{"id":1013,"date":"2015-09-24T20:59:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T03:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2015-10-24T02:01:19","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T09:01:19","slug":"preserving-representation-artistic-license-in-the-steven-universe-fandom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/2015\/09\/24\/preserving-representation-artistic-license-in-the-steven-universe-fandom\/","title":{"rendered":"Preserving representation: artistic license in the Steven Universe fandom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"912\"<\/a>It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that Steven Universe<\/em>, ostensibly just another cute, fantastical offering from Cartoon Network, has spent the two years of its broadcast upending the status quo of American children’s cartoons. The diversity of skin color and body type in this show, not to mention its canonical representation of queerness, gender non-conformity, and mental illness, are phenomenally affirming for many demographics and communities*, but as a neurotypical white cis girl who frankly does not need any more validation from the entertainment I consume, I personally value Steven Universe<\/em> for an additional reason: it’s the first cartoon, or piece of media in general, that has inspired me to draw fanart.<\/p>\n

That might not sound significant\u2014the SU fandom is enormous and unceasingly active online, boasting thousands upon thousands of fan artists and fanfiction writers who greatly surpass me in talent and dedication\u2014but even my passive engagement with this community has opened my eyes to my artistic limitations. Before I started sketching Garnet and Amethyst over the summer, I had rarely attempted to draw body fat, or full lips, or even textured hair. Getting a handle on the designs of my favorite characters has been a rewarding process that, in my opinion, illustrates just one example of representation\u2019s positive impact even on more privileged consumers of media.<\/p>\n

The Steven Universe<\/em> creators (affectionately called the Crewniverse) encourage fan speculation and experimentation; for instance, in response to questions about characters’ relationships and romantic orientations, they have clarified canonical details while giving fans free rein to interpret and innovate as they wish. Presumably, this applies to visual representations of identity as well\u2014or does it?<\/p>\n

At first glance, why not? In the world of Steven Universe<\/em>, the magical beings known as Gems are humanoid in appearance yet concretely established as an alien species with no particular attachment to\u00a0human concepts of gender or race. Fan artists therefore have a great degree of creative freedom in how they choose to draw characters, especially in human AUs (alternate universe narratives): various artists have translated Jasper’s red-on-orange stripes into vitiligo, Peridot’s triangular hairstyle into a hijab, and Opal’s forehead gem into a bindi. And, of course, humanizing a red or blue alien opens up an\u00a0entire spectrum of skin colors.<\/p>\n

Problems arise, however, when artists takes a subtractive rather than additive approach to representation. This occurred recently with fanart of the major\u00a0character Garnet, who is clearly coded as a strong, beautiful black woman: she is dark-skinned and curvy, with a large afro and distinctly non-European facial features. In August, an illustration of a white, blond version of Garnet with the faux-inspirational caption “Anyone can draw anything!” made the rounds on Tumblr, sparking intense controversy over the truths and fallacies contained within this message. In a literal sense, it’s true\u2014no one can prohibit\u00a0a fan artist from lightening a character’s complexion, any more than\u00a0one can\u00a0physically restrain\u00a0another from voicing prejudiced opinions.\u00a0And no, fan-produced content will never\u00a0nullify or replace canon. But that doesn’t make the content, let alone this line of reasoning, any less disrespectful to the spirit of the show\u00a0or any less harmful to those fans who find\u00a0genuine empowerment in representation of their identity. Mainstream media is already choked and clogged with whiteness; why go and smear that all over a cartoon that has\u00a0the integrity to reflect real-life diversity?<\/p>\n

While\u00a0depictions of a whitewashed Garnet, a slimmed-down Rose Quartz, or a heteroromantic Pearl are not particularly difficult to find, nor, fortunately, are they immune to criticism. Less fortunately, because of the nature of Internet discourse, for every misguided artist who accepts\u00a0and internalizes a thorough critique, another contends with a violent backlash entirely disproportionate to their initial misstep;\u00a0and for every purveyor of death threats who goes unchallenged, a reasonable critic of identity erasure faces paradoxical accusations of bigotry. Even for a non-account-holder like me who merely observes from the sidelines,\u00a0sifting through the vitriol in search of compelling arguments can be\u00a0an overwhelming task**.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, what I took away\u00a0from this debate\/debacle\u00a0was not a drastically altered view\u00a0on representation in fandom, but rather a deeper\u00a0understanding of my own perspective\u00a0and the means to articulate it.\u00a0Honoring existing representation is one way to celebrate diversity in fictional media; re-imagining or \u201cheadcanoning\u201d characters as members of other marginalized identities is another. But treading the same tired path of invoking freedom of expression to reinforce the societal\u00a0status quo? That’s not how I choose to engage with my favorite show, and it’s not how I intend to treat the characters I love.<\/p>\n

* For more in-depth discussions of representation in the show itself\u2014especially regarding its queer themes\u2014I recommend “‘Steven Universe’ and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation<\/a>” from Autostraddle, as well as various articles in the SU tag<\/a> on Bitch Flicks.<\/p>\n

**\u00a0At one point, multiple people were arguing that (a) Garnet is not actually black and (b) interpreting\u00a0a nonhuman character as a person of color\u00a0is automatically racist. The best\u00a0rebuttal I’ve seen comes from Tumblr user passionpeachy, in this pair of posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elise Berendt (SC ’17) is a Hispanic Studies and Linguistics major from Pleasanton, California.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that Steven Universe, ostensibly just another cute, fantastical offering from Cartoon Network, has spent the two years of its broadcast upending the status quo of American children’s cartoons. The diversity of skin color and body type in this show, not to mention its canonical representation of queerness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,239,55],"tags":[319,329,328],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-the-claremont-bubble","category-culture","category-pop-culture","tag-elise-berendt","tag-fandom","tag-steven-universe"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}