Steven's Universe

I spent this weekend babysitting "The Terra". And since it was rainy and miserable the whole time, we ended up spending a lot of it in front of the telly. Watching Steven Universe. Because that's what Terra's into at the moment. Apparently.

While I don't watch a lot of cartoons these days, I have a real soft spot for hand-drawn animation. And even though I'd never really sat down and watched it before, I was still familiar with Steven's reputation for being the "gayest" kids' show ever made. More on that later. Episodes are 10-15 minutes long, which is perfect for today's ADD generation. Each episode contains its own complete story arc, but there's also a single continuous story that runs through the entire thing, so you have to watch them all in order if you want to know what's going on. Heh, it's funny you know; I've read numerous times about how, right up until the 1990s, all of the "market research" said that continuing story-lines were poison for television. Now look at the media landscape. I guess nobody was taking note of the long-running success of daytime soaps, eh?

Anyway, there's this huge backstory to the plot, which gets revealed a little bit at a time; but for the sake of clarity, I'm just going to describe the events of the story in chronological order. Oh, and by the way, I can't imagine anyone here is planning to watch it, but on the off chance that you are, be aware that the rest of this post is going to be pretty spoiler heavy.

So, there's this alien race called "Gems", which are basically sentient rocks with psychic powers. And when I say rocks, I don't mean they're anthropomorphic rock people, I mean they're literally just lumps of rock, about the size of a tennis ball. In order to get around and interact with the world, they project bodies that are basically hard-light holograms. Gems don't have sex, but they are able to "fuse" which means two or more of them coming together to form a single holographic body. This can be done for practical reasons, but it's also the ultimate expression of intimacy within Gem culture. However, since Gem society is rigid, utilitarian, and caste based, intimate relations are frowned upon and fusion between Gems of different castes is seen as an abomination.

Also, while Gems are "technically" sexless, they're all effectively women. Meaning that all Gem on Gem action is pretty much lesbian in nature, which is where the show gets its reputation from.

Anyway, 5000 years ago, Gems colonised Earth, with the intention of using it up, like a disposable resource. However, one high-ranking Gem fell in love with the planet, and led an uprising of all the Gems who were sick to death of the oppressive caste system. They won, and the Earth was left in peace. Fast-forward to today, and all that's left of the rebellion is the leader (Rose) and three of her most loyal followers (Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl); and even after millennia, they're still cleaning up the mess from the uprising, like those people who go around clearing away landmines and cluster-bombs left over from the Vietnam war.

Then Rose falls in love with a human man and decides she wants to have his baby; which she can't do, because she's a rock. So she somehow takes a piece of his essence and uses it to transform herself into a baby. So, now Rose's three loyal followers are left doing shitty work on a planet that they don't personally care that much about, while their leader, whom they would have followed into hell, has abandoned them to become a child, that they are now in charge of raising.

And so, that child, the titular Steven Universe, becomes the protagonist of our story. A boy who isn't quite human and isn't quite a Gem, but is struggling to learn what it means to be both, while also dealing with all the baggage his mother left behind. The magic of the show is in the way it marries light-hearted magical cartoon adventure with really fuckin' heavy emotional shit. Here's an example of an episode which made me laugh, as well as shed a tear:

Note: Watching one episode out of the blue, probably isn't going to have the same impact, but it might be worth knowing that in Gem society, Pearls are a lowly servant caste, who function as fancy ornamental handmaidens for the ruling elite.

In a world where I'm increasingly confused and frustrated by the stuff that kids are into, at least Steven Universe is something I get. And realistically, that's probably about as much as I can ask for.