#flaws and all she-ra was a really big deal for a lot of queer people and it feels wrong to discount that

[thedaythatwas]

you ever just walk around and suddenly remember that one character that you haven’t seriously thought about in a while and it’s like OH YEAH! I completely forgot you controlled my existence for a considerable amount of time! good god I adore you! into the deep end we go xoxo

[oatmealaddiction]

While part of me loves the resurgence of interest in A:TLA since it dropped on netflix and the amount of people showering it with praise, another part of me is really bitter about it when I think about how shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra were treated by fandom.  Avatar is very good don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a perfect show. The character design kind of changes with whoever was in charge at the time so characters end up looking completely different even episode to episode (especially in the first season). There’s a lot of cultural appropriation that I don’t think was all handled sensitively, like the fact Zuko’s name is just made up because the writers thought it sounded vaguely Asian, and then the characters for his name change episode to episode so nobody knows how you actually spell it, or how African and Indigenous culture is just used to add more fantasy elements that don’t mesh with the asian aesthetic.  But these don’t really ruin the show for most fans, like we understand that something like Avatar was by design going to have certain flaws, and we give it a bit of leeway. MEANWHILE, I can’t tell you how many people completely wrote off Steven Universe because the animation looked wonky here and there or that Steven’s non-violent approach to solving conflict was some kind of endorsement of allowing bullies to abuse you (which I don’t see any of when people talk about Aang, despite it being the same deal.) In terms of She-Ra I see a lot of people just getting mad over redemption arcs and how certain characters are redeemed when they make the personal decision to turn around and do better, and they even cite Zuko as a better version, despite the fact that a lot of Zuko’s actions were arguably worse than character’s on She-Ra.  The big difference between these shows of course being that SU and She-Ra have an undeniably feminine quality to them. Lots of pastels and pink sparkles, lots of singing, less focus on action and more focus on interpersonal drama. They’re shows made by two queer women with a largely POC cast and a ton of queer representation. So that automatically means the quality is just lesser than Avatar because Avatar was made by two white guys right?  I’m not saying that Steven Universe and She-Ra are better shows than Avatar, but I’m saying a lot of the things people clock them on Avatar is also guilty of. But for some reason Avatar is the “Perfect Show” where everything is executed to absolute perfection and nothing can be improved upon, while SU and She-Ra are just cheap and shoddily made with their creators trying to push bad problematic messages onto the youth.  And I’m not saying “Avatar is bad, we need to criticize Avatar more” like, no, I love all the love Avatar is getting. It just makes me so sad that really important and really good shows like SU and She-Ra were just critiqued far more heavily without even half as much love, and I have a hard time believing the fact that both shows were created by queer women with a huge cast of women and men of color had nothing to do with that really heavy criticism. 

[dgcatanisiri]

The thing it always always ALWAYS comes back to is the fact that it’s no one source that is responsible for the lack nor capable of fixing it. It’s all a bunch of issues in society proper and the industry culture. Videos games will always be written from the perspective of straight people, and almost inevitably straight men. Film is from the perspective of the male gaze. The world we lives in will assume straight until proven otherwise.

And because straight is “the default,” it is what gets catered to, with any claim to the contrary, any attempt to say “hey, what about [queer identity]?” these big chains can argue “not worth the time/effort/money!” Because pure numbers say that’s a valid excuse. Because they can make more money just accepting homophobia than pushing against it. Because pushing against it is “risky,” and, well, we can’t push people too much for something they’re “not ready” for.

Even when people on the chain WANT to do more, offer more... They’ll get pushback. Like, I legit, 100% believe that sacrificing bi!Jaal on the release of Mass Effect Andromeda was part of a fight to keep Suvi a lesbian - we KNOW that it was a fight to keep her from being made bisexual, I buy that the ground of “one of two bisexual men” was given in order to keep the lesbian representation. It’s a shitty situation and a shitty choice that shouldn’t have been forced in, but I damn well believe it happened.

Or with Voltron - I do not give a damn about the dumpster fire that fandom is, I guarantee that Adam being killed off was part of the terms that they had to agree to just to get it to air, get a gay relationship in a cartoon that is primarily oriented to children. Look at all the fights that creators in Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc. have had to go through - and remember that it’s NOT the same thing for gay guys in action-adventure series, that there has NOT been that kind of breakthrough in M/M relationships and portrayals, and yes, this IS a different track to run through, because, put simply, lesbian representation is not the same thing as gay male representation. Similar, yes, and there’s an umbrella they’re both under, but they’re not the same - as much as you’ll find a queer person who celebrates any win under the queer umbrella, they will still have that wish that there was also a win for their SPECIFIC identity.

