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‘steven universe’ is beautiful in its queerness, here are some articles written from queer perspectives.

By • On • In scott • 3 min read

One of the most important things about Steven Universe – both on a broader cultural level and a deep personal level for many – is what it means to people in the LGBTQIA+ communities, as well as other communities underrepresented in the myopic mainstream cultural lens.

SU was created and run by a nonbinary, bisexual genius; it tells stories (including the overarching narrative) written from queer perspectives; it normalizes queer characters while also making them visible to kids; and it depicts queer joy when all too often queer characters are written as exclusively tragic, suffering figures.

As a cisgender, heterosexual man, that’s not my story to tell, but I believe it would be unforgivable to leave the beautiful queerness of Steven Universe unsung. So, I’m linking to essays/articles/posts by people with a personal connection to this aspect of the show. Every single one of these links is well worth your time, and if you want to find more, they don’t even represent the tip of the content iceberg.

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“Steven Universe” Is the Queerest Cartoon on Television – “The show is also boundary-breaking for the way it portrays queerness; in fact, it may stand as the most progressive cartoon on TV in terms of queer representation.” 

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Steven Universe is the glaad-award winning kids show i wish i had growing up – “I love the normalcy Steven Universe applies to LGBTQ+ topics. The show treats queerness and gender fluidity as completely normal and okay—because they are! And children need to know that.”

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Steven Universe creator has done more for LGBTQ visibility than you might know – “We need to let children know that they belong in this world,” [Sugar] says. “You can’t wait to tell them that until after they grow up or the damage will be done. You have to tell them while they’re still children that they deserve love and that they deserve support and that people will be excited to hear their story. When you don’t show any children stories about LGBTQIA characters and then they grow up, they’re not going to tell their own stories because they’re gonna think that they’re inappropriate and they’re going to have a very good reason to think that because they’ve been told that through their entire childhood.”

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Steven Universe Is the Queerest Animated Show on TV – “What’s radical about Steven Universe, the brainchild of Adventure Time alum Rebecca Sugar, is not that it shatters gender boundaries. It glides over them as if they didn’t exist in the first place.”

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Steven Universe: 5 Ways This Kids Show Was Queer Before Its Lesbian Kiss – “Since its premiere in 2013 on Cartoon Network, the show has wielded zany comedy, drama, and visual metaphors to teach its children—and adult—viewers that identity isn’t chained to heteronormativity.”

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Steven Universe: The Movie Prepares The Queer Community For A Fight – “At the heart of Steven Universe is a theory of social change that values empathy and emotional intelligence over violent, direct action. It’s not that the show abhors violence. The characters match fist-for-fist, whip-for-whip, and sword-for-sword with their enemies all the time, and at one point organized militarily to protect the Earth. It’s that violence is rarely deemed a final answer for solving systemic problems, and only used when nonviolent approaches fail. We truly win, the show argues, when we emotionally connect with our enemies and convince them to abandon their endeavors.”

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Steven Universe creator says farewell, knowing her show made young LGBTQ viewers feel seen – “Sugar dealt with what were perceived to be ‘very difficult themes around youth television: mental health, issues of gender orientation, sexual orientation, trauma,’ Sorcher says. ‘And I think that she handled all of those issues with a grace and an elegance that made all the difference.”

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The Queer Ecology of Steven Universe – “Steven Universe offers a narrative of living with without resignation: living with failure, living with damage, and living with hope. Its queer ecological ethic demands action and imagines efforts that aren’t perfect and are still better than what we had before.”

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This one isn’t from a queer perspective, but I included it anyway:

How Steven Universe Taught Me to Embrace My Neurodivergent Identity – “This repeated theme of learning to accept our differences in how we look, think, and love as a strength, not a weakness, is why Steven Universe has become so popular, especially with members of the LGBTQ and neurodivergent communities. For kids, teens and adults who felt their identities to be a source of shame, Steven Universe provided not only a safe, colorful world which showed characters struggling with those same issues and growing from them, but also a thriving, passionate community of like-minded fans.

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why everyone should watch ‘steven universe,’ or, get ready for a bunch of ‘steven universe’ content.

By • On • In scott, shows, television • 4 min read

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during this decade we call 2020, it’s that friends don’t let friends sleep on Steven Universe. [Thanks, Josué!] So, if no one has done it yet, let me be the one to tell you that you need to watch this show!

