In regards to "filler" episodes, I think it's important to note that a lot of them, especially early in the show, also serve to introduce new gem powers and concepts in the background. An example I often think about is "Winter Forecast". We learn that Garnet's future vision powers can be passed to Steven by kissing him on the forehead. So when "Jail Break" comes along and Garnet gives Steven future vision in order to find the cell holding Pearl and Amethyst, the show doesn't have to spend time explaining what is happening. What economical storytelling. Many of these episodes are structured this way; a slower, character-focused main story that still sprinkles in worldbuilding. "Cheeseburger Backpack" gives us our intro to Jamie, shows us that Pearl can project holograms, establishes that there were more Gems than just the Crystal Gems on Earth and that these Gems built grand structures here, and sets up "The Test" (which Rebecca and Ian have called a pivotal episode). That's a lot for 11 minutes while also still being mainly a character story about Steven, his relationship with each of the Gems, and his strengths and weaknesses. But one of the more interesting examples I often think about, especially in relation to Future, is "Onion Gang". The episode gets a fair amount of criticism, and I can understand why. But I think it's cool that in this story mainly about Onion, we get a bit about how Steven feels down because he doesn't really have friends his age to hang out with, with the implication that he doesn't have the same life experiences as other humans (Connie was busy with back-to-school shopping and PeeDee was working). This character thread comes back big time in Future. So many of these episodes are working on multiple levels and I think that's some very impressive writing. And they're doing all of this while also doing exactly what you talk about, giving the audience a reason to get invested in the townies, making the world richer, and giving us growth on the part of the Gems. Not to mention that there are simply some stories that you can't do with the Gems, episodes like "Joy Ride". That's a lot of work for so-called "filler" episodes to do.
Thank you for the video. It's always nice to see more open, thoughtful fans of the show talk about it. I had some thoughts while watching that I hope you don't mind me sharing. In regards to Rose and how the show depicts her, I personally love the complexity of her character and the way it is revealed to us throughout the show. The Steven POV is so perfect for this. Because the show is so strict about us only seeing what Steven does and only knowing what he knows, we really do get this complex picture of Rose, as you discuss. I like how this more closely mirrors reality. People who grow up without one or both parents don't get perfect knowledge of who that person was. Like Steven, they have to piece together a picture of that person from what is left behind: records, pictures, videos, anecdotes from the people who knew them. You can get conflicting information or learn things you'd rather not. You may even be told things that just aren't true at all (like the story Garnet tells about Rose and the Rebellion in "Your Mother and Mine"). It's something Steven struggles with throughout the show and we struggle right alongside him because of the Steven POV, because we only know what he does. That's a really interesting experience to convey to your audience and one of the reasons for why I think the Steven POV is so fundamental to what makes SU different from other shows. And at the end of the day, it's worth keeping in mind that Rose was written this way on purpose. Rose was a necessary sacrifice to make the show so much more. For the Sardonyx arc and "fusion is sex" discourse, yeah, that's super dumb. And it is unfortunate because I've always appreciated how the conflict was written. Pearl's misleading Garnet in order to fuse into Sardonyx is something that perfectly aligns with who she is. To start, Pearl is a Gem and Gems come into existence knowing what their purpose is. Pearls are meant to be servants and she knows that she wasn't built for fighting. Though she trains and works at it, she still feels weak and inadequate (low self-esteem). Another aspect is that while Gems can change, it does seem like a Gem's original "purpose" never fully leaves them. We see this with Peridot too in her desire to continue being a Kindergardener, which motivates her to grow vegetables at the Barn. Pearl says in "Friend Ship" that she's just a Pearl, useless on her own, and needs someone to tell her what to do. Now that she has lost her original HW purpose (to serve Pink Diamond) and the new purpose which replaced it (to be with Rose Quartz), Pearl feels lost and directionless. And on top of that, Pearl also misses the loving relationship she had with Rose, likely including fusing into Rainbow Quartz. When you take all of this together, that Pearl has low self-esteem, that she feels lost, and that she misses being in a loving relationship, her decision to trick Garnet into fusing into Sardonyx becomes understandable. It doesn't excuse Pearl's actions but it does explain them. And it makes the whole conflict and arc feel natural. This wasn't just some thing that the writers slapped together haphazardly to create drama. It is a conflict born directly from her nature as a Pearl and her particular life experiences. And this isn't limited to this arc, the show is written this way basically throughout. The