This is the inherent flaw of grouping so many identities under the same umbrella - we all rely on each other, sure, but at the same time, just because it’s a queer win, that doesn’t make it a win for every individual letter under that umbrella. It’s not always your mirror you’re seeing, and as much as you can be happy that others get their representation, human beings will always have that egotistical part that goes ‘well what about MY needs?”

I’ll also guarantee that there was an active play for Shiro/Keith (like, LOOK at their interactions and tell me that there isn’t SOME kind of significant bond being established that is outright groundwork for a relationship) and THAT had the kibosh put on it as well - that the active choice on the part of some executive, be it Netflix or other producers was that Shiro could be gay, but they could not have two gay lead characters, and that’s why Shiro marrying random extra happened.

Because I don’t think that it’s actively bigotry that drives these kinds of choices. It IS homophobia, implicit homophobia, the kind that says it isn’t worth fighting for or dealing with the inevitable headaches when the conservatives get in an uproar. No, it’s simply that... They don’t want to deal with that headache. They know it’s going to create blowback from the idiots, and while they understand that those people aren’t really worth endorsing, it’s just a lot to deal with so how about instead we NOT?

Because to them, it’s all hypothetical. It’s all an intellectual exercise. It’s a headache to deal with these people who aren’t really worth listening to, but we still depend on their money to turn a profit and keep our jobs, so it’s just easier not to rock the boat.

Meanwhile to the queer people they are denying representation, it’s our LIVES. It’s our mirrors. And often, that is the difference between life or death. That’s not exaggeration. If you never see yourself reflected in your media, if you only ever see yourself in the secondary roles, never the hero... It damages you.

Like, I’ve reached a point where, if for no other reason than sheer spite, I intend to keep kicking. But... It does wear on me. It gets me down. To know that even the scraps that I find are the result of long, drawn out fights that started with the full meal - and then, because the scraps exist, I KNOW there’s some pencil-pusher going over the results of everything related to this content by whatever metrics they have, just LOOKING to use the scraps as justification for why the numbers came up short and that’s why they won’t include more scraps again.

And this just. keeps. happening. It’s every time that the representation COULD be there, every time it’s SORT OF there, but clearly grudging, every time that the only reason we get queer representation is because the developers don’t want to bother with the coding to lock off certain romances by gender, not because it’s cared about, every time that the developers and creators have to go to the people who pushed for this and say “I’m sorry, but I lost the fight, and if we don’t cut it, they will.”

It doesn’t change. We’re about a decade and a half from Jade Empire, the game that gave me so much JOY in being able to play a gay male character in a video game and see a gay man as the hero. We’re about a decade out from Korrasami. And what are we really getting as different? Okay, video game characters don’t have their sexualities so blatantly hidden - I don’t have to turn down every female love interest in order to get the male love interests to even ask if I’m interested. Okay, we’ve seen the progression of Korrasami to Bubbleline to Ruby/Sapphire to Lumity, but these are still moments that basically cause the network to pull the plug.

Y’know, sure, I’m still going because of spite. But that’s beyond cold comfort when it comes to how I look at the amount of books, movies, TV shows, and video games and still don’t see myself in there.

[korra-the-red-lion]

Let’s Talk About Cartoons.

Hey people, Korra is back with yet another long post, so be prepared.

Recently, I’ve found myself watching more cartoons again. So I just wanted to talk about some stuff on cartoons. So, the one thing I need you to keep in mind while reading this post is that these shows made be enjoyed by all audiences, the targeted age range is children. Children between the ages of 8-12 most of the time. So yeah, keep that thought.

I love Avatar, Korra (my username sake lol) Voltron, She-Ra and so many others. I would say these shows are some of the ones aimed at a bit of an older audience. But I also enjoy the Owl House, W.I.T.C.H., Ben 10, the Loud House, and others. I would say these shows are roughly aimed at that 8-10 range. What is it about these shows that I love? Hmm, there are many different reasons for as to why. But there are a few things that come to mind. Good representation, dark topics dealt with in a mature way, funny and lovable characters, silly buffer episodes, and endings that fit the show.

