish Thoughts and writes for Debut online.

Masculinity: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Masculinity Theme Week here.

Outlander and A Modern Man by Alize Emme

“What is her power over you?” Randall chides Jamie during his psychological torture. As manly as Jamie likens to be, he long ago surrendered himself to Claire’s power over him. In his deteriorated state, only a woman can heal this broken man. While Jamie’s brokenness is wholly justifiable, his extremist way of thinking shows his ideas of masculinity will need to continue to evolve if he wants to fully regain his soul.

Mad Max: Fury Road Allows Audiences to Both Enjoy and Problematize Hypermasculinity by Elizabeth King

As the evil dictator of the territory he occupies in a post-apocalyptic world, he demands more and more gasoline (which is in rare supply), while withholding water from his starved and sickly citizens. He also has a collection of women that he imprisons and uses for breeding purposes. In this single character we see some of the worst aspects of rampant hyper-masculinity condensed into one truly horrifying man.

Masculinity and the Queer Male: There’s Nowt So Queer as Folk by Rowan Ellis

Yet this very concept of shaming queer men for their sexuality while society is praising straight men for their sexual conquests as a key element of “successful” masculinity demonstrates the way homophobia intersects with a devaluing of the feminine.

Strong in the Real Way: Steven Universe and the Shape of Masculinity to Come by Ashley Gallagher

Steven, the title character, isn’t the troublemaking, reckless, pain-in-the-butt Boy-with-a-capital-B I feared I’d have to watch around to get to the powerful women and loving queer folk I really wanted to see. He’s unreserved, adventurous, and confident – all good traits that are fairly typical for boy leads in kids’ shows – but he is also affectionate, selfless, very prone to crying, and just plain effin’ adorable.

The Three Questions That Divide Breaking Bad Fans and What They Tell Us About Masculinity by Katherine Murray

Breaking Bad is one of those well-written, well-acted shows that somehow inspires people to scream at each other in CAPSLOCK. The debate about Walter White and his wife and their drug-trade boils down to your answers to three deceptively simple questions that act as a rorschach test on masculinity in American culture.

The Conflicting Masculinities of Frank and Claire in House of Cards by Tilly Grove

It is this point at which things significantly begin to shift in Frank and Claire’s relationship. This entire situation, which occurred in a succession of embarrassments for Frank, clearly served as a challenge to his dominance and an infringement on his masculinity, especially coming from his wife. For Claire, meanwhile, it is evident that while Frank is fighting desperately to enforce his masculinity and remain in power, she has lost all of hers.

The Blind (Drunk) Leading the Blind (Drunk): Masculinities and Friendship in Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy by Tessa Racked

Two distinct masculinities pull the Trilogy’s heroes in different directions. Given Wright’s frequent use of pop culture references, I’ve opted to borrow Dungeons and Dragons’ terminology and describe these extremes as lawful and chaotic. Lawful masculinity is characterized by competency and order; it is the hallmark of the responsible (but rigid) adult. Chaotic masculinity is characterized by hedonism and anti-authoritarianism, usually embodied in the series by characters in a state of adolescence (whether age-appropriate or not).

A Fragile Masculinity: Genderswapping Male Characters by Alyssa Franke

Part of this belief comes from the assumption that casting women in these roles is always an attempt to tone down the masculine-coded characteristics associated with these characters. Vaguely omnipotent feminist forces are conspiring to emasculate hyper-masculine characters by recasting them as women, so the argument goes.

I Think We Need a Bigger Metaphor: Men and Masculinity in Jaws by Julia Patt

The life Brody has lived is utterly different, if not entirely sheltered. What dangers or dilemmas he’s faced in his life simply haven’t left the kind of marks Hooper and Quint bear. And their lack prevents him from engaging in any stereotypical masculine posturing. He is, by that criteria anyway, untested.

Female Masculinity and Gender Neutrality in Dexter by Cameron Airen

Knowing that his son had and would continue to kill, Harry taught him to follow a strict code that only allowed Dexter to kill “bad” people. Instead of being chaotic, spontaneous, and killing out of pure rage, Dexter developed a more methodical approach. He is a neat monster who creates a pristine kill room with everything clean, tidy and in its place. All of this could be seen as a more feminine kind of control.

The Complex Masculinity of Outlander’s Jamie Fraser by Carly Lane

It’s a surprising twist on the trope. Jamie is undoubtedly a force of man to be reckoned with, though the fact that he is a virgin and thus relatively inexperienced in terms of sex when he encounters Claire – the older, more experienced woman – attributes some unexpected “feminine” qualities to his character.

Mad Men: Masculinity and the Don Draper Image by Caroline Madden

Upon viewing the series after knowing the show’s finale, we see that the Don Draper arc reflects a small change in gender perspectives during that era. The Don of Season 1 would never act as the Don in the Season 7 finale. We see that Mad Men was all about shattering the hyper-masculine Don Draper mythos that he built and trapped himself within.

