The Battle for LGBT+ Content in Cartoons

changing the law of the land so that same-sex marriage was legal that was like a huge uh you know hurdle for people to overcome when we were when we were writing jailbreak in 2014 and that wasn't true it was just it was just no go yeah um but it became harder and harder to say no when when it was a clear human rights [Music] violation [Music] so it's the end of pride month 2020. we had a pretty gay ending to dreamworks she-ra and of course steven universe was a thing that happened and hey we even got a character from kippo saying that he was gay on screen all in all cartoons have started to really turn the corner in terms of what they're showing to their audiences but while this is something to be happy about i think along with celebrating our success it's also important to acknowledge what it took to get these moments on screen in the first place because i honestly feel like the struggles that come with even a sliver of lgbt plus representation aren't very well known and while these victories should be celebrated it's also important to acknowledge that we still have a long way to go so today we're going to talk about the struggles of including lgbt plus content in the media more specifically western cartoons made for a general audience this means that adult cartoons like bojack horseman south park and family guy will be excluded especially when it comes to representation of kind of like queer couples like i just always want to make sure that it feels like this is something that can really happen here it's not ridiculous these characters like really care about each other and like like these relationships are really happening so in order for us to understand why this has been such a struggle for such a long time let's get a little bit into the reasons why lgbt plus content is so sparse in the first place now these reasons in hindsight are incredibly obvious and easy to understand homophobia but i'm still going to go through them anyways as well as refute the main arguments against lgbt plus inclusion while i go along while queer characters have been in animated media such as the simpsons since the 1980s it's fairly new for children and family-oriented media adult animated media like futurama and south park have more control over the type of content they include in their shows because the assumption is that it's mostly adults who are watching it once you're making shows with children or even teens as your targeted demographic things start to become a little more difficult while these shows can be watched and enjoyed by any age group they're still made with children as the demographic that they're primarily trying to appeal to the adults in this case are just a welcome added bonus with children's oriented media there's a lot of guidelines and rules as to what can be shown or implied on screen this is why you hear such ridiculous censorship stories such as the infamous four kids yu-gi-oh incident where the guns were completely taken out of the scene and replaced by pointing fingers censorship isn't exclusive to just lgbt plus content but it is the one that's most aggressively fought against this comes from children-centered networks being overly cautious with what they're exposing their watchers to as well as parental backlash with modern media having such a large influence over the lives of kids while they're growing up it is incredibly important for their parents to know what they're watching whether this be from what's on the tv or what they're watching on youtube there can be some mild to very concerning messages spread in the content that they're consuming and so being cautious is never really a bad thing unfortunately this also bleeds over to harmless messages as well you have a lot of parents claiming that the lgbt plus content is brainwashing their child with the leftist agenda or at the very least attempting to do so you also get the claims that the content is trying to turn their kid gay amongst other ridiculous assumptions and accusations this has been one of the main reasons that networks have been hesitant in the past since being progressive wasn't necessarily profitable until fairly recently and for the most part it still isn't though this has less to do with our society and more about foreign funding and their outdated views but we'll get to that later in the video so keep that in mind for later a lot of these arguments are rooted in homophobia and are disguised as concern for their children for example teaching love and acceptance for people who are different from you isn't leftist propaganda it's called being a decent human being which judging by these parents reactions to these cartoons i think it's fair to say that's a foreign concept for them and secondly seeing a gay couple in a cartoon isn't going to turn your kid gay if that were possible i would be straight because of the plethora of heterosexual couples that i saw in media while i was growing up and uh last i checked i'm not straight if your kid grows up and comes out of the closet it's because they were born lgbt plus and they realized it later on in life after having gone through self-discovery the most influence that these shows will have on your child's sexuality by showing a wide variety of relationships is making them more comfortable with their own identity which if you were a good parent you would want your kid to be comfortable in their own body if not you're indirectly acknowledging that your discomfort has more to do with your own homophobia and transphobia rather than the concern for your child's well-being and happiness and while being lgbt plus in america has become more accepted and tolerated in today's society it's still a fairly recent development we like to think that the homophobic and transphobic actions of our country is in the past but gay marriage only became legal in all 50 states back in june of 2015. it may not seem like