way characters behave in this show always originates from who they are as a person. It's part of what makes SU's characters feel so real. Admittedly, a lot of this info would come out after the Sardonyx arc. But it was all stuff that the writers of the show already knew about and planned to reveal in time (and of course they had no say on airing schedules). When it comes to the Diamonds and how the show handled them, I think I have a different perspective on it than a lot of others. For example, I don't really understand why some people get so upset about the colonization that the Diamonds did. Yes, of course colonizing planets and therefore destroying the organic life on them was horrible. But when you really think about it for a second, it's not far off at all from what us human beings do in real life. We are actively going into natural habitats to "develop" them and exploit their resources. In the process, we kill billions of animals and eliminate viable ecosystems. We've been responsible for the extinction of many animals and likely will be responsible for many more in the future, especially if we don't do enough to stop climate change. Now, doesn't that sound an awful lot like what HW did? They never went around hunting down humans. They came to planets like Earth to turn them into functional colonies. To make them useful, much like how many people think turning a forest into a new factory or Walmart is useful. And in the process, organic life died out. At least to me, what the Diamonds did and what we're doing don't differ much at all. Except that the Diamonds at least have the excuse of being inorganic beings. Why would they care about organic life from a different, faraway world? In contrast, us humans literally share DNA sequences with many of the animals we're pushing to extinction. These are beings so similar to us, fellow residents of Earth. Yet we don't seem to really care. So many people frame HW colonization as this unforgiveable evil when in reality, it's a reflection of humankind and what we're continuing to do even now. What does that say? I also think it should be mentioned that even from a logical standpoint, changing the minds of the Diamonds and keeping them around as a course of action makes sense. Most obviously, all 4 Diamonds are needed to reverse the effects of corruption. If any of them were to be bubbled or shattered, then there'd be no way to heal those Gems. And once Future introduces the concept of Yellow Diamond being able to heal shattered Gems, they also become necessary to accomplish that goal (Yellow even says that she plans to restore all of the Gems that were put together to form the Cluster). It's also likely that bubbling or shattering the Diamonds, even just White alone, would have had terrible consequences. We saw how much the shattering of Pink Diamond affected Jasper, how she still longed for revenge thousands of years later. We saw how dedicated Peridot was to Yellow Diamond. If White were to be suddenly bubbled or shattered, one could easily imagine something like a Gem Civil War breaking out between Gems who support White and the old Homeworld system vs. Gems who support changing things like Steven suggests. Including the Diamonds in the reforms to HW ensures that things go smoothly and avoids these consequences. Of course, that all relies on the Diamonds genuinely wanting to change, and luckily they did. SU is a great kids show and Rebecca herself has always referred to it as that and talked about it that way. But I also think it's unique among those shows because it is a kids show that tries to tackle real topics in real ways and treats its characters like real people. That's partially what the Sardonyx arc is. It handles the very real topic of consent and acquiring it under false pretenses (even between friends) by actually having a situation in the show where that happens. And it really imparts that feeling of betrayal to the audience because of how real it is. This isn't a sanitized parable meant to cleanly impart some lesson. It's a messy slice of real life, and that's why it sticks with us. Or look at the Rose discourse. In real life, people are not perfect. Wonderful, good people can be hugely flawed too. They can make mistakes. And they can change. What a brave decision it was to make Rose like that too. She's gone by the events of the show. They could have easily made her into some paragon of virtue, the ultimate Mary Sue. But they sacrificed that in order to make her a real person with real flaws that one could relate to or learn from. Yes, it opens up the character to criticism and maybe even some people hating her, but that's more than worth it to tell such a richer, realer story. I really respect the writers for making decisions like that. It may have led to some haters, but it made SU so much better as a piece of media. To be clear, I am not saying that SU's writing is 1:1 with reality. The Sardonyx arc is still a metaphor. The Diamond Days arc is still a metaphor. But they are metaphors with enough reality to them that they still resonate with audiences. Go too abstract with these things and we can no longer relate or see ourselves in their struggles. I think there's a fine balance to be struck between reality and abstraction, and I think SU often hits that mark. Wow, this got a bit longer than I expected. Sorry about that, but you seem like the type who wouldn't mind too much. Again, thank you for the video, for continuing to try to spread the good word of SU.
