#also a lot of intergenerational wounds related to pink diamond that bleeds into society as a whole and their own deification of the diamond

[faelapis]

if i ever make like a big steven universe defense video after all, i feel like i would need to give it a clickbait title like "you hate steven universe because you're american."

and then explain everything from how the hays codes section on not showing "sympathy for criminals" resulted in a moralistic black/white hollywood media landscape for a loooong while even after its death, and how regardless of whether you're actually american, you are influenced by these values and standards thru consumption of american media, or you wouldnt be here.

next to that, i would go into how the "actually, i like redemption arcs as long as they're earned :)" attitude is in many ways an extension of this need to see a focus on punishment, which that section of the hays code on villains was about as much as sympathy itself.

From the wikipedia page on the Hays code / Motion Picture Production Code:

All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience, or the audience must at least be aware that such behavior is wrong, usually through "compensating moral value". Authority figures had to be treated with respect, and the clergy could not be portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances, politicians, police officers, and judges could be villains, as long as it was clear that those individuals portrayed as villains were the exceptions to the rule.

The entire document was written with Catholic undertones, and stated that art must be handled carefully because it could be "morally evil in its effects", and its "deep moral significance" was unquestionable. It was initially decided to keep the Catholic influence on the Code secret. A recurring theme was "that throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong, and good is right".

the focus on punishment is more emotional than rational. it presupposes that punishment is inherently good and produces good results regardless of data or context. i think this bleeds into that attitude indirectly through, for instance, the only "acceptable" redemption arcs being abuse victims who were fucked over by someone "even more evil" (ie zuko, catra, etc) people who were lower in the system and assumed disposable.

that way, even their redemption serves as a "screw you" to the Truly Evil people above them, which is now the standard of how to get your average american audience on board with redemption. punishment is still very much on the table for those "truly evil" emperors and villains above them, placating this strong desire for punishment and violent solutions.

and of course this is alive and well in wider politics too, everything from the prison industrial complex to how elected judges focus on how Tough on Crime they are and the moral outrage of "this one judge didn't give the death sentence every single time, LIB ALERT" in attack ads.

at the end of the day its all very fucking childish. i mentioned it being emotional briefly, the need for punishment and having a Good Guy with a Gun kill the Bad Guy with a Gun is this very ameribrained hyperindividualistic good vs evil conflict, but its also childish in the refusal to engage with the facts of a situation and see whats actually helpful for society outside of your own emotions.

it feels good to watch callout videos and true crime because of their simplistic focus on the evil of the criminals, but there's rarely ever a mention of how recidivism rates go up, not down, with harsher, punishment-focused sentencing. when you forget the humanity of someone and refuse to truly help socially and economically, they tend not to feel much hope for their own future and instead turn to what helped them survive before. all it does is satiate the Proper, Good People in society's demands for blood and hatred.

anyway steven universe is great not only because it says screw all that, but because it has logical reasons why killing the diamonds is a bad idea, such as how their powers are necessary in helping heal corrupted and shattered gems and thus symbolically helping heal society overall, which is something that is crucial for society, not for your emotions.

steven himself represents the emotional counterpoint - that he can't really get over the pain the diamonds caused to himself and others, and for a brief moment considers the alternative where he WAS that vengeful hero who just killed those who "deserve" it... and ends up literally hurting himself in the process. poetic cinema.

some may think i’m missing the point there, that we’re actually supposed to side with steven in that the diamonds are really evil and bad and it would be better to just shatter them, steven is just too much of a cuck to go through with it or whatever - to which i would respond that the whole episode is steven going through a mental breakdown where he’s so stricken with guilt for shattering jasper that he on some level craves the validation that other people are worse than him... only to be met with a procession line of each diamond being helpful to others, healing them emotionally and physically. that actually only makes him angrier because he really, really wanted the validation that he’s not the “monster” in this story and to feel like a better person.

to an extent, i think him running away and ending up there is an instinct to be surrounded by "fellow monsters." its a bit similar to what white diamond claimed was a part of rose's problem in change your mind - surrounding yourself with flawed people so you can feel like the best of the worst.

at the very least, the contrast between steven’s emotions and reality is illustrated very, very clearly and obviously in having him see the diamonds helping others and objectively being good for society vs still wanting to shatter them on a subjective emotional level right after having seen that. like. that’s literally what happens scene for scene, then he hurts himself and runs away trying to be a good little helper boy and suppress his trauma at little homeworld, then he confesses how much of a monster he feels, literally becomes that, to which the diamonds are a part of the group helping to calm him down despite it all. so yeah. its deliberate.

(btw the main reason i stopped with youtube is just that my computer is too weak and would freeze every 5 seconds during editing + there would be some dmca issue with every single video regardless of how relevant the clips i was showing was to the discussion of the media. so yeah this kind of text essay is the closest ur gonna get for the foreseeable future.)