Creator and showrunner Rebecca Sugar is an amazing talent, and I’m dead serious when I say that, along with the rest of the Steven Universe team, they’ve created one of the most well-crafted stories television has ever produced.

Don’t make a huge mistake by preemptively writing off the Cartoon Network show as a silly, insubstantial, run-of-the-mill kids show. It’s certainly chock full of silliness, it’s accessible for kids and written with them in mind, but that barely scratches the surface of what Steven Universe is. Teeming with empathy, the show is also droll, inventive, clever, inclusive, charming, inspiring, whimsical, and emotionally resonant. Love and kindness, acceptance and optimism, somehow the show’s creators don’t just illustrate those things, but reach out through the screen and offer them to the viewer.

A cartoon doesn’t become a low-key cultural phenomenon for no reason, and Steven Universe has done just that, inspiring a devoted cult of adult fans. As this post makes obvious, I’m a proud convert to the Church of Steven. That’s because the show – with its beautiful philosophy of what we all mean to each other, and how we can and should treat one another and ourselves – genuinely makes me want to be a better person, and more than that, I believe it’s already helped me on my way. [More on that in next week’s post.]

I will say that for the first 20 episodes or so [each episode is 11 minutes long] the show more closely resembles what most people might expect: a charming kids show about a sweet, hilarious little boy getting himself into trouble around Beach City, and tagging along for adventures with a team of badass, super-powered aliens called the Crystal Gems. But by the time you reach episode 23, the seeds of deeper themes have begun to sprout. [Let me be clear, even in the early episodes – and other similar episodes throughout the series – the show is still a delight. For example, the comic timing is genius from the very beginning.]

The show’s depth becomes more and more apparent as Steven grows up significantly in a relatively brief timeframe. Unlike the characters in most shows – for adults and kids alike – Steven is permanently changed by his experiences in consistent and believable ways. And that goes for every other character on the show, who (almost) all change considerably between their first appearance and the final episodes. There is never a shift in character – large or small – that isn’t earned. There are no changes or developments that don’t fit the narrative and emotional trajectory built into the show. Even in Steven Universe: Future, which is a significant departure from the earlier tone, and wasn’t foreshadowed throughout the original series, the change feels natural. It’s a believable extension of the original arc, considering what the characters have been through up until that point.

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And unlike the vaaaaaaaaaaaast majority of shows, it’s clear Sugar had a plan all along. With nearly 35 hours of story [six seasons and a movie!], released over the course of nearly seven years, there isn’t a single significant course correction or retcon [i.e. retroactively pretending previous story developments never happened or happened differently]. Thanks in large part to the remarkable job they did laying a solid foundation in season one for the original series-long story arc as a whole, the entirety of the show is tight and unified. Rewatching the show, I see subtle moments and Easter eggs in early episodes that pay off in future seasons, sometimes several years and dozens of episodes later. Even in the wake of “peak tv,” I’ve never seen it done this well.

Oh yeah, and speaking of believable, incremental growth: the worldbuilding is incredible. They’ve dreamed up an engaging, original universe [no pun intended!], and it is gradually and organically revealed as Steven learns more about his world, his family, the past, and himself. The worldbuilding, as well as plot and character, is never moved along by shoehorned exposition. Every revelation is narratively centered and earned.

But the most important reason you should watch Steven Universe, is that I genuinely believe it matters even more right now. It’s the perfect antidote to the current horror show we find ourselves in. Even at its “shallowest,” it offers a bit of goodness, some hope and delight in a dark world.

At its most affective, it’s a powerful story about how to be a person. It’s about loving the people around us optimistically, always looking for who they are underneath the fear and ignorance and rough edges. It’s about believing that, with a little room to fuck up and learn and change, people can actually grow into the person they had the potential to be all along. It’s about believing people can learn there is another way to be themselves and see the world. And the show is clear that the person who we need to love like that is very often ourselves.

Those are powerful, life changing things to learn at any time, but the reason why the show is so important for this moment is that while it embraces that beautiful philosophy, it’s also about never walking away from a fight when it’s time to defend and protect those who need it. The show makes it clear that loving the difficult people never means allowing harm or injustice. Steven always hopes for change, but he never waits for it at the expense of others. He is empathy personified, and he can’t look away while someone suffers. He will always choose to stand between any person and those who mean them harm.

This show is the opposite of both the interpersonal and the systemic toxicity and ugliness at the core of the world as it is.

All that to say that Steven Universe is wonderful and significant, and you should watch it.

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