Thank you for these thoughts. I largely agree that a lot of the weight of the show's storytelling is in it proactively using its status as a kids show to be able to abstract these conflicts into these big events to help shine a light on very real conflicts between loved ones, families, friends, etc. I don't want to imply that SU is a lesser show or anything by its nature as TV for kids, kind of the opposite. It uses its genre incredibly well, and I worry that the lack of media literacy in favor of an adherence to fiction as a 1:1 representation of the writer's personally held beliefs on how the world should function is incurious and frustrating, not just for SU in particular, but for all media.
Oh, I don't take the term "kids show" to be derogatory at all. That's exactly what SU has always been and always will be. And being an "adult show" is no guarantor of quality either. And yeah, that's what I meant when talking about SU striking the right balance between reality and abstraction. Leaning too far in either direction can hurt the message. Unfortunately, a lot of people lean heavily towards viewing the show as if it were reality, as if every character's decision is supposed to be some message to the audience about how to be. And yes, anyone who is only capable of looking at art in its most literal sense without considering deeper metaphors or meanings is someone who has no idea how to analyze media. I'm reminded of the "Rambo" series of movies, how the first one, "First Blood", was a social commentary on the Vietnam War and how veterans were treated afterwards. But a lot of audiences weren't interested in stories like that, they just wanted literal shootouts between good guys and bad guys. And so the rest of the "Rambo" movies became generic action flicks with little deeper meaning. And they were quite successful. Now, there's nothing wrong with some mindless action. But I've always thought it was sad that the real work of art at the center of "Rambo" was abandoned for mass appeal. In any case, audiences like that are not the types that think deeply about what they're consuming, so trying to argue or debate with them is kinda pointless. If they want to stick to a literal interpretation of SU and refuse to see the deeper message, nothing will stop them. All I can hope for is that enough real artists with real vision continue to step up to create meaningful pieces of art. And when they do, I will try to support that art.
This was such an excellent video!! It's so relieving to see someone so concisely refute some of the weirder criticisms of the show. Very well made, thank you for making it!! :D
I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that Steven Universe is a flawless show or anything (the pacing is pretty bad tbh) but so much of the hate especially recent hate just feels contrarian in nature along with flanderizing characters or deliberately misrepresenting things just to make the show look worse
The one and only part of Lily's criticism of the diamonds is that I think they made them _too_ monstrous if you think about it for 10 seconds. I am fully for the representation of getting through ignorant and/or condescending family members, but I think it would feel more justified to redeem them if the diamond authority didn't go quite as far. That's the one and only thing I agreed with.
I was ultimately disappointed that Steven Universe felt the need to present the half-baked answers it did have to its central questions as though they were big, conclusive and satisfying. Yes, it backtracked on a lot of that sentiment, but it honestly felt like it wasn't able to embrace the discomfort of not knowing what the answers are, but still trying your best despite that. That doesn't make it a bad show in my opinion, just a deeply flawed one that took many good elements and ultimately was not able to create of them a complete picture. If you want to understand my disappointment, check out shows like Princess Tutu or Digimon Tamers, which managed to center around either profound resolution or profound and visible lack of resolution far more elegantly while still being accessible to young audiences.