How Avatar: The Last Airbender Demonstrates a More Inclusive Masculinity by Aaron Radney

All of them, even those that have more traditional male expressions than the others, end up rejecting more toxic expressions of masculinity.

Misogyny Demons and Wesley’s Tortured Masculinity in Joss Whedon’s Angel by Stephanie Brown

Not only does the characterization of this violent misogyny as “primordial” imply that violence toward women is the natural state of men, it also implies that gender itself is an essential and natural state of being. Men are men and women are women. In a universe that generally operates in gray areas, such a distinction is uncharacteristically black and white.

Tough Guise 2: Disrupting Violent Masculinity One Documentary at a Time by Colleen Clemens

Narrator Jackson Katz uses visuals and film clips to argue that such a view of masculinity is creating a crisis in young boys as they grow up being made to feel that violence=agency and that rape is just fine because you should get what you want—and if the answer is “no,” then you just take it.

Off the Fury Road and Without a Map: Masculine Portrayal in the New Mad Max by Zev Chevat

Wrapped in a hypermasculine Trojan Horse of violence and war custom is a heady lesson about the dangers of ceding to those expectations, and about the road away from them and toward something like redemption. Here is a film where women are shown to be men’s combative equals. Even more so, it is a film where the only way the men can escape their own oppression is to join up with, and occasionally defer to, these women.

Negotiated Identities and Gray Oppositions in Ridley’s American Crime by Sean Weaver

With that said, even the traditional gender binary is flipped on its head—the women of the show uphold the patriarchal system that controls them, while the men are often portrayed as effeminate and oppressed by the same system that is supposed to give them power. Yes. Take a second while you process that.

Masculinity in Game of Thrones: More Than Fairytale Tropes by Jess Sanders

Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.

Bigelow’s Boys: Martial Masculinity in The Hurt Locker by Rachael Johnson

The movie also, however, offers ideological and anthropological readings of masculinity which are, arguably, a little more complicated. Bigelow appears to have a deep interest in, and respect for, martial masculinity.

Moving Away From the Anti-Hero: What It Means to Be a Man in Better Call Saul by Becky Kukla

Slippin’ Jimmy was to James McGill what Heisenberg was to Walter White–a hyper-masculine alter-ego. OK, Slippin’ Jimmy was only conning a few business men out of their Rolexes, but essentially both men created an alternative, more masculine version of themselves in order to survive and gain success.

The Loneliest Planet and the Fracturing of Masculinity by Cal Cleary

Alex is, in many ways, the ideal of the modern man: Handsome, athletic, intelligent, well-traveled, well-off financially but still environmentally sensitive, and with a romantic partner he treats as an equal. Because of this, he has no trouble shrugging off the gendered stereotypes expected of his relationship in the first half of the film. But as soon as he is given reason to doubt his own traditionally defined masculinity, it all falls apart.

Entourage: Masculinity and Male Privilege in Hollywood by Rachel Wortherly

Turtle reminds Vince that “the movie is called Aquaman, not Aquagirl.” This line is indicative of the “boys club” that continues to thrive in Hollywood. An actress’s livelihood in the industry is dependent on her co-star.

The Courage to Cry: Men and Boys’ Emotions in Naruto by Jackson Adler

However, when boys are told that “boys don’t cry” and that men should “man up,” their emotions are not respected, and they often internalize this stigma, sometimes with devastating consequences. Of course, simply crying won’t cure a condition as severe as PTSD, but men being shown that they are not “weak” for experiencing emotions and needing help will undoubtedly aid in the road to recovery.

Man Up: How VEEP Emphasizes the Value of Masculinity in Politics by Shannon Miller

Because he doesn’t display the same aggressive temperament (he’s actually rather sweet and nurturing) nor does he have a similar function as the rest of the group, his value is regularly questioned and his masculinity is nearly erased. Walsh broaches this issue in the second episode of the series, “Frozen Yoghurt,” when Egan flippantly claims that the famous bag is full of lip balm: “Everything you say to me is emasculating.” And it’s true!

Mr. Robot and the Trouble with the White Knight by Shay Revolver

This is another one of the problems that I have with White Knight syndrome. The types prone to exhibiting this behavior tend to have a lower opinion of women that than their outwardly sexist counterparts. White Knights take up the causes of the women in their lives and speak out for them, but it is usually done in a manner that seems to suggest they think that these women are incapable of speaking up for themselves.

Let’s Hear It for the Boy! Masculinity and the Monomyth by Morgan Faust

As the monomyth evolves, the question is: will it evolve to include the “everywoman” hero archetype, or will the nature of myth itself change to embrace not just the messaging of individualization, but the representation of unique stories for unique people?

