The other point I was making too is that it's kind of unusual for young male characters to be in a drama show for western animation in the first place. That's more of a recent trend, and even with Steven Universe there's still more shows currently airing that focus on the comedy side of Dramedy than the drama. He's also pretty much the first ever character with healing powers in western animation that I've even heard of, to begin with.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:25:16 PM by xanderiskander
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Honestly, when people are bringing up Bart Simpson as an example of a character that celebrates femininity it's hard to see what other criteria they're using.
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Mostly Shaoran. The others I've either never seen or don't think qualify for other reasons (Yuno is a minor character, Shinji is shamed for not being a masculine hero, Captain America is a masculine All-American man who's also a nice empathetic guy.)
edited 29th Oct '17 2:25:04 PM by IniuriaTalis
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I think it's stupid too, but the point is there will be little boys who watch the show and they will feel validated to see something that isn't the typical template. I'm not saying there necessarily should be one, but we craft ones none the less in our fiction.
Steven cries and is emotionally vulnerable. He does drag and wears pink and his closest friends are girls. I don't know about you guys, but where I'm from that shit is pretty unacceptable. A woman with masculine traits can be celebrated, perhaps even preferred to a purely feminine woman. A man with any sort of qualities that are coded as femininity? He's a queer and should be hated and reviled. There's no way he could be hero and shown to be someone who is a healthy part of his world.
edited 29th Oct '17 3:37:09 PM by iamthecircle
Made an edit.
Watch Avatar The Last Airbender, and more importantly, The Legend Of Korra (even if the healers were female there).
There's also the film adaptation of Dragonlance.
And fighting better is a part of Steven's arc to so...like, I don't know what point you think this makes. Steven learning to control his powers to be better prepared for the battles he knows are inevitable in the future to better protect who and what he cares about is one of his main things.
Except Xanderiskander only mentioned Bart Simpson once, and not even as an example of "celebrating femininity" just as a male character who can have emotional moments. Which, fair enough, isn't the point of this, but I also think it's should be recognized must of what they've been talking about has been dealing with much less stereotypical and empathetic characters.
Which is where possible strawmanning comes in again.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:33:27 PM by LSBK
Looking at Healing Hands, in the Western Animation section there's 9 bullet points. All are female except for Steven, the main character of Generator Rex, and the mentor of a more important female healer.
So if you're gonna keep saying "strawmanning," can I say the same about everyone acting like we're arguing that Steven is the first male character with empathy and emotions?
edited 29th Oct '17 2:35:00 PM by IniuriaTalis
Does anyone actually read these?Why do you keep accusing me of strawmanning? I don't really see how I'm doing this. Yes, I know we have been subverting male roles for a long time now, and usually with trickster figures who are clever or perhaps nerdy more passive male characters. But I haven't seen a character in Western animation is who is explicitly as much of a middle finger to traditional masculinity and the idea that coded feminine qualities in men is anything besides the butt of the joke at best or something to be despised at worst.
Not you, Iniuria Talis. You didn't notice the snippets I quoted weren't your own?
edited 29th Oct '17 2:36:53 PM by LSBK
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No, because you went along with it, and claimed some characters were emotional, but still didn't count, or claimed they weren't emotional in the case of Arnold.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:43:18 PM by xanderiskander
It’s been a while, but he is motivated by love for a male character, at least at frst.
I wouldn’t call Yuno a minor character, nor do I consider that relevant?
Shinji is shamed, because he barely qualifies as a hero at all, whether masculine or feminine. He’s still a protagonist with the described qualities.
Captain America is an empathetic shield-wielder, which are traits we were explicitly describing when discussing Steven’s unusualness.
My family who says I’m not masculine enough encourage males to cry and show emotional vulnerability. These things are everywhere in fictional males. I’ve worn drag, even in front of my family. I’ve had friends that have repeatedly worn drag too. Again, Negi Springfield repeatedly wears drag. I’ve been given pink clothing as gifts. Including from my family. And worn them. (Besides, Steven’s pink outfits are really his dad’s clothes). And having your closest friends be girls is perfectly normal as far as I’m concerned.
The strawmanning claims are from declaring that Steven is groundbreakingly unique for having certain traits and declaring any other examples of characters with said traits to not count or declaring that we're claiming Steven is normal when all were saying is that he's not groundbreakingly unique.
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Well, I explained my reasoning, though I'm sure you're still going to disagree with it...