Voltron Legendary Defender had its issues, but I’m not focusing on that just yet. What the show did well is having a group of diverse characters. Lance, Hunk, Shiro, Allura are all PoC. Most of the characters in the show are in fact PoC, which is really awesome to see. The show dealt with themes of loneliness, war, colonization, loss, and found family. I think for the most part, everything was well done. Was the queer rep done pretty poorly? Yup, I think it’s fair to say it was. But it doesn’t outweigh the other things the show dealt with in a great way. Keith saying “I love you” to Shiro in a completely platonic way was SO IMPORTANT. Men saying I love you and crying and hugging and being able to be emotional and still considered strong is something that still needs to be normalized. It’s still one of the few shows I’ve seen this happen, and since the show is considered to be aimed at “boys” makes it even more important to me.

I could go on for days about how amazing the queer rep in She-Ra is. Adora and Catra was teased and I was worried for a little there that it was going to happen, but then IT DID. THEY KISSED. But not only that, we saw Scorpia have a crush on Catra, Mermista had a crush on She-Ra, Perfuma showed interest in both Bow and Scorpia. Seahawk is such a bi disaster. Double Trouble was one of the first non-binary characters I’ve seen on not just kid’s tv, but in all of tv. Queerness was the norm for She-Ra, it was more strange that Hordak was straight. Now, She-Ra also dealt with themes of identity, abuse, war, love, loss, and more. She-Ra isn’t perfect, but damn it is one of my favourite shows I’ve watched in a while. It’s really amazing.

There’s a reason why Avatar and Korra have a legacy. ATLA holds up. I just finished my rewatch and it still holds up. Are there some stinkers in s1? Yeah, haha. The Great Divide is a pretty rough episode to get through. But these two shows were things I watched growing up. I was the targeted age when Avatar first aired. The themes of abuse, colonization, genocide of a culture, misogyny, and like a billion other topics are addressed in such a mature way, but in a way that kids can understand without it being spoon-fed to them. Master Pakku is such jerk and it’s clear that people know this. The show doesn’t shy away from the damage caused by the Fire Nation. The Legend of Korra has a bit more of darker tone and mature themes, and I feel like they’re dealt with really well. And let’s not forgot that all characters are PoC and and Korrasami was a canon couple, the first of the time. Also, please remember that Korrasami was a BREAKTHROUGH FOR LGBTQA diversity for kid’s television. Respect, big respect.

Kipo and Owl House are two new shows I just started and I’m really enjoying them a lot. The Owl House s1 was so good and I loved all those goofballs. I think I would die for Eda, and Amity is such a dork. Kipo has been really fun and it’s got a great diverse cast of characters, hope it gets a s3! I’m enjoying the Dragon Prince as well, though I do find myself not enjoying it as much as some others are.

Now, after all that has been said. It’s okay to dislike an aspect of a show, or point out the flaws. But at the end of the day, it is aimed at kids. I’ve had people say to me “it’s aimed at kids but they know the audience are adults” and “kids aren’t watching this stuff, they’ve got other stuff to watch.” Yo, that attitude needs to stop please. Kids are watching this stuff. My younger siblings watched all those shows mentioned above, most of them before I even heard of them. My youngest sister LOVES Kipo, she thinks it’s amazing. All media has flaws. It’s silly to think that it doesn’t. Even ATLA has it’s issues, but they’re not large enough to take away from the show. We as the older audience need to stop gatekeeping and acting as if children aren’t watching, because they are. So remember when pointing out the flaw or tearing into something for whatever reason, maybe take a step back for a minute. Shows aimed at kids, regardless, have more constrictions. There are jerks out there who think kids shouldn’t have LGBTQA characters, people who think shows shouldn’t deal with heavy topics, that silly buffer episodes ruin the show for them.

You love these shows, but remember that kids out there do too. Themes that we are used to seeing are so much more nuanced and mature, because they have to be able to showcase it in a way that a kid may understand it, but not in a horrific Game of Thrones style gorefest. Themes that kids should see. I can’t imagine the emotional impact Catra and Adora finally leaving their abuser had. Or Zuko standing up to his father. Or Luz’s mother not understanding her quirkiness. Or so. much. more.

So yeah, I love cartoons. So do my siblings. Love them for everything they are, and be critical of them for sure, but don’t ruin it for the ones that it’s aimed at. Those kids are going to grow up and be amazing humans, and they’re going to create even more awesome things they wished they had when they were young. Remember that.