Strong in the Real Way: ‘Steven Universe’ and the Shape of Masculinity to Come

This guest post by Ashley Gallagher appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

I wasn’t very fond of boys growing up. Boys were agents of terror on my young life: my very first memory of body shame is from a summer school sprinkler day, when a 7-year-old boy chased me relentlessly around the courtyard trying to pull my bikini. (Next week, and every week thereafter that summer, I wore a one-piece to sprinkler day.) Even worse, the adults in my life – particularly men – often excused behavior like this as something natural and intrinsic to boyhood. When I’d complain of a boy at school teasing me, they’d tease me back, insisting that not only was this a boy’s way of expressing affection for me, but also that I must be crushing back, if I was so fixated on it. After that, I was far less likely to tell the adults in my life when, say, another group of boys chased me around my neighborhood on bikes, demanding that I admit to liking one of their friends, and scaring me so badly that I hid in a neighbor’s yard until they went away, instinctively feeling that I didn’t want them to know where I really lived. Boyhood as it’s commonly understood and treated is toxic: on the theater of the playground where children are trying on identities to see what fits, many boys are already skilled at assuming the sexist behaviors that will seem so harmless to them as adult men, because that’s how they were treated when they were children.

That’s a big part of the reason why I fell in love with Steven Universe almost as soon as I started watching it. Steven, the title character, isn’t the troublemaking, reckless, pain-in-the-butt Boy-with-a-capital-B I feared I’d have to watch around to get to the powerful women and loving queer folk I really wanted to see. He’s unreserved, adventurous, and confident – all good traits that are fairly typical for boy leads in kids’ shows – but he is also affectionate, selfless, very prone to crying, and just plain effin’ adorable. I mean, look at this clip from the first episode–how could I resist the charm of that plump little kid reciting the bizarrely detailed hip-hop ad jingle for his favorite novelty ice cream treat, all without an ounce of self-consciousness? I smiled and laughed like he and the Crystal Gems do in that moment, refreshed and entertained by the genuine joy that Steven seems to radiate.

Steven is truly the beating heart of the show, but it’s not because he’s a boy. In fact, many of his defining characteristics are distinctly un-boyish, as far as popular media tropes are concerned. Empathy and kindness, for example, are often depicted as especially feminine, and therefore less powerful traits than traditionally masculine ones like ambition or courage, but in the world of Steven Universe, not only are they not at all treated as weaknesses or internal conflicts, they are also frequently the source of his greatest powers.

Unlike most boy “chosen ones,” Steven’s magical abilities are distinctly defensive: the very first weapon that Steven is able to summon in the first episode, “Gem Glow,” is not an offensive weapon at all, but an impenetrable shield – bright pink and adorned with a rose emblem, no less. (Which gendered toy aisle would an action figure like that end up in, I wonder?) He can form a pink glassy bubble to protect himself and others around him. And, perhaps most subversively of all, he has healing abilities. While that is obviously a very handy power to have, folks well-acquainted with fantasy genres in a number of forms, particularly video game RPGs, will also probably be aware of the ubiquitous idea that healing is for support characters, usually women, and therefore has the reputation of being a relatively uncool, even “useless” power. Not only is Steven – the only boy Gem that exists, as far as we know – the first Gem since his mother, Rose Quartz, to have these healing powers, the show treats this frequently feminized ability as the extremely vital asset that it is. Several of the first season’s episodes center on Steven’s healing abilities, including a very important two-parter, “Mirror Gem” and “Ocean Gem,” in which Steven heals a character named Lapis Lazuli who has been deeply injured both physically and emotionally, even though the Crystal Gems initially insist that he should fear and reject her. Partially due to this kindness, Lapis is later in a position to help Steven and the Crystal Gems in some very unexpected ways. In another episode, “Monster Buddies,” Steven attempts to befriend a baby monster that the Crystal Gems would normally destroy. In fact, it’s the infant form of a monster that once attacked Steven himself and his home – but despite that history, Steven is still determined to heal it, not with his powers (which he actually doesn’t discover until an episode or two later), but with his caring, a feat that even his legendary mother could never accomplish.

Steven’s kind personality is just as powerful in regular human contexts as it is in magical ones. Indeed, Steven reminds me of no other fictional character more than Usagi Tsukino, aka Sailor Moon, whose ultra-famous superpower is her ability to befriend literally anyone, and heal the world with the power of that love. (Even some of Steven’s poses are strongly reminiscent of magical girl moves.)

Case in point: no one seems to notice the quiet, solitary Connie, but after Steven becomes best friends with her, she reveals herself to be a whip-smart, multi-talented, delightfully nerdy, wonderful kid. They clearly have more-than-friendship feelings for each other, but those feelings are allowed to comfortably coexist with their close friendship, and the show gracefully resists treating their crush as a source of conflict.

