Snippet Star 6 | Commentary 1
A Smoldering Star
Genre: Meta
Pairs: Not important
Parody: Steven Universe
AU-Type: |x|
Tags: Deconstruction, Thoughts of the Author, Reads more like an Op-Ed
(A/N: Let me explain this. The following is an edited essay I did for a class in college. An evaluation essay, and I chose to review and tear apart this show. If I'm doing commentary for RWBY, this show deserves the treatment. Plus, I do the discussion it brings. And before you ask, I'm posting it long I got it scanned and handed in. Enjoy.)
A Smoldering Star
After the rise and fall of western animation during the 2000s, the New Tens were considered a new Golden Age in animation with the slew of new material that came. Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Regular Show, and Friendship is Magic exploded in popularity with kids and adults. Then came what was a surprise hit of 2013, in the form of Steven Universe greenlit the year before, which was headed by Rebecca Sugar. Rebecca Sugar already had a tie to Cartoon Network being a songwriter and writer for Adventure Time up until its fifth season before leaving to get Steven Universe produced. She had returned to Adventure Time for the "Stakes" miniseries, voicing the character of Marceline's mother, and returning for the series finale. Production on the show began in 2012 as Adventure Time was still on the air. The show came to be when Cartoon Network requested a show idea from her. Thus, she wrote and storyboarded the pilot for CN which was initially posted online in 2013. The pilot animation was done by Genndy Tartkovsky, who is famous for classic shows on the networks such as Samurai Jack. With the pilot being a massive hit, the show was greenlit for a season.
With the show greenlit, a new team was forming which called themselves the "Crewniverse". For the actual show, those working on the animation team included the artistic styling Sugar herself, Lauren Zuke, Ian Jones-Quartey, Hilary Florido, Kat Morris, Jeff Liu, Matt Burnett, and Ben Levin who all double as storyboard writers aiding that team. As for who were made into voice actors, all who voiced the characters in the pilot returned to voice their characters again with Zach Callison, Estelle, Michaela Dietz, and Deedee Magno-Hall as the main cast of Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. For the main characters, it follows the standard team cliché that has been set in stone since the late 1990s. Garnet is the stoic no-nonsense leader of few words. Pearl is functions as the brains of the group. Amethyst is the bruiser with a bit of ego. This leaves Steven as the comic relief and kid appeal character.
The show of Steven Universe follows the titular character in a coming-of-age story as a member of the Crystal Gems. The plot threads of the show all tie to the Gem race, an alien species of sentient rocks. The Crystal Gems had a continual goal of clearing of corrupted Gems, monstrous and destructive members of species. The show also delves into the internal turmoil and struggles each of the four main characters goes through. The show has a sizeable extended cast, but the secondary characters of importance are Steven's musician father (Greg Universe), and the extended members of the Crystal Gems including Connie Maheswaran, Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, and Bismuth. The main plot of the show is focused on the coming of age story of the main character while adventuring with his guardians, the Crystal Gems, defend the world from alien threats. Tied to main plot are the threads concerning the other main leads. Pearl deals with her grief and loss towards the death of Steven's mother and the unrequited love for her. Amethyst's plotline deals with her issues of her self-worth. Garnet's plotline deals with her role as de facto leader of the Crystal Gems and her status as a fusion of two beings.
Steven Universe boasts a rather interesting art style having vivid designs for characters and backgrounds. The background art is rather colorful and greatly details appearing similar to watercolor paintings. The location's designs vary from a range of different set pieces when the show is ready to do so. The character expressions, in the earlier seasons, showed a wide range of emotions even taking a hand as some rather amusing wild takes. The show's soundtrack is also mostly a plus for the show. The show does have memorable themes and tracks had garnered over its run. Unlike most shows, the music uses a chiptune style for most of its soundtrack which is done by composer duo of Aivi Tran and Steven Velema. Rebecca will aid in making tracks with her ukulele and singing voice.
Despite the show's rocky start, the show had broken a few norms and clichés prevalent in children's cartoons. Steven is allowed to feel emotions when he's not told to be like his mom and take up her stead. He is allowed to try to be his own person, at first. Ruby and Sapphire's relationship is a huge plus as a positive representation of same-sex relationships which is rather rare in cartoons and adds to the irony that they are rare within the show itself. However, despite this and the fact that this show came in the "new golden age" of animation, this show suffers from plenty of problems. These problems that were small and could have been overlooked but have grown too large for a rational person to ignore. Firstly, there is the matter of lore which is completely lackluster. The main plot and plot threads mentioned previously are poorly executed and shoddily explored. The lore of the Gem race has been barely explored over the course of the five seasons with Steven's own plotline being mangled in the process. Pearl's plotline overshadowed Amethyst and Garnet's plotline getting rather repetitive quicker than the show could produce episodes. This leads to Amethyst's plotline of dealing with self-loathing suddenly dropped and picked back up only to get a rushed resolution. Garnet was reduced from main character to a tool for exposition to expand on the mechanics of the Gems species.
