We’ve already reblogged a post about Steven Universe earlier this week, but I like to emphasize how important this show is whenever I get the opportunity.
As a longtime animation fan, the fact that Steven Universe is diverse not only onscreen, but in its behind-the-scenes cast and crew is major to me. Animation is perhaps one of the most exclusive industries in entertainment. Know that Rebecca Sugar and the Crewinverse created space for all types of POC actors by reaching across the established aisles and choosing people from film, the theatre world, comedy, and even some of their animators is wonderful.
ok so a design tidbit I found really fascinating for Pearl was the way it slowly incorporated less and less of the sheer cloth that was reminiscent of pearl designs as she reformed more and more, like
the earliest incarnation we’ve seen of her was the one from The Answer, and judging from the line colors half of her body had the sheer cloth over her shoulder-less one piece suit thing
then in her 80′s outfit she had it on as a capelet, covering just a quarter of her whole body
in her first season outfit she had it on her neck area and as a small skirt over her shorts,
then finally she has none in her most recent incarnation
idk if it was a coincidental or intentional design point but I felt like it characterized the way Pearl developed as a character- from someone who was freed from subservience but still very much dependent on others to give her orders, to someone with her own individuality and motivations
Entertainment Weekly just did an interview with Rebecca Sugar on her work on SU and it’s a fucking emotional read. She details everything she’s done, the struggles she’s faced, basically everything that stood between her and getting every single piece of rep onscreen for us to enjoy. It makes me appreciate Steven Universe a lot more.
And subsequently it makes me even angrier at Voltron for fucking up so, so badly in this regard.
Throughout the entirety of production Rebecca and the crew works their fucking asses off to get their vision approved, to get their story out there, to make little kids inspired and feel comfortable and optimistic about themselves in an increasingly difficult and depressing world. Fuck, she was willing to lose the show if she didn’t get to tell the story the way she wanted it to because she felt it would be unfair to her audience.
It really makes you think about how hard she’s working to tell her story.
Meanwhile what did Voltron do? Announce Shiro as gay at a comic con panel, and tell us that he had a fiancee named Adam and that we were gonna meet them in season 7, and their relationship would be developed. They hyped it up like crazy. Now, in and of itself that’s not a bad concept! Despite my reservations about Voltron, I was actually excited to see what they would do with this. But, as we found out this weekend, that didn’t exactly… happen.
To put things into perspective, there’s a cow in Voltron that got more screentime than Adam. Adam and Shiro shared one scene together, and they fought in it! Then they fucking killed Adam. A+ representation. You could’ve literally written them as friends and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. (In fact, they did. Because of course.)
Fact of the matter is, Voltron did not care. They used their audience to boost their ratings, lied about their rep, and tried to put the blame on their audience when confronted about it.
Because this is the type of crew you want in charge of LGBT rep, right?
And this is already infuriating enough on its own, but when stuff like this interview with Rebecca Sugar comes out and you learn how much she risks, how hard she works, how much she cares about doing this right and making people feel secure about themselves, it just makes me even angrier at the people who clearly do it just for points, at the people who don’t care about their audience, at the people who just want to brag about how inclusive they are.
In conclusion, stan Rebecca Sugar and fuck Voltron for ever thinking that was a good idea.
Cheloneuniverse 