She-Ra is one of the rare shows that treats it’s diverse characters with the utmost respect.
Over the past few years there’s been a push to showcase more women and people of color onscreen. But for every Wonder Woman, you have a Ghostbusters (2016) or Oceans 8. All in all I’d say we got a very mixed bag in American cinema.
However, She-Ra, an adaptation of a character from the He-Man series, is different.
It’s amazing, both as a show and a cultural icon. And I’ll summarize why in a few points.
The female characters are allowed to fail.
So often in modern cinema, female characters are written to be near-infallible and near-indestructible. Think Captain Marvel.
Personally, I believe that this is a really toxic message to send to little girls, especially those that are more conscientious. It tells them that they’re only valuable if they never make a mistake, and have a bevy of talents.
Some female characters try to superficially subvert this by having their characters lose a trivial battle. But this is insufficient as it still doesn’t convey the fact that it’s okay to lose.
Male characters, like Ash from Pokemon, are allowed to fail all the time. But the show makes it clear that they still have value and they’re still amazing. She-Ra’s characters make some pretty dumb choices from time to time, a a few of those choices have lasting consequences, but they’re allowed to work to redeem themselves. They’re allowed to grow.
They’re allowed to be flawed AND heroic at the same time.
Some female characters are evil.
The sub-heading says it all. Some female characters and some women in real life are straight-up… evil.
Catra in particular is vile, vindictive, and willing to hurt anyone, including her close friends and allies, just to see Adora in pain. It’s spectacular and refreshing to see a well-written female villain on screen.
I once talked to a woman that said she was never believed when she opened up about being abused. She reasoned that because it was her mother who did this, people couldn’t picture a woman being so cruel.
Never ever representing female villains leads to the perception that women can’t be evil—which is false. Women, just like men, can be evil. It doesn’t reduce the impact of female representation. Rather it tells the boys and girls that it is valid to resent their female abuser and that their pain is valid.
The male characters are treated with respect.
There aren’t many male characters in the series but Bow, who is part of the main cast, is treated with dignity and respect as well as his own personal struggles. Micah, the deceased father of Glimmer, another main character is revered in the highest regard.
Even the main villain, Hordak, is given a sympathetic motivation. He’s clearly an awful person, but he’s not the personification of villainy unlike, say, Ozai for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Equality can never be achieved by putting men down or casting them aside in order to lift women up. That approach will only lead to animosity between the sexes. Real progress can be achieved if men and women lift themselves and each other up.
Bow’s dads can function as fully independent characters.
And now we come to the LGBT aspect of the show. At first I was skeptical as the only reference we get in the first season is one line between two characters, but in season 2 things change.
There’s an entire episode around who Bow’s dads really are and what they do. They’re given backstories, and motivations for their worldviews. They’re also portrayed as imperfect (but not cruel) parents in the way they implicitly force their vision of that Bow should be onto him.
The pass the litmus test for good representation. Either of them would work as a single dad or as a standalone male character in the series. Being gay doesn’t define them, and the series doesn’t constantly shove the fact that they’re gay in the viewer’s face.
There’s a lot of pain and death.
I find that stories with female leads, especially those aimed at kids, tend to be overly optimistic, and often saccharine.
Take My Little Pony for instance. For years “girl’s cartoon” was all but a slur.
She-Ra breaks that mould. Recurring characters die, relationships are permanently ruined, there’s nightmare fuel, and all isn’t good in the world. Simply because this world is ruled by all-female monarchs doesn’t make it a rosy place.
It’s as dark and as grim as any male-led animated fantasy series.
The relationships between women can be fickle, or even toxic.
This is showcased well in the relationship between Glimmer and her mom, Angela. They love each other, but Angela is controlling and Glimmer is stubborn. As the series progresses they need to resolve their differences.
And then there’s Catra and Adora (She-Ra).
Every time these two are onscreen there’s an air of venom, as hostility permeates their dialogue. Despite being thick as thieves when they were young, they utterly despise each other now.
On the Disney channel particularly, there’s a recurring trend where a female character will have an inseparable bestie, who will always be there for them. If they fight, it will always be solved in a half-hour.
But again, real life isn’t rosy. Young girls have fights with their best friends, and sometimes that friendship is never healed. She-Ra has been on 3 seasons over 9 months now, and Catra and Adora are no closer to resolving their differences than when the show began. It’s Naruto vs Sasuke type of rivalry.
Often whenever a big-ticket production with a female lead comes out, I’m disappointed that the throngs of movie-goers will ignore poor-quality writing in favor of representation.
Representation can never make up for poor writing. And female characters deserve good writing.
When a mediocre movie comes out with a male lead, like Man of Steel (2013), online critics rip into it like a lion rips into its prey. The writing on in male-dominated media is inspected with a fine-tooth comb, because we expect the best. We want the best.
If we don’t start criticizing female-lead media, they’ll never get better, never reaching the lofty heights we envision for the future.
She-Ra is a series that treats its female characters with the same respect as a male character in a male-led series, avoids the pitfalls that so many shows and movies fall into, and gives us good characters first.
That’s all we ever wanted.