it but 2015 was only five years ago so less than a decade ago it was illegal in some states to be married to someone who was the same gender as you and even beyond that we still struggle with making adequate laws to protect lgbt plus folk from discrimination in the workplace and otherwise for example it was only just ruled by the supreme court this month june 15 2020 that the civil rights act of 1964 applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity until that incredibly recent decision it was legal in more than half of the states to fireworkers for being gay bisexual or transgender we as a country are not doing enough for our queer youth as reflected in the heightened rates of suicide particularly from trans people our country's attitude and laws regarding lgbt plus people in modern day politics does affect the content that creatives are allowed to make and how that content is distributed by the copyright holder and you may be thinking well duh you wouldn't want a network promoting something that was illegal especially on a children's network and you would be right but this is important to understand when talking about the inclusion of certain types of characters and story arcs and cartoons no human being is illegal especially not for things outside of their control like sexuality or gender identity unfortunately money speaks and the money says to stay on the side of the law even if that law is discriminatory and bigoted in nature like i said being progressive hasn't paid until very recently and love it or hate it steven universe was the cartoon that changed everything ruby and sapphire i was told they could not be a romantic couple when i first started the show when i would put something in that was consonant that was just like here are two characters they love each other they want to be happy that would get flagged but if it were a joke or if it were wrong that would be more likely to get through but what i was doing was not funny and it was really disturbing to me regardless of how you feel about the overall quality of the show and the direction of the story the lgbt plus movement and western animation owes a lot of itself to the show and its crew in terms of the big strides that we see being made in shows like craig of the creek and she-ra you can thank the crewniverse for paving the way to allow them to do that of course this doesn't mean that they weren't met with challenges of their own which we will get into but it helped to normalize and make that fight easier and unfortunately this fight was also detrimental to the overall quality and length of steven universe which we'll get into later in the video as well steven universe came at a very pivotal and crucial time the show's very first episode bubble buddies aired on december 2nd 2013. this took place two years before the legalization of gay marriage in 2015. while the show wasn't explicit in its queer themes until the episode jailbreak rebecca often laments about how she was always nervous that the show was going to be cancelled due to the themes that they wanted to explore in later seasons it's common knowledge as well that originally ocean gem was thought to be the finale of the show by the crewniverse they genuinely didn't believe that they would be allowed to continue in telling their story and that was in large part due to the themes they wanted to cover in the future steven universe was always under the constant threat of cancellation and this also included the movie it was a very real possibility throughout the process that it would never see the big screen despite the support from the fandom a very popular story that is often circulated around is one that tells of rebecca threatening to quit and leave steven universe if cartoon network refused to allow the wedding scene to happen and this story is only partially true there's a lot more nuance to it in a q a back in october 2019 at the new york barnes and noble rebecca clarified that she didn't threaten to quit working on the show what had happened however was that most of their funding was coming from international an international was threatening to pull financial support on the show if they went through with ruby and sapphire's wedding rebecca states that she was brought up to a meeting where cartoon network said we know that you're doing this and we support that you're doing this we don't want to be giving notes on this but we have to give notes on this if their support was pulled steven universe would have a drastically shorter lifespan due to lack of funding and they may not be able to finish telling their story at all rebecca and her team made the decision to push through with the wedding which unfortunately like the network had warned did end with the show's lifespan being shortened significantly if you ever felt that the change your mind arc was rushed or that white diamond was defeated too quickly you aren't alone that seems to be one of the main criticisms that the show has to date and it's also a criticism that i hold myself but it is also something that was out of the hands of the creators had they wanted to go through with telling their story the way that they wanted to in that same q a rebecca talks a little bit about how there were still many stories that were pivotal to the show that she wanted to share but she just didn't have the time a lot of these stories were then transferred over to the limited epilogue series steven universe future unfortunately this time constraint also bled over to future as they were forced to cut some stories and sacrifice the pacing there as well for example rebecca talks about how they needed to cut an episode on road tonight in favor of finishing up the main story arc sacrifices needed to be made in order for the core messages of the show to reach its audience and in the case of steven universe it needed to take a huge hit in quality and length in order to represent a same-sex marriage