Usually, a show that deals with aliens being on the planet would deal with an alternate history for Earth. However, the worldbuilding for this show is rather poor to which there's plenty unanswered questions. Important details about this world's history are never expanded on in show, but only through the "Crewniverse's" Twitter and social media accounts which everyone doesn't follow. The fact that the followers have to ask these questions is a failure on the staff's writing ability. Because the show does not bother to show the details how a world like Steven's works, the world is left undefined and empty with "Crewniverse" coming off an ignorant. For example, it was stated by Rebecca through her podcast that any and all form of religion does not exist in the world of Steven Universe. Despite this, Season 3 Episode 1, "Super Watermelon Island", and Season 5 Episode 28, "Escapism" contradicts these statements through the society of the Watermelon Stevens which clearly has a defined religion. It's even worse that in-universe, the days of the week, the months of the year, and planet still keep their names which are tied to various religions. The creators also blatantly use designs cues from Eastern religions on a few character designs namely in the designs of Opal and Sugilite. Clearly, these writers failed to read up on their world history.
Despite their attempts to break cartoon norms, they doubled down on several other cliched norms. There's the trope of having competent female characters that can stand on their own not needing men to save them or tell them what to do. While this trope is not bad on its own, it can be when it is paired with the trope of having an incompetent male receives all the credit overshadowing the hypercompetent who put in the work. It's not there early on, but it becomes more apparent in later seasons. There's also a strong motif of the protagonists not killing despite the show dealing with a war where lives are at stake. Steven especially suffers from this, and unlike, Aang from the Last Airbender who was a monk, Steven has no explained reason for his aversion and his constant resolve to talk things out.
The series' lackluster lore also comes from the prevalent plot holes. The worldbuilding itself is even a plot hole. These holes range from oversights from the crew or them deliberately snarling at their own continuity. These holes are a plenty, but I will list the most egregious examples. In Season 5 Episode 2, "The Trial", Steven is given a trial despite Homeworld being explicitly stated to be dictatorship with a caste system making no sense to have trials. This episode also gives Blue Diamond's character a matter of inconsistency considering that in an earlier episode of she was quicker to threaten death on another character for a smaller offense. In Season 5 Episode 24, "Reunited", marks the second time the Gems used their upgraded weapons which they haven't used since the debut of them in late Season 3. In Season 3 Episode 2, "Gem Drill", features a blatant Deus Ex Machina (a plot contrivance) in giving the massive combination of gem shards that was threatening to destroy the entire world the sudden ability to bubble themselves, neutralizing itself. In the show, Gems can bubble other Gems in their weakened form to prevent them from regenerating. The show has never shown that a Gem could bubble itself before and since the Cluster. The Cluster gets hit with a plot hole again in "Reunited" when it partially forms and not tearing apart the planet despite it being stated it would. Smaller holes come in the form of inconsistencies in character forgetting their powers, the humans not acknowledging the fact that aliens are on the planet, and so on.
It would be believed that despite the lackluster lore, it would be forgiven that the characters are strong and well-written. That is not the case as the characters suffers from a lack of development due to the "Steven-only" perspective. Characters like Lapis and Peridot especially suffer from this as they are stuck in the barn not getting proper development. Characters who are meant to be sympathetic come off as unlikeable and vice versa. The writers want to give the major villains redemption but do not bother to consider that murderous dictators like the Diamond Authority had long crossed the Moral Event Horizon and could not be redeemed. However, the smaller villains like Jasper, Holly Blue Agate, the Ruby Squad, and so on are never even taken into consideration. There is also a considerably large cast, but these characters both main and secondary do not have proper time to develop as Steven and Pearl virtually stole the show in having the most focus. Yes, Steven is the main lead, but so are Amethyst and Garnet. Another strike against the show is the voice acting which can range from ok to unbearable. This stems from the fact that the Crewniverse forgoes getting actual professionals to voice characters and instead to mostly use staff at the office and singers to do so with a few exceptions. They went as far to blow the budget by hiring Nicki Manij to voice act for one episode and got Broadway singers for their villains which was a waste of their talents. Performances tended to vary ranged from terrible to wasting their talent for this show's script.
The animation for this show is poorly done even with the frames "stolen". Scenes were literally copied from more popular and successful shows, especially anime from the shoujo and shonen genres. Even character designs were stolen like Lapis who is a complete copy of Japan's Golden Bat character, Penny, who also had a water affinity. Animation errors frequently pop up because the Crewniverse habitually sends sloppy storyboard to the Korean Animation Studio bringing them to life. The artists do not even bother to a consistent unified art style leading a constant shifting in the appearance of the Gems with character's hairstyles shifting scene to scene or their heights not even matching episode by episode. Fight animation is also a complete joke as they are often floaty, and characters tend to have no weight to them or their attacks.
Another nail in the show's coffin was its scheduling. This show is infamous for its constant strain of hiatus. This proved to be the thing that slowly weaned off most fans as each hiatus got longer and the episodes people were waiting for her were including filler. The network itself also holds the blame as it was ignoring the show in favor of repeating of more lucrative shows.