Honestly, Steven and Connie’s relationship is one of the best things about the show, because it is such a breath of fresh air. The twisted narratives of young love, whether in fiction or real-life, are so gut-wrenchingly familiar: they hate each other, but they’re secretly drawn to one another; or, he’s cruel to her because he doesn’t know how to express how he really feels. Not so in Steven Universe. From the very start, Steven treats Connie as a person who is interesting and dear to him as an individual, and whose well-being is vitally important to him, rather than as some sort of ideal love interest that he needs to maintain distance from to attain. There’s mystery and miscommunication, sure, but no fear, no hatred of oneself or the other, and lots of joy and discovery. In one of my favorite episodes, “Alone Together,” Connie tells Steven that she can’t dance around other people because she’s afraid of them staring at her. Steven invites Connie to dance with him, doing his best to help her feel comfortable: he holds out his hand to her, but steps back to give her space to make the decision, and even covers his eyes so that she doesn’t feel him staring. When they start dancing, they coordinate naturally and easily, resulting in some very special magic that makes them fuse into one beautiful, confident, genderqueer and very dance-y being: Stevonnie, the physical manifestation of Steven and Connie’s mutual affection and, most importantly, trust.

“Connie catches Steven in a dip right before they fuse.”

Lest you think that maybe all of Steven’s goodness, all of his sweetness and caring, is made possible solely by the naiveté of his youth, consider his family. Aside from the three ancient feminine aliens who raise him full time, Steven also has a great dad, Greg Universe, who is just as responsible for Steven’s strength of character. At first blush, Greg – kind of a Homer Simpson lookalike, in my opinion – seems to fit solidly into the “bad dad” type: not only does he not live with Steven as a primary caregiver, he’s also a pretty unambitious, aging, small-time ex-musician who lives in his van. However, Greg is very present in Steven’s life, offering unconditional support and love even when Steven is going through experiences that Greg both fears and doesn’t fully understand. In “Catfingers,” Greg watches over Steven through a scary incident of shape-shifting magic gone horribly wrong, and manages to help him get his son’s powers under control, despite his aversion to magic in general and shape-shifting magic particularly. On a couple of other occasions, Greg gives Steven the space (albeit reluctantly), to take on magical missions that only Steven can accomplish, but always makes sure to stay as close by as possible to offer help, or even just to welcome him home when he returns.

“Steven and Greg sing about their relationship.”

Greg isn’t perfect; even his possibly-soon-to-be-tattooed-on-my-body catchphrase says so. (“If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.”) But he loves himself, and he loves Steven, and he’s absolutely uninterested in making Steven or anyone else feel bad for his own flaws, for the absence of Steven’s mom, or for any of the personality traits and abilities that make Steven uniquely him. As a gentle, nurturing father who does his best despite often pretty crummy circumstances – including being homeless, a widower (for all intents and purposes), and having a hoarding problem – Greg Universe not only provides an excellent role model for his son, but also an interesting complement to the equally trope-bucking Crystal Gems.

Rebecca Sugar has said that her inspiration for the character of Steven is her own brother, which sheds a little light on the loving care that is put into creating him. (Steven Sugar is, notably, a background artist on the show, and boy, are those intimately detailed, fantastically colored backgrounds a delight to behold.) It’s easier to witness how bad people can be to each other in real life than ever before, and to be personally on the receiving end of much of it; sometimes it can feel like I’m barely surviving in a world full of suffering and ugliness. I admit that, at those times, I frequently expect to find fault in everything around me. I was concerned, before watching Steven Universe, that it would disappoint me – that a show about a little boy at the center of his own universe would end up following the familiar frightening paths and byways toward a narrow and troubling version of masculinity. Instead, I’ve found that Steven Universe is a show dedicated to showing that our lives don’t have to be ruled by rigid hetero- and cis-normative gender roles. Steven reminds me that not only can people in general, and men specifically, be good and kind and powerfully loving, and not only should expect I that from them, but that goodness is also right in front of me and all around me. I’m extremely fortunate to have many people in my life, including men, who are as caring and supportive and gentle as any of the literal light beings from space in this cartoon.

In “Lion 3 Straight to Video,” Steven finds an old VHS tape that his mom leaves for him to find, knowing that she will have to give up her physical form once he’s born. In it, she tells him that he is loved, that he is extraordinary, and that his planet and his people are special to her because of how full of possibilities they are. To me, Steven Universe is a boy who embodies the possibilities for masculinities that are rooted in love and pride rather than domination, and for a way of life where all gender expressions can be freed, little by little, from the oppressive baggage that so often tie them down.

Recommended reading: “Steven Universe and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation” by Mey Rude

Ashley Gallagher is an aspiring adult magical girl who lives and writes in Austin, Texas. She co-hosts Moon Podcast Power MAKE UP!!, a feminist Sailor Moon Crystal podcast, and tweets @womyn_ebooks.

Fatphobia and Fat Positivity: The Roundup

Fat, Black, and Desirable: Fat Positivity and Black Women by Chantell Monique

If these women aren’t seeing any positive images of themselves on screen, how are they able to construct an identity of truth? Even though they can rely on their community for positivity, if it’s not reinforced through media representation then it renders that support useless.

Invisible Fat Women on How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory by Stephanie Brown

Several sitcoms, however, rely not on the on-screen presence of a so-called “unruly body,” but rather on the imagined image on an off-screen one.