on screen and yeah you could make the argument that the gems are genderless so this technically doesn't count as a homosexual wedding but in the case of little kids network executives they don't care what the lore of the show is or the technicalities they don't know that these primary colored humanoids are space rocks they just see them as women getting married to one another and that is a big no-no for them the gems in question are also female presenting in both you she her pronouns making them women aligned so yes i see you with your whataboutisms and no i do not care neither do the network executives working in international branches who made this a nightmare for sugar and her team they just know that the show had lgbt plus themes and they did not approve there was also an issue with countries banning the show entirely from their networks steven universe was once the number one kids show in south africa but was pulled from the air because of its inclusion of certain themes it's also been noted how the show has been heavily censored in the uk with a lot of the lgbt plus content being removed and edited out the most famous example of this would be in the episode we need to talk where a suggestively romantic moment between pearl and rose was edited out and then replaced with a looping animation of greg so how exactly did this fight pave the way for future shows well i'm glad you asked for that i'll let ian j q and rebecca sugar explain how their work on the show paved the way for others to take a similar path with their stories and you know i really want to make sure that people understand like how long of a fight and how hard of a fight this was even before the wedding episode i mean like i i i remember like in response to a fan question i tweeted yeah ruby and sapphire are in love and and and they could identify you could see them as two women in love and like there were meetings about this they were like it was like a huge like deal like they were telling me like you can't say this stuff you know we're not allowed to like do any of this it was like a huge huge thing well yeah i mean it wasn't that wasn't possible yeah at that time and and you had to like fight like really hard like we used to get notes that were like you know they would say like this isn't appropriate and we would have to be like please show us like the the drawing that you don't like and it would be like you know like ruby and sapphire like holding hands or something like that it was years it was years and years of of slowly working towards it i mean we we set up ruby and sapphire back in you know 20 2011 2012 when we were working on the pilot knowing that you know that was the only way to get this story in and we understood you know that by the time we didn't get to introduce them until 52 episodes into the show but we knew that by then you they couldn't take them out i mean we had we had to like set that up so far in advance it was a sleeper cell situation yeah i mean it really kind of was yeah the fusion angle of the show was a way to be able to do that at a time when we couldn't so we started writing the episode wedding episode in 2015 um and and it was noted up and rejected and just talking about cartoons really just like like throw down the hammer here it was absolutely it was steven universe for sure that changed this at least within cartoon network and i've heard things about other studios too i know for sure that it was the strides made by steven universe that changed this i know this because on ko ko has a lot of queer characters but the first time we wrote about like a specifically queer relationship it was an episode uh called back in red action when we wrote the first episode we got all these notes they called us into a meeting they were telling us we can't do this you can't you can't show this you can't show these two characters being romantic and we had to like fight just to get like the little bit of of queer romance that we could get but then you guys uh did the wedding episode you guys blew the door open and then the next time we did a red action episode we got no notes it went through fine they didn't bother us at all there's a saying that the first time is always the hardest and this is especially true when it comes to progressive movements cartoon network is first and foremost a business they make cartoons to accrue a profit not to help lead a progressive movement it would stand to reason that if a cartoon was losing them money or not making them enough money they would get rid of it this is the core reason as to why they gave the creatives working for them such a difficult time with what they're allowed to portray because they aren't willing to take that risk if for example a ton of parents took issue with ruby and sapphire's relationship they could pull their support and ban their kid from watching any of their shows this would result in monetary loss and support for their competitors instead and therefore the show would be deemed as a liability unfortunately this is the case with most progressive shows behind the scenes as well as in the public eye there was a fair share of homophobic parents attempting to get steven universe canceled after jailbreak premiered but the overwhelming support far outweighed and overshadowed the naysayers fandom support and positive coverage from media outlets made steven universe profitable and showed networks that these themes could and would be accepted and that people really wanted them in the content that they were consuming this is what i mean when i say that being progressive was not profitable until fairly recently had this taken place 10 or so years ago i have no doubts at all that the show would have been cancelled and that jailbreak would have never aired if it wasn't heavily altered this would be because there would be so much upset and protest about the content that cartoon network would take a huge financial loss money