A deeper issue that the show carries is that it reeks of "unfortunate implications". What are "unfortunate implications"? They are scenes that originally do not mean to offend but end up doing so due to context. Steven Universe is full of these moments having offended many minorities at some point. "Steven Universe has been, from the beginning, doing a poor job of displaying Blackness, Black women, and Black femmes, both in their own rights, and in relation to the non-Black and non-Black coding characters around them." (Riley H)
Characters of colors tend to be either stereotypes or shafted for the sake of the plot. Garnet is a tragic example of someone who started with ample potential only to slowly devolve into an "Uncle Tom" who spouts exposition about Fusion. A minor character, Kofi, merely embodies the angry black man stereotype. The fusion Sugilite which is a combination of the black-coded Garnet and Amethyst is show as a literal Jezebel stereotype who Pearl has an intense dislike of. On the opposite end, there's the implication that Sardonyx, a combo of Garnet and the dainty white-coded Pearl, is the superior fusion. It's even worse that a character literally inspired by minstrel cartoons in the 1930's which were racist toward Black people nearly made it into the show. The character "Concrete" would up in the artbook having a description of having a big shoe collection and that she could not read. There was even the infamous "Zoo Arc" which showed humans into a literal zoo which was owned by Pink Diamond to which it was the excuse by the artists to draw "hot people" completely ignorant that human zoos were a real life thing that housed African-Americans and Native Americans to be gawked at by rich white people. The backlash of this caused a clumsy retcon to shift the blame from Pink to Blue and Yellow. Connie's culture is consistency scrubbed out and they have her habitually makes moronic decisions for the sake of the plot alongside Garnet. Cultures were scrubbed out due to in fact to the writer's laziness and Rebecca "no-religion" remark. For example, Lars makes a traditional Filipino dish, but it's never acknowledged as one. We do not even learn what the dish was, but it's to serve as a reminder that Lars is Filipino. However, the group that was done the dirtiest was the LGBT community. Said community was promised plenty from this show, but it never truly delivered. The Gem species being mono-gendered served as a cheap way to have LGBT characters and appease the censors. This method backfired in part that it made the heterosexual cross-species pair of Rose Quartz and Greg Universe the one that stands out the most. Ruby and Sapphire would make for good representation but are rarely on screen having been shoved aside for Garnet. The only other candidates would be Pearl who reeks of being a psycho lesbian at her absolute worst, and Rose, who literally manipulated Pearl and was more focused on how many men she could meet.
Speaking of Rose/Pink Diamond, the character is a point of contention for the fans. Ever since the reveal, the impact on the fanbase caused a deep split. There are those applauded the twist, and those who found the twist completely moronic. Regardless of opinion, this twist came to the show's descent downwards. In theory, the idea of revealing Steven to be a Diamond could have evened the tide to give the Crystal Gems a leg against Homeworld. However, it served to give Steven "privilege" for him to talk the Diamonds out into not shattering them, and even calling the Diamonds "family". For most, the twist was a bad omen of things to come leading to many disillusioned fans dropping the show and the numbers increasing with each passing episode.
The reasons for this drop in the show's fans was due to the handling of the show's main "antagonists", the Diamonds. Rebecca Sugar had stated the show was not meant to have antagonists which, considering the theme the show was aiming for, is completely ridiculous. Yellow Diamond had started off strong as a purely terrifying antagonist, got massive hype by the fanbase on her first appearance alone, but ultimately ended up a disappointment. There was a reason for this as her villainous attitude and motif was not written by Sugar. When Sugar did take the reins, Yellow was hit with the same attempts to try and make her sympathetic while excusing her terrible actions. There was a back and forth between the other writers and ultimately Sugar won out. Blue Diamond was on a similar boat. She was introduced as a terrifying force seen in flashback only for it to seemingly disregarded to show a weeping pathetic ineffectual villain who can do nothing but weep and expect people to feel sorry for her. Remember this character threatened to murder two of the main characters of a minor offense earlier. However, the show wants you to forget that. It even has the nerve to let the two easily forgive "Pink Diamond" despite the fact she is literally responsible for the entire Gem War. Finally, there is White Diamond which was built up to be the "true villain", but there was no point to it for two reasons. One, it's stated specifically that to undo corruption to save the corrupted gems they need all four Diamonds and Steven had Blue and Yellow backing him which ensured White was going to get "redeemed" utterly making the entire plot's hanging threads pointless and hitting a metaphorical brick wall to run them out of ideas.
Overall, in concept, Steven Universe could have become the next big shot alongside Adventure Time and Regular Show. However, it's executed poorly. With no proper writers and shoddy artwork, the show was set on a downhill path. Despite this, I ended up a fan of the show like many, I saw potential in when the show began. Over time, that love for the show waned and as it became the butt of jokes nowadays by its former fans. This show is rancid, and I would not want kids to even see it. Funny enough, this show is only on for the teenage and adult fanbase watching as kids have grown to really dislike the show as the seasons go on. I long for the day when this show ends or gets cancelled. Kids and animation fans deserve better.
(A/N: If anyone wants me to talk a commentary on a specific character to hear my thoughts. I will consider your request. It would be as long as this essay though. Next up, we'll be diving into a one-shot.)