Wednesday 15 February 2017

My Favourite Characters - Steven Universe

I’ve never been a big fan of overly masculine uber cool heroes. The Humphrey Bogarts, The Clint Eastwoods, the Chuck Norris’ and every James Bond ever. All I see there are generic power fantasies of dull men with no depth or even a personality to stick to. Don’t get me wrong, I have my power fantasies just like everyone, but I like mine to actually be invested. Stallone’s career is a great example of when it works and when it doesn’t work. Why should I care about what happens to Marion Cobra when he seemingly doesn’t care, or is even remotely affected by what’s happening to him? Meanwhile a character like John Rambo is a literal one man army, but is also suffering from PTSD and is unfairly judged and abused by everyone which lead him down a tragic path…at least for the first movie, then he turns into the generic cool dude.

With that being said, let’s talk about Steven Universe. Easily one of the most progressive shows of all time, and certainly the most progressive children’s show, dealing with themes of sexuality, gender identity, abuse, amongst a million other things. It’s also a show with a huge roster of well developed characters and even though it starts off as a simple “Underdog heroes fight oppressive fascist overlords” it eventually fills in the details that make things more complicated than that. The leader of the heroic rebellion seen as the personification of all that is good turns out to have committed horrible acts for her cause, while members of the evil and prejudice overlords turn out to be misguided, manipulated or abused by their higher ups, fighting a war they don’t believe in, but are forced to fight regardless. Hell, even the big baddies aren’t straight up evil, suffering from depression and grief over the death of a loved one and having conflicting views on when they should go from there. Almost every character is multifaceted, no one is entirely good, no one is entirely evil, no one is entirely happy and no one is entirely irredeemable. That brings us to Steven.

Steven is a half-alien child who has slowly been developing magical powers and the more of the alien world that he was exposed to, the more cruel he saw everyone to be. Within what is just over a year in the show’s timeline he has seen people he was told enemies actually being damaged individuals who just needed help, and on the other side of the coin he’s seen people he thought were allies turn out to be disturbed and near-sighted fighters of war who are unable to move on. What does Steven do during all this? He fights, but he also forgives. It’s no accident that all of Steven’s powers are based on defence, he has healing abilities, has a magical shield, and even is able to see into people’s minds and feel their emotions, giving him greater empathy for what his opponent is going through.

Steven is a character that always wants to see the best in people, wants to believe everyone can be helped and redeemed and that they can all be friends, but the show is constantly throwing things at him trying to prove that’s not true. He finds out his mother is a war criminal, he has several recurring villains constantly try to kill him and even on a physical level he gets the shit kicked out of him a lot. Emotionally, Steven’s also not a secure person, he’s suffered plenty of emotional trauma, and for a 13 year old boy, yeah it’s kind of hard to process and deal with everything that has happened to him. He doesn’t have all the answers, heck, he doesn’t even have all the questions. For me, a great character is ones who has a clear set of beliefs and the world is constantly challenging them on that, yet they don’t move. The world keeps telling Steven you can’t redeem everyone, that you have to view the world as a good vs bad scenario, that not everyone can be your friend. He doesn’t buy it. He fights to end the fight, to find a middle-ground where no one has to be the loser. Is that unrealistic? Of course, and the show has made it perfectly clear that it can’t happen, eventually, someone has to lose, and people have been lost on the way, but he’s not broken because of it. He’s not cold or vengeful, he’s still Steven.

Steven is not a perfect character, but that’s kind of what makes him perfect. He has a great set of ideals, he’s very expressive in his emotions, he always wants to help, and he’s not made fun of it for it. No one ever tells him he’s wrong for being compassionate, or for not wanting to solve his problems with violence, or that he cries all the tim—Well okay, that is kind of a recurring joke in the show and with the fans that the characters cry way too much. But that’s besides the point, Steven, the 13 year old boy in pink, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, and wants to make the world a better place, not through violence, but through kindness, and frankly, in the world we live in now, I think this is an important lesson for us all to learn, especially for our kids.


-Danny

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