[jennaschererwrites]

Inside the Groundbreaking Queer Reboot of ‘She-Ra’ | Rolling Stone

We’re all shaped by the myths we grow up with, whether it’s the stories we learn from holy books or Saturday morning cartoons. Kids who see themselves as the hero learn to center themselves in their own life stories. Kids who see their experiences relegated to the sidelines, or not represented at all, come away with a very different lesson — one that can take years to unlearn.

Which is exactly what makes a show like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power so vital. Since its premiere in 2018, Noelle Stevenson’s reboot of the cult Eighties cartoon has joined a revolution in the world of children’s animation, combining classic genre storytelling with diverse representation and a progressive worldview (see also: Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra, Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time and Steven Universe). In its fifth and final season, which dropped on Netflix last month, She-Ra rounded out its 52-episode run by centering a queer romance — specifically, between its hero, Adora, and her best frenemy Catra — and positing that such a love can, quite literally, save the world.

“I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be easy,” says Stevenson, speaking via phone from Los Angeles. “Because this is She-Ra. To have the culmination of her arc be this lesbian love plot is a big deal! And I understood that. But I also felt that it was really important.”

The original She-Ra: Princess of Power was a 1985 Filmation spin-off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which itself was based on a line of Mattel action figures. Set on the planet of Etheria, She-Ra follows a band of magical princesses in their rebellion against the Evil Horde, a totalitarian sci-fi regime bent on global domination. Adora is an ex-Horde soldier who joins the rebellion after she gains the ability to transform into She-Ra, a superpowered Chosen One with glowing blue eyes, a mystical sword, and a very cool outfit.

In 2015, when Stevenson, then 23, found out that DreamWorks Animation was looking for someone to pitch a new take on She-Ra, she jumped at the chance. She was already an Eisner Award-winning cartoonist and writer who had made a name for herself with works like her web comic-turned-graphic novel Nimona and the Boom! Studios series Lumberjanes.

“The world [of She-Ra] is so incredibly vibrant, and has so many powerful female characters. It’s this world that has all my interests rolled into one: It’s got the flying ponies and superpowers and all of these things that, immediately, I was like, ‘I want to do this. I want to be the one to do this,’” she says.

While Stevenson’s reimagination of the world of Etheria pays tribute to its predecessor, it includes some key differences. The reboot transforms the musclebound, scantily-clad grownups of the original series into awkward teens in much more practical (but still very sparkly) clothing. In addition to embracing a diversity of races, genders, and body types, the She-Ra reboot fleshes out the characters and their backstories, giving them fully-fledged arcs and complicating the good/evil binary of the original. The princesses of the rebellion aren’t simply heroic, and the soldiers of the Horde aren’t simply villains; everyone’s just a human being (or scorpion person or alien clone or flying horse, as the case may be) trying to make their way in a world that doesn’t offer easy solutions. It’s also, incidentally, really funny.

For Stevenson, it was crucial that the characters felt three-dimensional, and that it was their choices that guided the direction of the storytelling. “The characters all began with a deep personal flaw, and the process of making the show was kind of giving them the room to process those flaws. But we wanted it to feel organic. We wanted the characters to feel like real people that we knew,” she explains.

From the start, She-Ra’s most compelling tension was always between Adora (Aimee Carrero) and Catra (AJ Michalka), Adora’s childhood best friend who becomes her bitterest rival after Adora leaves the Horde to join the rebellion. In the show’s first four seasons, the two continually fight and reconcile and break apart again, their obsession with each other marking them as something more than frenemies.

“It’s a dynamic that I find really interesting: the attraction and the tension between the villain and the hero, especially when they know each other better than anyone. They love each other, but there’s something between them that cannot be overcome,” Stevenson says.

Stevenson always knew that she wanted the relationship between Catra and Adora to be a romantic one; but she had to walk a fine line, because she didn’t know if the studio would give her the go-ahead to put an explicitly lesbian love story front and center. At first, as in Steven Universe, Rebecca Sugar’s radically progressive series that aired its final episodes earlier this year, she steeped the world of the She-Ra reboot in queerness. The show features multiple side characters in same-sex relationships, characters who flout traditional gender roles, and even a nonbinary character (Double Trouble, voiced by transgender writer and activist Jacob Tobia).

