‘Steven Universe’ Destroyed What It Means to Be a Hero

Steven Universe Future, Cartoon Network, & Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.

The animated show Steven Universe (2013–2019) by Adventure Time animator Rebecca Sugar has always been more than a kid’s show. The cartoon about a half-human, half-gem battling evil monsters from outer space, was rooted in empathy. Steven was the hero not because he was the savior of the universe — though he was that too — but because he responded to those threats with kindness and compassion.

Although not the first empathetic hero out there (e.g., Aang from Avatar The Last Airbender (2005–2008) also comes to mind), the existence of hero’s like Steven is the refutation of a type of storytelling decades, arguably even centuries, in the making. His use of empathy in the original series challenged the very values we think a hero should have.

Steven Universe Future takes this criticism one step further and challenges our need for a singular hero at all.

In media, there is a narrative structure that some controversially believe to be the underlying-template for all popular stories that exist — “The Hero’s Journey.”

Joseph Campbell first popularized this theory in the book The Hero With A Thousand Faces (1949). Campbell argued that in a variety of cultures across time and space…