As I prepared for the sermon I preached at my church several weeks ago, this notion of loving the enemy stayed fresh in my mind and I joked with the youth group that I’d preach about Steven Universe (some of the kids are fans). Both this series and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic have told us redemptive… Continue reading Loving the Enemy and Building Community in My Little Pony and Steven Universe
Tag: Steven Universe
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Fusion: Mysterious Unity in Steven Universe
This is an article I wrote that was originally published on The Ontological Geek. Steven Universe follows Steven and his caretakers Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl as they chill in Beach City, saving the world from monsters and aliens who want to destroy Earth. Steven’s guardians are “gems,” an all-female alien race from a planet called Homeworld,… Continue reading In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Fusion: Mysterious Unity in Steven Universe
Transcendence and Subtlety in Queer Ships
Queer erasure and censorship in media isn’t a new problem. Although things have certainly changed in recent years, overt representation of queer women in cartoons (and anime to a lesser extent) is still pretty sparse. Where it does occur, it’s sometimes embedded in some type of spiritual or transcendent narrative in which the transcendence of… Continue reading Transcendence and Subtlety in Queer Ships
Comparing Matriarchies: My Little Pony and Steven Universe
Both My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Steven Universe present matriarchal societies in which women fulfill the most powerful roles in their worlds. In My Little Pony, it’s the alicorn princesses. In Steven Universe, it’s the Great Diamond Authority. Yet both of these matriarchies show vastly different applications of power. Equestria’s matriarchy is more… Continue reading Comparing Matriarchies: My Little Pony and Steven Universe
Wholeness Through Defectiveness: Reversing Homeworld’s -isms in Steven Universe
Steven Universe continues to prove itself an effective series that relays important messages and provides characters that allow its fans to speak to wider cultural issues. As a children’s fantasy story, it has the space to put social commentary in plain sight while passing it off as world-building. This is one of the great things… Continue reading Wholeness Through Defectiveness: Reversing Homeworld’s -isms in Steven Universe
The Garnet #BlackLivesMatter Mural and the Power of Fictional Characters
During the Baltimore uprising, I made this post with some brief reactions I had at the time as well as a collection of articles for more in-depth reading. I reflected on how the kind of criticism I do on this blog is easy, in a sense, because narrowing down the broad topic of intersectionality to… Continue reading The Garnet #BlackLivesMatter Mural and the Power of Fictional Characters