Should we just drop this conversation? Is it actually important that Steven is "groundbreaking" or not, as long as we're (mostly) in agreement about him actually being a compelling and interesting character, and his empathy and emotions are a part of that?
On that front, this is my fault for even drawing attention to that terminology...
edited 29th Oct '17 2:48:02 PM by LSBK
I'll say this, I do think an argument could be made for Arnold, but I think it's not as strong of a subversion as Steven Universe. Hey Arnold is sort of a weird show in that it's a fairly heavy slice-of-life dramedy in places. It's not an action cartoon so it has room to present a domestic form of masculinity that often has to have more room for a more nuanced form of masculinity. Steven Universe though is a Western action cartoon where the male protagonists are often very clear cut. Peter Parker is the only true subversion I can think of when I think of, and then it's not in the same way Steven is a subversion. We've been much more accepting to the idea of nerdy, trickster, or comedic subversions on the male hero mold, but less so when it comes to them being an All-Loving Hero who is explicitly heroic because of traits that are often left to a girlfriend figure.
"My family who says I’m not masculine enough encourage males to cry and show emotional vulnerability. These things are everywhere in fictional males. I’ve worn drag, even in front of my family. I’ve had friends that have repeatedly worn drag too. Again, Negi Springfield repeatedly wears drag. I’ve been given pink clothing as gifts. Including from my family. And worn them. (Besides, Steven’s pink outfits are really his dad’s clothes). And having your closest friends be girls is perfectly normal as far as I’m concerned."
Look I'm not saying those things are weird or unique in real life. They aren't. We can get in real life anecdotes about how the gender binary is bullshit all day. What I'm talking about is representation and media reflection of such things. Because they are incredibly rare in our fiction aimed at boys. These things make Steven unique among male protagonists aimed at boys in the West.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:50:06 PM by iamthecircle
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Because being emotional is a feminine trait. If we were just talking about being emotional, then why would I say "Yes he's emotional but he doesn't fit for other reasons?"
(And I really don't remember any instances of Arnold being particularly openly emotional and vulnerable, and don't know exactly which episodes you're referring to.)
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I guess I see that as more having one non-masculine trait than being a non-masculine character, same with Steve. And being a sidelined side character and being a failure are fundamentally different from being a positive protagonist.
And when did I say that you were claiming Steven was normal?
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Sure. I don't think anyone is getting through to anyone anyway.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:52:01 PM by IniuriaTalis
Does anyone actually read these?I was paraphrasing but:
EDIT: Also, seriously, read Keychain Of Creation. It may be dead, but it's still worth it.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:56:43 PM by Sereg
edited 29th Oct '17 3:08:41 PM by xanderiskander
Oh dear, I didn't mean to start a huge debate with my opinion. However, Steven's character being a subversion of masculinity is exactly what I was referring to. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I do think Steven is a groundbreaking character. In spite of the examples of non-masculine character in this thread, Steven is still different from them because he's a character specifically designed to subvert the idea of masculinity.
I'm going to try and dissect this, so bear with me. Using the literary and scholarly definition of the word, Steven queers the idea of masculinity. Very few characters in animation (specifically western) are designed to act as direct social commentary to how a young man is supposed to act. He's raised mostly by women, he's pressured to follow the footsteps of his MOTHER, he has an exceptionally mature sense of empathy, his closest friends are (or are coded as) women, he's part of an alien race that's coded as human women, the greatest example of a romantic relationship in his life are between two women, he's encouraged by his father and his surrogate mothers to express his emotions, and, yes, he's a massive crier who happens to bring people back to life with his tears and heal them with his kisses.
I have yet to see a character in, any entertainment medium, quite like Steven Quartz Universe.
No problem, thanks for being awesome
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edited 29th Oct '17 3:44:58 PM by deuteragonist
Well, to be fair, the topic of whether a character is "groundbreaking" or not tends to lead to a divisive discussion. I've gotten into arguments on whether or not Avatar Korra is groundbreaking, too (*coughs* She is *coughs*). So...I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
edited 29th Oct '17 3:44:27 PM by deuteragonist

Din't see this. I've given a couple of examples. Which characters do you still want me to elaborate on? All of them?
EDIT: What celebrated characteristics in Steven are usually reviled?
Also, I don't see Steven as a new template for masculinity. I think having templates for masculinity or femininity at all is inherently stupid. Of course, I say that as someone whose family has repeatedly complained about me not being masculine enough, so yeah.
edited 29th Oct '17 2:23:01 PM by Sereg