It's weird that showing grotseque and disturbing imagery, making it explicitly clear that the villains are fusing together the harvested souls of millions of people to create a weapon and making it explicitly clear that an entire race of beings are born to be slaves for all eternity at the bottom of a caste system are somehow considered more kid friendly then cursing. I get why cursing disqualifies shows from being considered kids shows but I don't see how this stuff is any better
Lily orchard is a predator and that's lowkey a core reason why she's into attacking political youtubers now. Basically she likes to use kids media to groom kids into her nsfw discords and whatnot. She also likes to benefit from that whole "you're so much more mature and know so much more about how dark the world really is" thing that is super common and easy to trigger in young people (between 12-23 for the most part) who have experienced trauma, especially sexual or related to abusive/conservative parents in nature. So she does like to play off of that "yes your abusive conservative unaccepting family are literal nazis that want you dead and can't be reasoned with so just stuck with me kid" thing kinda intentionally imo. Also why she tends to get very animated over topics like pedo stuff while also making questionable content herself. In a lot of ways when you lacked anyone to stand up for you or give you words for why so many things you're surrounded by just seem and feel off and uncomfortable or triggering. She was there to tell you that yes indeed that actually is about rape and how if it happens in the family/friends then it's on the victim to make nice and forgive the rapist to make everyone else happy and THIS is grooming kids and like THE reason those kinds of things happen. Come join me, the only person who takes these things seriously and really cares about what people like you have been through. She also doesn't like it when her potential victims (adolescent and young adults who lack stable support networks, understanding, or other meaningful connection irl, especially people who live in conservative families but are not strictly heterosexual or cis. Hence she doesn't like the term queer, and wants to decry anyone who uses the term as a homophobe and one of those oppressive conservatives out to make their lives worse and you can trust her because she's a trans woman. When she got her youtube start, she was one of the few openly far leftist channels. Even liberals were hard to find. But youtube was dominated by reactionaries, anti theists, and aggressively "apolitical" types that didn't really care how problematic they were being until it got enough mainstream blowback to warrant a logan paul like apology tour. (I was kinda in her fandom for a while right after I moved out of my mom's house at 19. Being from a very rural area in oklahoma and being the only leftist I knew and extremely queer, autistic, and attached to my comfort medias with a ton of trauma to work through put me into a perfect storm to attach to her, though I always tried to be mindful to not become too much of a stan for anyone and to stay critical etc. For a while I did get sucked in, even knowing that I was depressed that she was about as good as I could find and her energy consistently just made me feel bad and gross and upset and I frequently didn't even agree with her. But felt compelled to support and watch her anyway out of solidarity and lack of any other connections really. So I do know what it's like being on that side of it, but it's also been almost a decade now and I have since learned more about her, myself, the world, and patterns in general. So I also know how manipulative and full of it she is). This whole mindset ended up on the radar of some queer youtubers, naturally. Ones who made something of a call out. I think essence of thought (another trans woman) was the main one. This led to Lily decrying everyone critical of her takes as being TERFs and reactionaries who just want to oppress and silence trans women. Which led to a snowball of other queer youtubers (largely trans women of the leftist persuasion, like contra points) getting dragged into it and told to weigh in on the "Q word discourse" at the very least. Leading to Lily getting more worked up and more invested in trying to decredit all the other leftist trans women on the site so that she is the sole authority and none of her problematic behavior gets called out. Which in turn led to her going after the concept of people being political on youtube at all (despite as I mentioned earlier, using her anarchist tendencies and willingness to engage and talk positively about things like communism was like the main thing that attracted me to her in the first place, as she had used her own poltics as a way to brand and expand her channel as being like the anti anti sjw brony channel. SO hypocrisy, nothing new)
That said I also don't think it's fair to be offended that "a jewish person (impacted by the holocaust) could be a fascist" Not in a world with israel (a jewish state explicitly created to give a place for ashkanazi jews to feel safe) upholding extremely racist policies witthin its nation against even ethopian and other non white jews. Let alone none jewish citizens, or even the palestinian natives. Let alone all the token clowns prageru and the like like to trot out so they can say "look this minority said it, so it can't be problematic" It's extremely lazy politics divorced from the real world and how things are actually working
I'm not entirely sure she's a pedophile specifically. I think she's just targeting people she sees as vulnerable and easy to lead into a (sometimes sexualized) cult. I just also don't think she really cares that much about age in general. Which in reality has bad consequences too, including sexual harm to children. But it is important to me to precise with what I say and explicitly accuse her of. Cause it's super easy to discredit something as inciteful as a "pedophilia accusation" cause there's tons of ways to downplay the kinds of things she's been accused of which mostly translates into just being more sexually relaxed and suggestive and the critics being "puritanical homophobes that want everyone to be pure all the time". So in addition to me generally trying to be mindful with words, I also think it's extra important to be so when it comes to lily orchard and her harmful behaviors.
It amazes me how the fandom is still alive and rocking even after the show ended... we're really perseverant!!
In regards to "filler" episodes, I think it's important to note that a lot of them, especially early in the show, also serve to introduce new gem powers and concepts in the background. An example I often think about is "Winter Forecast". We learn that Garnet's future vision powers can be passed to Steven by kissing him on the forehead. So when "Jail Break" comes along and Garnet gives Steven future vision in order to find the cell holding Pearl and Amethyst, the show doesn't have to spend time explaining what is happening. What economical storytelling.