Fatphobia: What Daria Got Wrong by Maggie Slutzker

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.

Steven Universe: Many Dimensions of Fat Positivity by Stella DellaRosa

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.

What They Did Right in The Heat by Rhea Daniel

Her character may at first feed the stereotype that fat people are overbearing, belligerent and take up too much space, but the camera doesn’t make her body a joke (with accompanying thunder-thighs music). I like M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” as the song of choice, and they do look pretty believably badass, with a comic overtone.

16 and Healthy: My Mad Fat Diary Is Teen Girl Fat Positivity Gold by Ariana DiValentino

And therein lies what makes the show such a wonderful example of fat positivity and feminism—Rae is, per her own description, mad and fat, but it takes less than a single episode to make it abundantly clear that she is so much more than that.

Parks and Recreation: How Fatphobia Is Invisible by Ali Thompson

I don’t think it would be quite the same barrel of laughs if the motto of Pawnee were “First in Friendship, Fourth in Poverty.” Fat shaming and fat jokes like the People of Walmart photos are often a socially acceptable stand-in for the classist shaming of poor people. Poor people are more likely to be fat, after all. We get paid less and we’re more likely to be fired. Oh, the comedy!

Shallow Hal: The Unexpected Virtue of Mockery by Brigit McCone

Its challenge to fatphobia is covered in fat jokes and gross-out humor, tailored to trigger our prejudices. We can laugh, if prepared to question why. We can sympathize, if braced against an awkwardly half-choked, giggling snort. Humor strikes faster than self-censorship.

When Being Fat Isn’t A Big Deal: Jenny Gross on Winners and Losers by Ren Jender

The default body size also extends to actresses who are not meant to be “decorative.” In writer-director Andrea Arnold’s powerful, excellent Red Road, from the UK, star Kate Dickie has a nude scene which is neither meant to be nor is erotic, but her body has as little fat as that of a professional marathon runner. When women see these bodies as “the norm” in films and TV even those of us fortunate enough not to hate our bodies (and even those of us who are not habitually called slurs because of our size) have to fight against the tendency to ask, “What exactly did my body do wrong to be so unlike that of nearly every woman I see onscreen?”

The Foxy Merkins and the Uncharted Territory of the Fat, Lesbian Protagonist by Tessa Racked

That separation is reinforced by much of the film’s comedy, but Margaret isn’t positioned as an object of ridicule or disgust, as is often the case with fat and/or gender non-conforming characters. She is naive, gauche, and in over her head, but she is also the character with whom the audience empathizes most.

The Revolutionary Fatness of Steven Universe by Deborah Pless

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!”

The Fat Stardom of James Gandolfini by Sarah Smyth

What’s clear is that, in our contemporary society and culture, the male body is not invisible. Although the female body continues to be more heavily regulated and controlled, particularly in terms of weight and appearance, the male body is no longer removed from similar considerations. As we continue to look more intensely and critically at the male body, we can anticipate a time when new images of masculinity become not only realized but embodied.

Sophie in Don Bluth’s Anastasia by Jackson Adler

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.

Geraldine Granger, the Vicar at Large: Fat Positivity in The Vicar of Dibley by Rachel Wortherley

Because of their position in the church as a figure that facilitates human connection to a higher power, people usually disconnect priest, vicars, etc. from human emotions. Being sexless or promiscuous is also attributed to female characters in media who are fat, or overweight…One of the exciting things about The Vicar of Dibley is that Geraldine is not a sexless and humorless character—as a vicar and a woman with a fat body.

What Your Doctors Really Think About You: Fatphobia on Medical TV by Elizabeth Kiy

Fat bodies have a curious position in medical drama, reflecting the fatphobia existing within the medical profession. Doctors tend to assume weight always a cause rather than a symptom and overweight patients are either lazy, uneducated or poor. The wealthier we are, the more opportunity we have to strive for thinness. As a class, doctors are incredibly privileged, both highly educated and wealthy, they have the privilege of deciding to be thin that many of their patients do not.

The Revolutionary Fatness of ‘Steven Universe’

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.

‘Steven Universe’: Many Dimensions of Fat Positivity

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.

Children’s Television: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Children’s Television Theme Week here.

The Feminism of Sailor Moon by Myrna Waldron

This has been a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. I’m an absolutely die-hard fan of Sailor Moon, and part of that is because it served as my childhood introduction to feminism. That might be a little bit hard to believe, considering the superheroines of the show are known for outfits not much more revealing than Wonder Woman’s. Silly outfits aside (you get used to them), this show was absolutely groundbreaking. Its protagonists are 10 realistically flawed, individual and talented teenage girls (and women) who, oh, you know. Save the world.

Why Jessie is the Worst Show on Disney Channel by Katherine Filaseta

For those who don’t know, this is a Disney Channel series about a girl from Texas who moves to New York City and becomes nanny for a Brangelina couple with four adopted children from around the world. If done well, it could allow for very educational programming for children about diversity and identity. Spoiler alert: it hasn’t been done well. It’s been done terribly.

