Michaela Zee It’s been 10 years since Steven Universe unlocked his Gem ability to summon a shield as he savored the last of his beloved, now-discontinued frozen treat Cookie Cat.
What Rebecca Sugar initially introduced as a brightly colored animated series about a 13-year-old half-Gem, half-human boy raised by his three extraterrestrial guardians, soon became so much more.
In its five-season run on Cartoon Network, “Steven Universe” navigated such themes as same-sex relationships, genocide, consent, grief and PTSD — a groundbreaking feat for a series with a target demographic of six to 11-year-old boys. “Everything was very difficult.
At the time, that we were exploring LGBTQIA+ characters and storylines — it was really not something that was possible,” Sugar says. “I really do feel that we got to explore everything we’d hoped to, just maybe not in the exact order originally intended.” She continues, “It’s just such a time capsule of what it took to make this show over that period of time.
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