Many of these episodes are structured this way; a slower, character-focused main story that still sprinkles in worldbuilding. "Cheeseburger Backpack" gives us our intro to Jamie, shows us that Pearl can project holograms, establishes that there were more Gems than just the Crystal Gems on Earth and that these Gems built grand structures here, and sets up "The Test" (which Rebecca and Ian have called a pivotal episode). That's a lot for 11 minutes while also still being mainly a character story about Steven, his relationship with each of the Gems, and his strengths and weaknesses. But one of the more interesting examples I often think about, especially in relation to Future, is "Onion Gang". The episode gets a fair amount of criticism, and I can understand why. But I think it's cool that in this story mainly about Onion, we get a bit about how Steven feels down because he doesn't really have friends his age to hang out with, with the implication that he doesn't have the same life experiences as other humans (Connie was busy with back-to-school shopping and PeeDee was working). This character thread comes back big time in Future. So many of these episodes are working on multiple levels and I think that's some very impressive writing. And they're doing all of this while also doing exactly what you talk about, giving the audience a reason to get invested in the townies, making the world richer, and giving us growth on the part of the Gems. Not to mention that there are simply some stories that you can't do with the Gems, episodes like "Joy Ride". That's a lot of work for so-called "filler" episodes to do.
Rebecca Sugar is one of the greatest victims of media illiteracy of the last decade
Thank you for the video. It's always nice to see more open, thoughtful fans of the show talk about it. I had some thoughts while watching that I hope you don't mind me sharing.
In regards to Rose and how the show depicts her, I personally love the complexity of her character and the way it is revealed to us throughout the show. The Steven POV is so perfect for this. Because the show is so strict about us only seeing what Steven does and only knowing what he knows, we really do get this complex picture of Rose, as you discuss. I like how this more closely mirrors reality. People who grow up without one or both parents don't get perfect knowledge of who that person was. Like Steven, they have to piece together a picture of that person from what is left behind: records, pictures, videos, anecdotes from the people who knew them. You can get conflicting information or learn things you'd rather not. You may even be told things that just aren't true at all (like the story Garnet tells about Rose and the Rebellion in "Your Mother and Mine"). It's something Steven struggles with throughout the show and we struggle right alongside him because of the Steven POV, because we only know what he does. That's a really interesting experience to convey to your audience and one of the reasons for why I think the Steven POV is so fundamental to what makes SU different from other shows. And at the end of the day, it's worth keeping in mind that Rose was written this way on purpose. Rose was a necessary sacrifice to make the show so much more.
For the Sardonyx arc and "fusion is sex" discourse, yeah, that's super dumb. And it is unfortunate because I've always appreciated how the conflict was written. Pearl's misleading Garnet in order to fuse into Sardonyx is something that perfectly aligns with who she is. To start, Pearl is a Gem and Gems come into existence knowing what their purpose is. Pearls are meant to be servants and she knows that she wasn't built for fighting. Though she trains and works at it, she still feels weak and inadequate (low self-esteem). Another aspect is that while Gems can change, it does seem like a Gem's original "purpose" never fully leaves them. We see this with Peridot too in her desire to continue being a Kindergardener, which motivates her to grow vegetables at the Barn. Pearl says in "Friend Ship" that she's just a Pearl, useless on her own, and needs someone to tell her what to do. Now that she has lost her original HW purpose (to serve Pink Diamond) and the new purpose which replaced it (to be with Rose Quartz), Pearl feels lost and directionless. And on top of that, Pearl also misses the loving relationship she had with Rose, likely including fusing into Rainbow Quartz. When you take all of this together, that Pearl has low self-esteem, that she feels lost, and that she misses being in a loving relationship, her decision to trick Garnet into fusing into Sardonyx becomes understandable. It doesn't excuse Pearl's actions but it does explain them. And it makes the whole conflict and arc feel natural. This wasn't just some thing that the writers slapped together haphazardly to create drama. It is a conflict born directly from her nature as a Pearl and her particular life experiences. And this isn't limited to this arc, the show is written this way basically throughout. The way characters behave in this show always originates from who they are as a person. It's part of what makes SU's characters feel so real. Admittedly, a lot of this info would come out after the Sardonyx arc. But it was all stuff that the writers of the show already knew about and planned to reveal in time (and of course they had no say on airing schedules).