Was Jem and the Holograms a Good Show for Little Girls? by Amanda Rodriguez

Though the show’s focus on romantic love, fashion, and female rivalry are of dubious value, there are definitely a lot of good things going on with Jem & the Holograms: the notion that fame and fortune should be used for philanthropic means, that female friendships can be strong and form an important network of support, and that a sense of community is crucial.

She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy by Amanda Rodriguez

She-Ra: Princess of Power represents a network of powerful women who not only like each other, but they support each other, organize a rebellion against an oppressive patriarchal regime, and get shit done. The example this powerful group of women set for impressionable girls like myself is tremendous.

Why I Love Adventure Time by Myrna Waldron

Adventure Time is a Cartoon Network animated series that combines surrealistic comedy, fantasy and science-fiction. Based on a 2008 short by Pendleton Ward that went viral, it parodies the tropes, archetypes and cliches of fairy tales, video games and childhood action figure battles. The basic premise is about Finn, the last remaining human, and his best friend/adoptive brother Jake (a shape-shifting dog), going on your typical slay-the-monster-save-the-princess adventures. Now in its fourth season, it’s an enormous hit with all genders and age groups and shows no signs of slowing down. And let me tell you, as a feminist, why I am absolutely celebrating this show.

Anne of Green Gables: 20th Century Girl by Ren Jender

What makes good television programming “for children” is elusive. No demographic is unanimous in its tastes, but children differ from one another more than other groups: what fascinates a 4-year-old can bore an 11-year-old and vice versa. Add to this problem that most critics and programming creators are not children themselves, and we can see why most children’s programming is so terrible: because it, even more than other types of art, is based on, to quote Jane Wagner “a collective hunch.” Still, like a Supreme Court justice famously said about pornography, most of us, even those of us who don’t have children, can recognize excellent children’s programming when we see it, like the 80s made-for-television Anne of Green Gables, based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Hey Arnold! A Bold Children’s Show by Nia McRae

Hey Arnold! taught life lessons without the viewer realizing it. An episode called “Stoop Kid” taught kids about the benefits of getting out of their comfort zone. The episode “Chocolate Boy” humorously analogized drug addiction. Arnold’s closeness with Gerald alongside Helga’s rapport with Phoebe highlighted the importance of friendship. The wrongness of first impressions was a reoccurring lesson; a dumb character would have moments of wisdom or a snobby character would have moments of vulnerability or a seemingly lucky rich kid would be shown as unhappy and/or overstressed. My favorite example of this message is in the episode “Ms. Perfect”, which introduced the character of Lila. Her popularity caused female students to envy her at first. But once they learned about Lila’s troubled life, the girls apologized and accepted her.

Gravity Falls: Manliness, Silliness, and a Whole Lot of Awesome by Max Thornton

Figuring out who you are in the face of societal pressures that buffet you every which way is the trial of growing up, and helping people to do that is one of feminism’s goals. It’s also at the heart of Gravity Falls, which helps cement this for me as an exciting show.

Celebrating Sesame Street by Leigh Kolb

So what does idealistic, feminist children’s television look like? It looks like Sesame Street, which over the course of its 45-year run has won more than 120 Emmy Awards. Sesame Street‘s frank and honest treatment of race, women’s rights, adoption, breastfeeding, death, childbirth, incarceration, divorce, HIV, health, bilingualism, and poverty throughout the years has added a dimension of social understanding to a show that also deals with teaching children their ABC’s and 123’s.

Adventure Time – Why Lumpy Space Princess is Important by Gaayathri Nair

LSP’s character design can barely be called feminine in the ways that we as a society code things feminine. This is especially true if you compare her to other female characters on Adventure Time such as Flame Princess and Princess Bubblegum. Her gender markers are the fact that her name is Lumpy Space Princess, the fact that she is pink, and that her speech takes on the patterns and vernacular of a valley girl although her actual voice is low and not immediately parse-able as feminine. The other main gender marker of LSP is the fact that she is into traditionally feminine things such as shopping and make up.

Steven Universe: A Superhero Team We Can Believe In by Megan Wright

Steven Universe embraces non-traditional families. Steven is a perfectly happy kid, who is raised by three women who love him. The Gems are wonderful guardians for Steven, acting as mothers, sisters, and leaders to him. Even though the Gems and Steven don’t always see eye to eye, they always try to step beyond their comfort zones for one another. The Gems may not understand the concept of video games, but if Steven wants to go to an arcade, then they’ll go. If Steven wants to throw them several birthdays for the thousands of ones they haven’t celebrated, they’ll let him dress like a clown and play party games with them, because even though they don’t understand it, it clearly means a lot to Steven.

