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Any donations received at this time will be used to purchase firewood, supplies, and food to take care of those critically in need.”
Steven Universe got blatantly and unapologetically cancelled by the network because the creators pushed for a lesbian wedding, and instead of going, “oh, fuck, that’s incredibly homophobic, we should give Cartoon Network hell for that for the rest of forever, holy shit,” everyone collectively decided to blame the crew for “rushing the ending” as if it wasn’t completely out of their hands. Fuck’s sake.
“Ren why do you even care so much?”
Because I study queer media history as a hobby, am working on an intense project on media censorship, and the way Steven Universe was treated is a fucking textbook example of queer content getting shut down by the powers-that-be.
It was literally censored in reaction to its inclusion of queer content. This isn’t a secret and it never has been. Rebecca Sugar has been completely open about how hard they had to fight against homophobia at Cartoon Network. Steven Universe is a case study of anti-queer censorship from a mindset of “think of the children.”
Steven Universe is a historically significant piece of queer media, and watching in real-time as it went from “progressive queer show” to “the subject of the most rancid bad-faith discourse I have ever seen” is genuinely alarming to me as a queer media hobby-historian.
[ID: A screenshot of a comment from tumblr user mechfried, saying, “Wait, that isn’t working out here, they wouldn’t cancel the show for having a gay wedding, but than [sic] give the same creator a movie and a second show to continue that story.” End ID.]
“Cancellation” doesn’t just mean “immediately ended.” Cancellations can include shortenings.
These photos are from the “End of an Era” artbook.
Transcript:
Rebecca Sugar: After the publication of The Answer in 2016, I was pulled into a meeting and asked to explain myself. I had been told to play down this relationship, and now it existed as a book. In every meeting like this, I would defend our stories and our audience of queer youth–they deserve cartoons and picture books, too. I would leave these meetings feeling rattled. I drew this self-portrait the night of The Answer book meeting. [Portrait not included in this photo.]
Transcription:
We decided it would be an inexorable part of the story. And then the back-and-forth started, and no one wanted to say the real concerns, so instead it was, “Will this appeal to our demographic of six-to-eleven-year-old boys?” But Ben 10 had an alien wedding, Powerpuff Girls had a wedding–there was no question that the Cartoon Network audience would definitely watch a wedding. Arguments were made that it was “out of character” for Steven to want a wedding, but we’d covered our bases there with the episode “Open Book” [S1E51], which had already aired ages ago. It’s old news that Steven loves weddings. I wouldn’t bend on the story, and every time there was a concern about it not being entertaining enough, I would add more: A big musical number! A huge fight! A half-hour special! This thing will be so entertaining it’ll blow kids’ hair back!
“But if Steven Universe gets a gay wedding, then every show is going to want a gay wedding!” “YES!” I said. “GOOD! WHY NOT???”
Eventually the decision came down from on high: We could have the wedding. I knew that was an extremely difficult call to make, and that we were going to be censored heavily and pulled in many countries because of it. And we didn’t know at that time if this would mean the end of the show. It looked as if the writing was on the wall, and we were working toward the end.
I had been told this would be the final pickup for us, and I campaigned for an additional six episodes on the end of the season in order to wrap up the story–this became the Era 3 arc.
Navigating a cosmos of relationships was a lot for a young person like Steven as he attempted to find the good in everyone and hook that connection that would allow positive change to blossom in the minds of others. His powers were going to be put into the test in so many more ways as the series moved through this slate of episodes, building steam toward an interplanetary conflict.
there is something so darkly comical about tumblr potentially outliving twitter
tumblr, which is held together with duct tape and madness, run by three raccoons in blood stained Yahoo! hats and a handful of crabs, its only discernible source of income the sale of shoelaces from an inside joke so inside no one knows the original source anymore and fake blue checkmarks… that website still lives on
truly the cockroach of social media and I love it for that
Buff Doge: “The medicated ADHD brain.” The doge has some planners and a highlighter in hand and has two capsules on their shirt. Next to them is a pile of clean, folded laundry.
The list below them describes them as: - created 6 color-coded lists, 4 visual diagrams, and 3 rough drafts + used 15 sticky notes + did 3 hours of research and prep without breaks in order to write a 4-sentence Thank You note. - aroused at the sight of bullet points - understands graphs - answers messages within 30 minutes of receiving them - just spend 45 minutes making this meme - “yeah, I know where my tablet pen is! I left it right h ere so I’d remember :)”
Weak Doge: “The unmedicated ADHD brain.” The dog is sitting down, pen in hand, crying, with piles of wrinkled laundry behind them.
The list below describes them as: - I need to do my months-old laundry but every time I remember I need to do it and try to think what the first step is my brain turns to static and I can’t move - has 3 simple chores to complete in the next 8 hours; spends 7 hours staring at the wall and refreshing twitter - can’t figure out the answer to 4+7 without counting on my fingers - 57,537 unread emails - rewatching a movie I’ve already seen for the 12th time instead of watching anything new
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211 notes
7:01pm
February 13, 2023
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