When it comes to the Diamonds and how the show handled them, I think I have a different perspective on it than a lot of others. For example, I don't really understand why some people get so upset about the colonization that the Diamonds did. Yes, of course colonizing planets and therefore destroying the organic life on them was horrible. But when you really think about it for a second, it's not far off at all from what us human beings do in real life. We are actively going into natural habitats to "develop" them and exploit their resources. In the process, we kill billions of animals and eliminate viable ecosystems. We've been responsible for the extinction of many animals and likely will be responsible for many more in the future, especially if we don't do enough to stop climate change. Now, doesn't that sound an awful lot like what HW did? They never went around hunting down humans. They came to planets like Earth to turn them into functional colonies. To make them useful, much like how many people think turning a forest into a new factory or Walmart is useful. And in the process, organic life died out. At least to me, what the Diamonds did and what we're doing don't differ much at all. Except that the Diamonds at least have the excuse of being inorganic beings. Why would they care about organic life from a different, faraway world? In contrast, us humans literally share DNA sequences with many of the animals we're pushing to extinction. These are beings so similar to us, fellow residents of Earth. Yet we don't seem to really care. So many people frame HW colonization as this unforgiveable evil when in reality, it's a reflection of humankind and what we're continuing to do even now. What does that say?
I also think it should be mentioned that even from a logical standpoint, changing the minds of the Diamonds and keeping them around as a course of action makes sense. Most obviously, all 4 Diamonds are needed to reverse the effects of corruption. If any of them were to be bubbled or shattered, then there'd be no way to heal those Gems. And once Future introduces the concept of Yellow Diamond being able to heal shattered Gems, they also become necessary to accomplish that goal (Yellow even says that she plans to restore all of the Gems that were put together to form the Cluster). It's also likely that bubbling or shattering the Diamonds, even just White alone, would have had terrible consequences. We saw how much the shattering of Pink Diamond affected Jasper, how she still longed for revenge thousands of years later. We saw how dedicated Peridot was to Yellow Diamond. If White were to be suddenly bubbled or shattered, one could easily imagine something like a Gem Civil War breaking out between Gems who support White and the old Homeworld system vs. Gems who support changing things like Steven suggests. Including the Diamonds in the reforms to HW ensures that things go smoothly and avoids these consequences. Of course, that all relies on the Diamonds genuinely wanting to change, and luckily they did.
SU is a great kids show and Rebecca herself has always referred to it as that and talked about it that way. But I also think it's unique among those shows because it is a kids show that tries to tackle real topics in real ways and treats its characters like real people. That's partially what the Sardonyx arc is. It handles the very real topic of consent and acquiring it under false pretenses (even between friends) by actually having a situation in the show where that happens. And it really imparts that feeling of betrayal to the audience because of how real it is. This isn't a sanitized parable meant to cleanly impart some lesson. It's a messy slice of real life, and that's why it sticks with us. Or look at the Rose discourse. In real life, people are not perfect. Wonderful, good people can be hugely flawed too. They can make mistakes. And they can change. What a brave decision it was to make Rose like that too. She's gone by the events of the show. They could have easily made her into some paragon of virtue, the ultimate Mary Sue. But they sacrificed that in order to make her a real person with real flaws that one could relate to or learn from. Yes, it opens up the character to criticism and maybe even some people hating her, but that's more than worth it to tell such a richer, realer story. I really respect the writers for making decisions like that. It may have led to some haters, but it made SU so much better as a piece of media.
To be clear, I am not saying that SU's writing is 1:1 with reality. The Sardonyx arc is still a metaphor. The Diamond Days arc is still a metaphor. But they are metaphors with enough reality to them that they still resonate with audiences. Go too abstract with these things and we can no longer relate or see ourselves in their struggles. I think there's a fine balance to be struck between reality and abstraction, and I think SU often hits that mark.
Wow, this got a bit longer than I expected. Sorry about that, but you seem like the type who wouldn't mind too much. Again, thank you for the video, for continuing to try to spread the good word of SU.
Thank you for these thoughts. I largely agree that a lot of the weight of the show's storytelling is in it proactively using its status as a kids show to be able to abstract these conflicts into these big events to help shine a light on very real conflicts between loved ones, families, friends, etc.