should not dictate networks advocating for those minority groups that do not have a voice especially children belonging to said groups but hey that's capitalism for you with a lot of these shows it comes down to one of two choices do they want their end product to be the highest quality that it can possibly be or do they want their messages to reach the ears of the audience unaltered in terms of shows including progressive content it most frequently cannot be both so these creators are forced to decide between the quality of the show and the representation that they want it to have it really comes down to what the teams think are more important the continuation and quality of their show or the messages and representation and unfortunately some shows and teams need to forego their full potential in order to give a brighter future to other shows that thanks to them will be able to deliver similar messages better this is why in shows like the legend of korra and adventure time their same-sex relationships were left until the very end and were merely a footnote they didn't and or could not include the themes in a way that they wanted and so what we got instead was easily edited and censored footage this understandably angers and agitates those who this content is meant to represent but it's important to know why this is a common trope in children's animations specifically most of the time these creators want to do more than what reaches the final screen but they can't co-creator of korra brian konitzko wrote in a tumblr post about how they wanted to include more of a relationship between korra and asami but they were limited by nickelodeon brian states that we approached the network and while they were supportive there was a limit to how far we could go with it as just about every article i read accurately deduced it was originally written in the script that cora and asami held hands as they walked into the spirit portal we went back and forth in the storyboards but later in the retake process i staged a revision where they were turned towards each other clasping both hands in a reverential manner was it a slam dunk victory for queer representation i think it falls short of that but hopefully it is somewhat significant inching forward and while steven universe is largely responsible for where we are today it would be unfair of me to discredit the work of other creators who fought for representation in their cartoons as well like the chorus story that i just shared one such cartoon is gravity falls created by alex hirsch the show includes two men in love sheriff blubs and deputy durland at one point hirsch needed to ask his team do you think that the benefit of allowing these characters to be gay outweighs the potential drawbacks of them not necessarily being the best possible characters for that representation the team decided that it was worth it and so they went forward with the development disney agreed to allow this tute to have this relationship which hersh notes was a different response from one that he had received from an earlier attempt in the series a 2014 episode titled the love god saw cupid bouncing about and making people fall in love and one of the storyboard artists drew two of these people as old women hirsch notes that they immediately got a note from the network saying that two women falling in love is not appropriate for our audience hirsch fought for the episode to include the imagery but unfortunately it got so contentious that disney essentially told him that if he didn't cut the scene they would cut the episode and they strong-armed him out of it when asked to comment on this by the new site eu disney's statement in response to this was in the course of program development we have daily conversations with series creators about storytelling and characters there is a long-established approval routing at each stage of production the process includes a standards and practices department to ensure all programming reflects disney's brand is consistent with policy appropriate for kids ages 2 to 14 and complies with the channel's policy and with disney's brand to promise to be inclusive with stories that affirm all people which is basically saying what i've already touched upon earlier and that they're too afraid to lose money from the backlash and boycott of bigoted parents and consumers hirsch even supports this statement by saying that he also recalls the snp editors told him specifically over the phone something to the effect of we are scared of homophobes and people being mad at us perhaps one of the most famous examples of a network butchering a character and the representation would be dreamworks voltron legendary defender it's commonly excluded from conversations that talk about positive queer representation in cartoons and there's a pretty compelling reason as to why this is a show that i almost didn't include for a variety of reasons but i decided to anyways because the situation regarding it is important to this conversation at 2018 san diego comic con voltron legendary defender creators joachim dos santos and lauren montgomery announced to the fans that shiro the leader of the voltron paladins was gay initially this announcement was met with tons of support but this was not to last adam shiro's ex-fiancee dies during sendak's occupation of earth his immediate death and the shameful lack of screen time upset those in the lgbt plus community many calling it queerbaiting and accusing it of falling into the barrier gaze trope fury your gaze sometimes known more specifically as dead lesbian syndrome describes the trope in fiction that requires that lgbt plus characters die or meet some other type of unhappy ending often times writers do this to get the recognition of including an lgbt plus character without actually including one for more than a few minutes a lot of folks accuse the show of queerbaiting sinchiro's love interest was hyped up