Still, Stevenson, herself a gay woman, wanted young viewers to be able to see a queer relationship that wasn’t just incidental, but central to the plot of the entire series. “I’ve loved these stories my entire life, you know? I was a huge Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fan as a kid. But there weren’t a lot of characters that I felt personally represented by,” she says. “We love what makes these stories classic, but we’ve seen them all culminate in the same kind of romance so many times: The hero gets the girl, he gets the kiss, and then he saves the world. And it’s not just [swapping] the man and the woman for two women. You have to actually approach it from a standpoint of: How do you make these stories, at their roots, queer?

“So that’s what I was trying to do — for little queer kids to see that this is normal, that these are stories that can happen and that exist, and that can center them and make them feel seen and understood.”

Whether or not Adora and Catra’s romance would become canonical was in the hands of the studio, and it was a risk Stevenson couldn’t be sure it would be willing to take. So the show played a long game — hinting at a romantic dynamic between the two without making it explicit, for fear of disappointing fans in the end if they weren’t able to deliver. Fortunately, a groundswell of viewer support for a potential relationship between the characters — a phenomenon known in the fan community as “shipping” — allowed Stevenson to make a case to the studio for supporting the story she wanted to tell with She-Ra.

“Just as I had hoped, people started picking up on this tension and getting really passionate about it,” she says. “It was immediately one of the strongest fandom ships right out of the gate. And that was when I finally showed my hand and was like, ‘Look. We’ve got a bunch of people who, just off Season One, are really, really excited about the gay representation in this show. I have been planning for this. And here’s how it needs to end, and not just because I want a moment that everyone’s gonna talk about. It’s the logical conclusion of both their character arcs. They need each other.’”

Finally, after years of hedging their bets, Stevenson and her collaborators got the go-ahead from DreamWorks. “I really wanted it to be so central to the plot that if at any point they were like, ‘Oh, we changed our minds, we want to take it out again,’ they wouldn’t be able to, because it would be so baked in,” she explains. “The temperature is not always right, and depending on what’s happening in the world, not everyone wants to be the studio that sticks their neck out and makes a statement like this. You will get a flat ‘no’ sometimes. But if you bide your time, or you come at it from another angle, that can change. You just have to keep pushing.”

Feedback for the conclusion of She-Ra has been overwhelmingly positive both from critics and fans. Viewer support has been pouring out in the form of social media posts, YouTube reaction videos, and fan art and fan fiction. Stevenson, who first made a name for herself online with Lord of the Rings and Avengers fan art, has been blown away by the support from She-Ra lovers. “That’s how you know that you’re successful at what you set out to do — if people are getting inspired by the stories that you’re telling. I think that that’s the beauty of fan work, is that it’s an evolution of the genre. We take that inspiration and create something new all the time.”

Unfettered by restrictions, the final season of She-Ra is a tightly plotted, character-driven masterwork, featuring a slow-burn redemption arc, a harrowing villain, and a timely message about the power of love and unity against the forces of repression and tyranny. It’s a show about becoming kinder and more open in the face of unrelenting darkness, about banding together to prepare for the worst, but always hoping for the best in spite of overwhelming odds.

Stevenson says that she and her team began work on She-Ra in the aftermath of the 2016 election. “The veil was ripped off, and we had to reckon with a world that we hadn’t expected. And that theme of relying on each other and being stronger together became so much more relevant,” she recalls. “I remember writing one script after a particularly bad news day where it just felt like nothing was ever going to be OK again. It’s an episode where Adora realizes that there are supposed to be stars in the sky, and there aren’t any more stars. And as Aimee [Carrero] was recording the lines, she was crying, and we were crying, because we were all experiencing this together — the idea that things were changing in maybe irreparable ways.”

The refrain of She-Ra’s catchy-as-hell power-pop theme song is “We must be strong, and we must be brave.” According to Stevenson, that’s easier said than done; but the whole point of the series is that you have to try anyway. It’s a message that rings especially true at this moment in our world when it seems like everything is spinning out of control, and it’s all too easy to feel helpless.

“It always comes back to this — when you realize that there’s a great evil or a great darkness that won’t just go away from one fight,” Stevenson says. “It boils up, and it can be pushed back down, but it’s something that we’ll probably have to be fighting for the rest of our lives. That’s really hard to do, and it makes you really tired sometimes, and it can be really scary. But when you are surrounded by the people that you love, and when you have that love for the people around you, then that strength is possible.”