I don't want to imply that SU is a lesser show or anything by its nature as TV for kids, kind of the opposite. It uses its genre incredibly well, and I worry that the lack of media literacy in favor of an adherence to fiction as a 1:1 representation of the writer's personally held beliefs on how the world should function is incurious and frustrating, not just for SU in particular, but for all media.
Oh, I don't take the term "kids show" to be derogatory at all. That's exactly what SU has always been and always will be. And being an "adult show" is no guarantor of quality either.
And yeah, that's what I meant when talking about SU striking the right balance between reality and abstraction. Leaning too far in either direction can hurt the message. Unfortunately, a lot of people lean heavily towards viewing the show as if it were reality, as if every character's decision is supposed to be some message to the audience about how to be. And yes, anyone who is only capable of looking at art in its most literal sense without considering deeper metaphors or meanings is someone who has no idea how to analyze media. I'm reminded of the "Rambo" series of movies, how the first one, "First Blood", was a social commentary on the Vietnam War and how veterans were treated afterwards. But a lot of audiences weren't interested in stories like that, they just wanted literal shootouts between good guys and bad guys. And so the rest of the "Rambo" movies became generic action flicks with little deeper meaning. And they were quite successful. Now, there's nothing wrong with some mindless action. But I've always thought it was sad that the real work of art at the center of "Rambo" was abandoned for mass appeal.
In any case, audiences like that are not the types that think deeply about what they're consuming, so trying to argue or debate with them is kinda pointless. If they want to stick to a literal interpretation of SU and refuse to see the deeper message, nothing will stop them. All I can hope for is that enough real artists with real vision continue to step up to create meaningful pieces of art. And when they do, I will try to support that art.
She just doesn’t miss with these.
This was such an excellent video!! It's so relieving to see someone so concisely refute some of the weirder criticisms of the show. Very well made, thank you for making it!! :D
22:10 hits really hard
Thank you for making this essay
this is a really fucking good video.
aaaa thank you cease
I can't believe Rebecca Sugar invented Cartoons
huge if true....
wonderful video as always. love your voice also.
I LOVE "The Owl House", it makes me feel hopeful. Also love "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts", and "Dead End: Paranormal Park" "for similar reasons.
I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that Steven Universe is a flawless show or anything (the pacing is pretty bad tbh) but so much of the hate especially recent hate just feels contrarian in nature along with flanderizing characters or deliberately misrepresenting things just to make the show look worse
Excellent work Vi
I genuinely think Steven Universe is the one of most misunderstood pieces of media of the 21st century.
The one and only part of Lily's criticism of the diamonds is that I think they made them _too_ monstrous if you think about it for 10 seconds. I am fully for the representation of getting through ignorant and/or condescending family members, but I think it would feel more justified to redeem them if the diamond authority didn't go quite as far. That's the one and only thing I agreed with.
I was ultimately disappointed that Steven Universe felt the need to present the half-baked answers it did have to its central questions as though they were big, conclusive and satisfying. Yes, it backtracked on a lot of that sentiment, but it honestly felt like it wasn't able to embrace the discomfort of not knowing what the answers are, but still trying your best despite that. That doesn't make it a bad show in my opinion, just a deeply flawed one that took many good elements and ultimately was not able to create of them a complete picture.
If you want to understand my disappointment, check out shows like Princess Tutu or Digimon Tamers, which managed to center around either profound resolution or profound and visible lack of resolution far more elegantly while still being accessible to young audiences.
i like the girl doing a spindash at 12:32 :3
people need to separate the work from the fandom
It's weird that showing grotseque and disturbing imagery, making it explicitly clear that the villains are fusing together the harvested souls of millions of people to create a weapon and making it explicitly clear that an entire race of beings are born to be slaves for all eternity at the bottom of a caste system are somehow considered more kid friendly then cursing. I get why cursing disqualifies shows from being considered kids shows but I don't see how this stuff is any better
Lily orchard is a predator and that's lowkey a core reason why she's into attacking political youtubers now.