as a season selling point at sdcc only for fans to find out that the love interest was killed off just as quickly as he was introduced the reaction from fans was so great that dos santos needed to issue a statement to fans apologizing for falling into the clutches of harmful tropes he also explained that a lot of their lack of proper representation was likely due to network meddling he stated that we created this version of voltron with the intent of being as inclusive as possible within the boundaries given are there still boundaries well for this type of action-driven boys show the answer is unfortunately yes have those boundaries widened since we first started the show yes is there still a ton of room to grow a hundred percent yes when we first got in getting social on any level was a no-fly zone it was all about big action adventure and how many vehicles you can put into a show to tie in with the toys i'm just so happy that we're finally getting to a place where we can start telling compelling stories and we can start telling them for audiences that are broader while the discussion of voltron's usage of harmful tropes is still prevalent even today there's no doubt in my mind that dreamworks most likely meddled and limited what was allowed to be shown in terms of the relationships in their show on a personal note i still think that their writing decisions were in poor taste sometimes no representation is better than harmful representation which i'm sure is a difficult pill for some creatives to swallow on the flip side another dreamworks show she-ra and the princesses of power is commonly believed to rival steven universe in terms of its representation and impact the show features not only one gay couple but multiple beau one of the main characters has two dads that are in multiple episodes and are shown as loving and caring parents there's also spinarella and natasa who are canonically wives in the series and while background characters for the majority of the series they become more prominent in the show's final season there's also the existence of a canonical non-binary character double trouble who is also played by the non-binary voice actor jacob tobia but perhaps the biggest and most talked about relationship is the relationship between the characters catra and adora in the final season of shira it's revealed that the two have romantic feelings for each other which leads to their now famous on-screen kiss following the theme of most modern cartoons love saves the day and triumphs over hate noelle stevenson creator showrunner and executive producer of she-ra says i know from the start that this wasn't going to be easy because this is she-ra to have the culmination of her arc be this lesbian love plot is a big deal and i understood that but i also felt that it was really important stevenson being a queer woman herself knew just how important the representation in this show would be for kids who were lgbt plus whether or not adora and catra's relationship would happen was in the hands of dreamworks and it was a risk that stevenson wasn't sure she was willing to take it first instead of outright pitching the idea of a romance story to the studio she left hints of their love for each other throughout the show this sparked the ship by the name of catradora which made stevenson feel like she had more evidence to present to dreamworks on why they should allow the two some on-screen confirmation after years of trying dreamworks finally gave her and her team the go-ahead stevenson explains that the temperature is not always right and depending on what's happening in the world not everyone wants to be the studio that sticks their neck out and makes a statement like this you will get a flat out nose sometimes but if you bide your time or you come at it from another angle that can change you just have to keep pushing the shira team began working on the show in the aftermath of the 2016 election and so the message felt more important than ever there were times when they were worried that the big kiss at the end wouldn't happen or that the relationship in general would need to remain platonic on screen stevenson even notes that it was a bit like playing a game of chess because it was hard to find that balance on what the network would and wouldn't allow for example she reflects that they might have gone a little too hard with the episode princess prom in a lot of ways judging by the notes they were receiving in its production phase she states that it is frustrating to have a vision and believe in it and then be pulled back you have to be careful you can't do this you can't do that stevenson also talks a bit about her specific execs were on board with the idea and supported her but their bosses were a bit more hesitant to the idea she says in an interview with glad that they had to go to their bosses and then they have to go to their rights holders and there's so many people you have to get on board for a while after that it was a lot of we're going to throw you on the phone with these people and sell it to them and it was a lot of trying really hard to show how much this was necessary to the story and it worked one by one we got those okays and i remember the time i got the call from the last little piece that we needed to sign off on this and they were like okay you're good to go do it in that same interview she also talks about how because of shows like steven universe and cora it made it possible for her to write adora and catra's relationship and the way that was intended she describes these shows as well as hers at chipping away at a wall that leads to more representation this sentiment seems to be reflected in another dreamworks show kippo and the age of the wonder beasts where one of the main characters benson is openly gay and not only is he openly gay but he also has a crush on a burro dweller named troy differing from shows with representation in the