Friendship Is More Than Magic: Feminism and Relationships in Puella Magi Madoka Magica by Kathryn Diaz

Imagine a world where young girls are trapped in a system that sees them as commodities. Imagine that any girl could be tricked into giving herself up to a life that is by all appearances filled with magic, beauty, excitement, and good, but exists to feed off the energy of their spirit. The girls are purposely pushed to their limits. When they have become too cynical or burdened, the system condemns them and sends in younger counterparts to pick them off. Imagine that these girls are pitted against each other, that once they have been lured in with heroic, fairy tale trappings, they are encouraged to turn around and use the power that they should be grateful for to use and destroy each other. At the top of this system sits a small white creature. He just can’t understand why girls get so upset when they learn the facts of life they signed up for.

…..That wasn’t very hard to imagine after all, was it?

The Magic Garden: Female Leaders In Children’s Television by Hayley Krischer

With their soft voices and pigtails Paula and Carole had a purpose: they created a serene little oasis while sitting on swings and singing, calling kids to “come and see our garden grow.” In The Magic Garden, there was a garden of make-believe where the “magic tree grows lollypop sticks.” Paula picked on her guitar and Carole encouraged you to stamp your feet or clap your hands on the “pop” during “Pop Goes the Weasel” without sounding like a droning fire alarm. Watching an episode of The Magic Garden was like going to a music class—the women pushed kids to sing faster and faster with the speed of the music, harmonizing and smiling, their easy melody a break of sorts to all of the outside noise.

Better Than Two: Female Power Trios in Children’s TV by Emanuela Betti

Power Trios in children’s TV, like duos, are still composed of oversimplified types and characters, yet they also suggest that femininity is not so black and white. Three character ensembles introduce characters types than are on a greyer scale than the polar-extremes of the Light/Dark Feminine trope. In the case of female Power Trios, the formula consists of three characters that respectively represent beauty, brains, and strength. Characters representing beauty are usually ditzy and childish, but they are also sensitive and the mediators (so if they happen to be “dumb” they’re at least depicted with a good heart); characters representing brains are sometimes the group leaders, but also rational without being distant or cold; finally, characters representing strength are usually impulsive and hot-headed, but their rash tendencies are balanced out with a loyal nature.

The Imaginary World of Mona the Vampire by Elizabeth Kiy

The series chronicled the adventures of Mona Parker, a young girl who enjoys dressing up like a vampire and sees saving her town from monsters as her mission in life. The stories are Buffy-lite: a giant bug substitute teacher, a robot babysitter, doppelgängers, a computer virus with mind-control powers, and new cafeteria cooks who aim to poison the school with salmonella. Though the show often pulls out from Mona’s fantasies to reveal the reality of the situation, Mona’s fights against the forces of darkness, usually end up somehow solving the crime or prank, exposing a conspiracy or locating the lost item anyway.

Exploring Imagination and Feminine Effacement in Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends by Jenny Lapekas

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.

Adventure Time vs Regular Show by Amanda Lyons

There is one thing that, for me, gives Adventure Time a bit of an edge over Regular Show, and it’s been compounded after sitting through a two-hour back-to-back marathon of both shows over the weekend. It boils down to this: while both cartoons are awesome, Regular Show is pretty much a bro-zone while Adventure Time has a bit more room for the ladies.

Pepper Ann: Pepper Ann Much Too Cool Not To Be On DVD: A Letter to Disney by Janyce Denise Glasper

Behind black rounded glasses is Pepper Ann–a puffy red haired chick wearing eccentric style complete with black and white sneakers. An overall normal girl living in a normal world. In the town of Hazelnut, this humorous hip nerd lit up our shared television screen over vast bowls of high sugared cereal bowls. Like my sister, tomboy Pepper Ann played video games, adored roller blades, and sports while Pepper Ann’s precocious best friend Nicky loved books and had an indie spirit vibe like me. Wide range of diverse characters included Pepper Ann and Nicky’s other bff Hawaiian Milo, a rotund Swiss boy, typical popular blond chicks, and African American twins. There seemed to be a treat for everyone.

Pokemon: Escapist Fantasy for the Budding Feminist Child by Nia McRae

Should a writer depict a world that mirrors reality and show the problems within it or should s/he depict the ideal world we want to live in? Pokemon leans more to the latter. Pokemon, just like Star Trek, depicts a world that’s egalitarian or at the very least, very close to it. It’s a world where gender, race, and sexual orientation appear to be irrelevant. As a kid, I couldn’t articulate very well why I loved Pokemon so much but now I can. My joy was due to many things in the show; the adventures which encouraged my love of travel, the fun and catchy songs and most notably, the strong presence of dynamic, ambitious, and fun female characters.

‘Steven Universe’: A Superhero Team We Can Believe In

‘Steven Universe’ embraces non-traditional families. Steven is a perfectly happy kid, who is raised by three women who love him. The Gems are wonderful guardians for Steven, acting as mothers, sisters, and leaders to him. Even though the Gems and Steven don’t always see eye to eye, they always try to step beyond their comfort zones for one another. The Gems may not understand the concept of video games, but if Steven wants to go to an arcade, then they’ll go. If Steven wants to throw them several birthdays for the thousands of ones they haven’t celebrated, they’ll let him dress like a clown and play party games with them, because even though they don’t understand it, it clearly means a lot to Steven.