Basically she likes to use kids media to groom kids into her nsfw discords and whatnot. She also likes to benefit from that whole "you're so much more mature and know so much more about how dark the world really is" thing that is super common and easy to trigger in young people (between 12-23 for the most part) who have experienced trauma, especially sexual or related to abusive/conservative parents in nature. So she does like to play off of that "yes your abusive conservative unaccepting family are literal nazis that want you dead and can't be reasoned with so just stuck with me kid" thing kinda intentionally imo. Also why she tends to get very animated over topics like pedo stuff while also making questionable content herself. In a lot of ways when you lacked anyone to stand up for you or give you words for why so many things you're surrounded by just seem and feel off and uncomfortable or triggering. She was there to tell you that yes indeed that actually is about rape and how if it happens in the family/friends then it's on the victim to make nice and forgive the rapist to make everyone else happy and THIS is grooming kids and like THE reason those kinds of things happen. Come join me, the only person who takes these things seriously and really cares about what people like you have been through.
She also doesn't like it when her potential victims (adolescent and young adults who lack stable support networks, understanding, or other meaningful connection irl, especially people who live in conservative families but are not strictly heterosexual or cis. Hence she doesn't like the term queer, and wants to decry anyone who uses the term as a homophobe and one of those oppressive conservatives out to make their lives worse and you can trust her because she's a trans woman. When she got her youtube start, she was one of the few openly far leftist channels. Even liberals were hard to find. But youtube was dominated by reactionaries, anti theists, and aggressively "apolitical" types that didn't really care how problematic they were being until it got enough mainstream blowback to warrant a logan paul like apology tour.
(I was kinda in her fandom for a while right after I moved out of my mom's house at 19. Being from a very rural area in oklahoma and being the only leftist I knew and extremely queer, autistic, and attached to my comfort medias with a ton of trauma to work through put me into a perfect storm to attach to her, though I always tried to be mindful to not become too much of a stan for anyone and to stay critical etc. For a while I did get sucked in, even knowing that I was depressed that she was about as good as I could find and her energy consistently just made me feel bad and gross and upset and I frequently didn't even agree with her. But felt compelled to support and watch her anyway out of solidarity and lack of any other connections really. So I do know what it's like being on that side of it, but it's also been almost a decade now and I have since learned more about her, myself, the world, and patterns in general. So I also know how manipulative and full of it she is).
This whole mindset ended up on the radar of some queer youtubers, naturally. Ones who made something of a call out. I think essence of thought (another trans woman) was the main one. This led to Lily decrying everyone critical of her takes as being TERFs and reactionaries who just want to oppress and silence trans women. Which led to a snowball of other queer youtubers (largely trans women of the leftist persuasion, like contra points) getting dragged into it and told to weigh in on the "Q word discourse" at the very least. Leading to Lily getting more worked up and more invested in trying to decredit all the other leftist trans women on the site so that she is the sole authority and none of her problematic behavior gets called out. Which in turn led to her going after the concept of people being political on youtube at all (despite as I mentioned earlier, using her anarchist tendencies and willingness to engage and talk positively about things like communism was like the main thing that attracted me to her in the first place, as she had used her own poltics as a way to brand and expand her channel as being like the anti anti sjw brony channel. SO hypocrisy, nothing new)
That said
I also don't think it's fair to be offended that "a jewish person (impacted by the holocaust) could be a fascist" Not in a world with israel (a jewish state explicitly created to give a place for ashkanazi jews to feel safe) upholding extremely racist policies witthin its nation against even ethopian and other non white jews. Let alone none jewish citizens, or even the palestinian natives. Let alone all the token clowns prageru and the like like to trot out so they can say "look this minority said it, so it can't be problematic"
It's extremely lazy politics divorced from the real world and how things are actually working
I'm not entirely sure she's a pedophile specifically. I think she's just targeting people she sees as vulnerable and easy to lead into a (sometimes sexualized) cult. I just also don't think she really cares that much about age in general. Which in reality has bad consequences too, including sexual harm to children. But it is important to me to precise with what I say and explicitly accuse her of. Cause it's super easy to discredit something as inciteful as a "pedophilia accusation" cause there's tons of ways to downplay the kinds of things she's been accused of which mostly translates into just being more sexually relaxed and suggestive and the critics being "puritanical homophobes that want everyone to be pure all the time".
So in addition to me generally trying to be mindful with words, I also think it's extra important to be so when it comes to lily orchard and her harmful behaviors.
Not reading allat 🗿
@@DOG_EATER_1887 that was always an option 🙄
yipee!
Also, this has to be the weirdest show I've ever seen. It's definitely a lot to take in, I'll say that