past their clear interest and each other begins at the end of season one not at the end of the series often times with cartoons and just in the media in general the representation comes in on the final episode or towards the end of the series this is something that she-ra fell subject to and to some extent steven universe did as well this is what sets kippo apart from its contemporaries in addition to benson being a black gay teenager as far as dreamworks goes they're perhaps the best example of a network who has evolved and learned the most over the past few years they went from voltron which is still one of the most heavily disliked shows when it comes to representation to shira to kippo to say that i'm proud of them would be an understatement especially just seeing how far they've come the same sentiment cannot be extended to disney who still has yet to give us lesbian elsa speaking of disney there's also darren nevsky's show star vs the forces of evil which includes a same-sex kiss between two background characters in a concert setting nevsy notes that they have an s p department and at first they were like could you change that and she asked well why is that and their response to that was essentially you know actually it's totally fine but it really speaks to just how much their networks keep an eye on things and just how even bare minimum lgbt plus content can be stopped and erased during production michael rubiner from nickelodeon's the loud house has also spoken about how things have begun to shift over the years he noticed that there was no pushback from nickelodeon whatsoever when clyde mcbride was revealed to have two dads or when luna loud was shown to have a crush on a classmate who was also a girl rubener states that he does think that the culture has progressed towards being more and more accepting it's easier than it would have been five or certainly 10 years ago this proves to be true when compared to the very different story of korra from half a decade prior which is also a nickelodeon show there's also been an emergence of queer characters in preschool cartoons in the past two years such as the hulu show the bravest knight and the pbs show arthur the bravest knight includes two gay dads sir cedric and prince andrew who are the fathers of the main character nia wilson cruz a co-star in the new hulu animated children's series describes the show's dad couple in this way we're not explaining homosexuality or same gender sexuality we're talking about the love of a family in the episode mr ratburn and the very special someone of arthur it's revealed that mr ratburn is marrying a man by the name of patrick zeke stokes chief programs officer for the media monitoring non-profit glad elements that the struggle for inclusion has become easier as a number of lgbt plus writers and producers have made their way into positions of influence though there's still a fraction overall other honorable mentions would be adam from netflix's series the hollow who is gay indian tai saber wing from duck tales who are a married gay couple asher from kippo who is non-binary reggie from 12 forever who is a lesbian shep from steven universe who is non-binary pathina and theoda from cleopatra in space who are married lesbians nick and joff who are married at the end of okko fluorite from steven universe who is polyamorous angel from craig of the creek who is non-binary and a few other background characters that i'm sure i've missed so while celebrating pride month i do think it's important for us to celebrate both small and large victories however i believe it's just as important to know the struggle that came with them a lot of times i think people in our community take the representation that we have now for granted and they don't understand the full picture and journey that it took to get there it's important to criticize the media you consume but it's also just as important to take a step away from that and criticize the system which makes it that way we've come a long way in terms of representation and networks are beginning to become more lenient and what they allow in their shows however this fight is far from over and in order for us to better help the creatives who are pushing for change we need to understand the struggles that they face in doing so if you'd like to see more videos where i talk about representation in media specifically in children's animation i do have a video out now on how the media represents autism i also plan on making more of these types of videos in the future please subscribe and hit that bell icon if you want to support me special thank you to my top tier patrons ambrose rothwood brandon nunes the lovely ghosty lee taylor and zachary ansley because of people like them i can continue to make content like this and i hope to see you all in the next video happy pride everyone

Channel: Toon Ruins

Views: 131,769

Keywords: steven universe, toon ruins, adventure time, gravity falls, lgbt community, lgbt representation, lgbt representation in cartoons, lgbt representation in animation, ruby and sapphire wedding, lgbt representation in the media, marceline and princess bubblegum kiss, catra and adora kiss, catra and adora moments, korra and asami, the legend of korra, avatar the last airbender, voltron, voltron queerbaiting, pride 2020, gay, lgbt, lgbtq, lesbian, lgbtq+, klance, shiro, craig of the creek

Id: i5GlR62tvTY

Length: 30min 52sec (1852 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/fluffyenderpugreal]

Toon Ruins! Love her. That's actually one of my favorite videos of hers

[u/Triskellatri]

Happy Pride, y'all! :)

OH, also lots of spoilers, not sure how to indicate that now. >.>

Even downvoting my comment? Some sour mofos here..

^{Comment was in the negatives at time of edit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯}

[u/Visual_Woodpecker_77]

Happy pride yo!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️