This guest post by Megan Wright appears as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

In the past years, with all the superhero movies coming out, it’s no surprise that children’s shows would become especially interested in making TV shows to capitalize on the trend. Granted, Saturday morning cartoons have always featured some superheroes, but there have been a great deal of superhero shows coming out lately: Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.!, are just a few examples. But Steven Universe, a show that revolves around a young superhero in the making, is one of the best – and most progressive – examples on television.

Steven is a young boy who gets his superpowers from his powerful gem passed on to him from his mother, who died after giving up her gem. Since his birth, Steven has lived with his mother’s former teammates, the Crystal Gems, who raise Steven and help train him to become a Crystal Gem.

Steven also has a good relationship with his father, who doesn’t live with the Gems, but rather in his van. Greg Universe may not always understand the Gems and vice versa, but they get along for Steven’s sake. And even though Steven’s superpowers make Greg nervous, he’ll try to understand and help his son with them. The series makes it clear that one of the reasons Steven is such a carefree and sweet child is that he was raised in a positive environment, with four adult figures who clearly care and love him. His ideas, even if they don’t always work, are praised; his enthusiasm for everything encouraged. Even when his superpowers don’t work, the Gems always try to help him get better as a hero.

Family Portrait: The Gems (and their weapons) and Steven

Most superhero shows have mainly male superheroes as either the focus of the show, or the majority of the team. It’s interesting to see a show that revolves mainly around women with superpowers. Due to his young age, Steven’s powers are inconsistent, so most of the monsters that the Gems battle are defeated by his teammates: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. These characters each come equipped with their own special gems, weapons, and superpowers, making them the strength behind the superhero show.

One of the best things about the Gems is how different they are from one another, both in personality and body type. Everything about these characters differs physically: hair, weight, height, superoutfits, etc. Young girls watching this show can probably identify with Amethyst’s outfit of jeans and a shirt, Pearl’s skirt and tights, or Garnet’s shades than they can with Black Widow’s catsuit. It also passes on the message that you don’t have to look a certain way to be a superhero. For girls who constantly have to see huge breasts, skin-tight costumes, and somehow impeccably styled hair if they want to see a female superhero, this show has to be a relief.

Even better is the fact that the Gems all have their own personalities, which go much deeper than most kid shows’ characters. Pearl is orderly and the most cautious of the Gems, but it’s mainly the result of trying to protect Steven on missions. It also doesn’t take away from her abilities as a superhero – she doesn’t shy away from violence and is a master swordswoman.

Meanwhile, Amethyst is much more disorderly and has a lax personality about most things, which leads her to clash with the other Gems. This is explored in “Tiger Millionaire,” an episode where it’s discovered that Amethyst has been participating in underground wrestling in order to get out all her energy and frustration with the other Gems. By the end of the episode, Pearl and Garnet understand Amethyst’s frustration, and support her wrestling.

Garnet is the team leader, a quiet and stoic personality who commands the Gems and keeps them in line. She’s frequently seen going off on missions of her own, and she is the most powerful of the Gems. Her cool head helps keep Steven safe, and keeps Pearl and Amethyst from bickering all the time.

The Gems (from left to right): Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet — The Gems (from left to right): Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet

The series empathizes teamwork between women rather than fighting. While Amethyst and Pearl might not always get along, the show makes it clear that they are still close teammates. In “Giant Woman,” it’s revealed that Pearl and Amethyst can form together to make Opal, a single being who is a powerful combination of their personalities, weapons, and skills. Unfortunately, because their attitudes clash most of the time, they have a hard time forming her. It’s only when they put their bickering aside that they can become Opal, which gives them an advantage in battle. Opal allows them to crush enemies that they would have been stumped by otherwise. The show empathizes that when women work together, they are more powerful.

I’m a feminist and a superhero fan, and sometimes those two loves conflict. I adore superhero comics, movies, and television shows, but I still have to acknowledge they have their problems. Most women are dressed in skin-tight outfits or barely any clothes at all, women are still in the minority numbers on teams, and there still hasn’t been a movie released yet that has a female as the main superhero.

What Steven Universe gives me is a show that offers a distinctively different take on female superheroes – they’re the most powerful beings on the show, they wear outfits that actually look useful for fighting crime in, and the show allows them to show their inner personalities as well as kick ass. I’m so excited that there’s a show out there like this for young girls: one that reinforces positive cooperation between women, that allows their female characters to have each have their own body types and personalities, and lets them see strong females that don’t apologize for their power.

Megan Wright is a TV reviewer for Gotta Watch It. This is her second time as a guest writer for Bitch Flicks.

Tag: Steven Universe