In praise of She-Ra

Drascus

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I have to say that the writing on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is fantastic. It hits the level of its target audience perfectly without sacrificing complexity of characters. Noel Stevenson and her team should be really proud of their work.

I'm also really excited that they were able to show such amazing LGBTQ+ representation. Not just with the now-famous ending, but with the married gay couples that didn't need commentary. They were allowed to just exist.

Too often fantasy storytelling ports prejudice and problems over from our world when there's no story purpose for it in the fantastic world. If a story is about queer oppression, of course, draw from real world material. If the story isn't about queer oppression, or POC struggles, etc, then there's no reason to say to a reader/watcher "This part of your life is crappy in my fantasy world too".

For a few years now I've tried to make sure that my storytelling doesn't bring those tropes in unless it's a story in our world, or the story has something to say about it. It's a huge breath of fresh air to see that attitude in mainstream commercial media.

Any other She-Ra watchers out there? I'm a fan, and not because I have a 9 year old in the house, though she is also a huge fan. :)
 

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Cheering you all on!
I love She-Ra & the fifth season blew away my expectations.

Having lived through so much television where any LGBTQIA+ characters were merely fun subtext I could read into the characters & relationships, I had trouble accepting that some that were in fact canon in this show were more than wish fulfillment. The show had plenty of rep that was obvious: Netossa & Spinnerella, Bow’s dads, Double Trouble, my gal Scorpia. There was also some subtext that never became text (for example, Bow’s initial adoration of Seahawk could just be that he thinks he’s so cool, but could be read as a crush; speaking of Bow, some read him as trans, which the showrunner says is great, but not intentional).

But the show’s main romantic pair always felt like wishful subtext in the first four seasons. It wasn’t until the fifth season that I let myself believe that it was romance, that it was *meant to be* romance. I know I wasn’t alone, because as I read articles about queer rep in the show, none talked about this pair as proof of it, other than a few suggestive scenes.

Hopefully this will be a huge step forward in queer rep across television shows, & us viewers won’t have to “protect ourselves” from the idea that what we see might only be subtext rather than a build up to a romantic climax because we’ve been left with only wish-fulfillment in the past.
 

Drascus

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For real! I couldn't let myself believe either until Catadora was finally canon. It's sad now much people just accept that they're going to get queerbaited and accept it.

Hopefully this is one more rock breaking out of the dam. I really hope that shows have to demonstrate better representation after this if they want to hook the queer demographic.

I just want to squeal happily every time I think about the show's ending. I don't ever have to post stuff like, "catadora forever, fite me" because it's actually really real. Really gay and really real. In the era of a genuine Nazi resurgence it's nice to have unqualified good news like this.
 

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I'm lucky I have to wear a mask at work, because the amount of time I'm grinning like a fool thinking about the ending is quite a lot of my day.
 

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I’ve been rewatching She-Ra, & I feel my fear of being queerbaited by Catradora wasn’t quite as unreasonable as season 5 would have me believe. Season 1 gives you good reason to believe in their romance, but as the show progresses through season 4, it really does feel less & less like that’s what the showrunners are going for. Then season 5 immediately drops the hints again for both Catra & Adora. I read an interview ( https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358 ) where Noelle Stevenson says that she wanted to make sure that by the time they solidified the Catradora romance, it’d be inevitable, & that’s true for season 5, but I feel like if she meant to build that up through the seasons, it wasn’t as inevitable as she wanted until then.

Anyway, I’m back to season 5 & taking it a little slower this time to savor it.

- - - Updated - - -

I’ve been rewatching She-Ra, & I feel my fear of being queerbaited by Catradora wasn’t quite as unreasonable as season 5 would have me believe. Season 1 gives you good reason to believe in their romance, but as the show progresses through season 4, it really does feel less & less like that’s what the showrunners are going for. Then season 5 immediately drops the hints again for both Catra & Adora. I read an interview ( https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358 ) where Noelle Stevenson says that she wanted to make sure that by the time they solidified the Catradora romance, it’d be inevitable, & that’s true for season 5, but I feel like if she meant to build that up through the seasons, it wasn’t as inevitable as she wanted until then.

Anyway, I’m back to season 5 & taking it a little slower this time to savor it.
 

Drascus

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I’ve been rewatching She-Ra, & I feel my fear of being queerbaited by Catradora wasn’t quite as unreasonable as season 5 would have me believe. Season 1 gives you good reason to believe in their romance, but as the show progresses through season 4, it really does feel less & less like that’s what the showrunners are going for. Then season 5 immediately drops the hints again for both Catra & Adora. I read an interview ( https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358 ) where Noelle Stevenson says that she wanted to make sure that by the time they solidified the Catradora romance, it’d be inevitable, & that’s true for season 5, but I feel like if she meant to build that up through the seasons, it wasn’t as inevitable as she wanted until then.

Anyway, I’m back to season 5 & taking it a little slower this time to savor it.

Seaons 2 and 3 were only 13 episodes together, which means there's a missing season in there. I'm not sure why, was that during the writer's strike? In any case, I think Season 4 had to carry narrative weight that it wouldn't have had if there had been an extra season. Every episode feels like it's pushing hard on the plot.

We also get a LOT less screen time for Horde characters in that season, particularly Catra and Hordak. I would have loved to see more Catradora for sure. Hell, I would watch Catradora the movie. :D Or a "Gay space mermaids" show as someone suggested on twitter.

My thought is that the He Man reboot can have gay space mermaids, and that Prince Adam can hook up with Stratos! What would we call that ship? Stratam? Adamtos?