08-12-2015, 04:05 AM
So, after having some fellow geek friends nag me about it for the past few months, I got around to watching Steven Universe and was completely blown away. Even though it's ostensibly a kid's show, it honestly has better writing, plotting, and characterization than most adult shows I've seen. It really is all-ages entertainment, if someone can get past how kiddie it looks, with a lot of subtext deliberately written to fly over kids' heads.
What really struck me, though, is how generally enlightened the show seems to be about society and philosophical issues. For one thing, it's easily one of the most generally inclusive shows I've seen in a long time. It's a show with a largely female main cast, but a male title\main character, and which depicts relationships between a wide range of people. It sort of mashes up and remixes a lot of tropes from 80s SatAM cartoons and 90s Magic Girl anime, but without the sexism, exploitation, and rah-rah self-aggrandizement. All its heroes are realistically flawed and don't automatically assume moral superiority in all cases. It even turns out that the various out-of-control monsters they're defeating aren't killed at all, but are merely captured and put into stasis so they can hopefully be rehabilitated later.
(And I'm now going to tread carefully because this is a spoiler minefield...)
As the show develops in the first season, it turns into what could be a very clear metaphor for STO vs STS philosophies. Steven and the Crystal Gems -his superhero friends- are very much about coming together as a team, whereas their opponents are highly individualistic. And this is especially illustrated by the ability of the Crystal Gems to engage in fusion. Any two or more Gems can combine into a single entity that takes on the traits of its constituent members, while forming a body\personality that is more than the sum of its component parts. This process is one of complete Love and Acceptance, and is implied -very indirectly- to be joyful in a sexualish way.
One of the characters (tiptoetiptoe) describes it as: "This is who we are. This is who I am. Because I am a feeling, and I will never end. I am even more than the two of them; everything they care about is who I am. I am their fury, I am their patience, I am their conversation."
She is literally all about the coming-together of disparate elements to create a greater Whole. Her constituent Gems love each other so much that they truly never want to be separated and live as individuals without the other. And even if the writers weren't aware of the Ra materials (probably not) it seems like as perfect a metaphor for higher-D Social-Memory-Complexes as I can imagine. Especially since Ra explicitly described 6D sex as being about fusion.
Whereas their foes dismiss fusion as an abomination, shameful, and "a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger." It's the exact STS rebuttal to the entire concept.
There are a LOT of other interesting things about the show philosophically and socially, but that's the part that really stands out to me as most directly relevant to the Ra materials. I'd be really curious to know if anyone else here has watched it and thought about some of the subtexts. If not, you're probably in for a treat if you check it out. (It's on the Cartoon Network and Hulu.)
What really struck me, though, is how generally enlightened the show seems to be about society and philosophical issues. For one thing, it's easily one of the most generally inclusive shows I've seen in a long time. It's a show with a largely female main cast, but a male title\main character, and which depicts relationships between a wide range of people. It sort of mashes up and remixes a lot of tropes from 80s SatAM cartoons and 90s Magic Girl anime, but without the sexism, exploitation, and rah-rah self-aggrandizement. All its heroes are realistically flawed and don't automatically assume moral superiority in all cases. It even turns out that the various out-of-control monsters they're defeating aren't killed at all, but are merely captured and put into stasis so they can hopefully be rehabilitated later.
(And I'm now going to tread carefully because this is a spoiler minefield...)
As the show develops in the first season, it turns into what could be a very clear metaphor for STO vs STS philosophies. Steven and the Crystal Gems -his superhero friends- are very much about coming together as a team, whereas their opponents are highly individualistic. And this is especially illustrated by the ability of the Crystal Gems to engage in fusion. Any two or more Gems can combine into a single entity that takes on the traits of its constituent members, while forming a body\personality that is more than the sum of its component parts. This process is one of complete Love and Acceptance, and is implied -very indirectly- to be joyful in a sexualish way.
One of the characters (tiptoetiptoe) describes it as: "This is who we are. This is who I am. Because I am a feeling, and I will never end. I am even more than the two of them; everything they care about is who I am. I am their fury, I am their patience, I am their conversation."
She is literally all about the coming-together of disparate elements to create a greater Whole. Her constituent Gems love each other so much that they truly never want to be separated and live as individuals without the other. And even if the writers weren't aware of the Ra materials (probably not) it seems like as perfect a metaphor for higher-D Social-Memory-Complexes as I can imagine. Especially since Ra explicitly described 6D sex as being about fusion.
Whereas their foes dismiss fusion as an abomination, shameful, and "a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger." It's the exact STS rebuttal to the entire concept.
There are a LOT of other interesting things about the show philosophically and socially, but that's the part that really stands out to me as most directly relevant to the Ra materials. I'd be really curious to know if anyone else here has watched it and thought about some of the subtexts. If not, you're probably in for a treat if you check it out. (It's on the Cartoon Network and Hulu.)