#the simple wrongness of its use in the og video already degrades the point to some extent

[sevenines]

just watched this video essay and. it sucks because he really is very positive about steven universe in it but simultaneously he is just so wrong.

he uses it as the main example of something having ‘queer rep that focused on being good but not messy’ which is a bizarre take that sounds like it came from someone who only ever heard the reputation of SU or has watched the show once years ago and never again. pearlrose is right there. also, while not as explicitly romantic, you could even go with jaspis.

the most unfortunate thing about this is that SU can be a very good and extremely relevant show to support the themes of his essay. he basically argues that though authentic queer stories are always being told, the only ones that get picked up by corporate are sanitized versions.

you can say so much about this with SU alone. yes! rupphire is meant to be the most wholesome pairing up there. to be on par with cute iconic disney couples and show how queerness isn’t inherently explicit. it’s every-person-who-calls-for-unproblematic-queer-rep’s dream. but it is entirely misleading to talk about rupphire while omitting SU’s other extremely explicit queer couple: pearlrose. it is undeniably messy, with a severe power imbalance that gets taken advantage of and scenes of ugly, ugly jealousy. it’s there! it’s just as much a part of the show as rupphire is. people in the essay’s comments keep on saying “we can have both”. there! SU has both.

relevant to the essay, while CN has since used rupphire merch for glorious glorious rainbow capitalism, pearlrose not so much. because it’s better to market what’s cute and wholesome than something like pearlrose. or how in the UK, the pearlrose dance/kiss transition in ‘We Need to Talk’ got censored but not the desperate larsadie make out scene in ‘Island Adventure’ nor any of the wholesome rupphire scenes.

there is a similar yet milder problem with how he uses SU as a part of his videos as seen in his ‘YouTube Critics Are Lying to You’ essay. he brings up SU criticism but gives it the least depth/detail compared to the other examples despite having its own section and being in the thumbnail.

so much can be said about SU. unfortunately, its reputation precedes its content.