Okay, okay! I went and signed up for Netflix, fine. Sheesh. For the last couple of years I have been hearing about dozens of series that didn’t make me want at all to subscribe, but finally there’s one series that motivated me to sign-up.
That series was She-Ra and the Princesses of the Power. With Noelle Stevenson (co-creator of Lumberjanes) as showrunner, and a promise of wholesome queerness, how could I not want to see it?
In this iteration of the story, Adora is an orphan who has been raised by Hordak on Fightmoon to be a leader of his armies, known as “the Horde” as one might expect. (Put a pin in this naming scheme). Her best friend Katra and she vie to be the next group captain, but when Adora discovers a mysterious sword, she learns that she is meant to be the next She-Ra and fight the Horde. She’s taken to Brightmoon by the leaders of the restance and finds everything she grew up believing is a lie. As she grows more convinced that the Horde is evil, she’s put into the position of facing Katra as an enemy, a situation that is not resolved by the end of Season 1.
In this season, we meet the other Princesses of countries being attacked by the Horde. Their powers are primarily elemental and their personalities aren’t always good or kind. Most of them float in a range of being quite annoying in one way or another, in fact. Except for Entrapta. Pull that pin out of the naming scheme. “Entrapta” does not sound like a good-guy name. And, indeed, while the resistance Princesses have elemental (i.e., “natural”) powers, Entrapta’s powers are in mechanical design and makership. Her creations are often evil and she doesn’t seem to much care what they do as long as they work. When she find herself left behind because her friends think she is dead, Katra welcomes her with open arms and, frankly, Entrapta, with her evil name, chaotic evil creations and disinterest in people, finally finds a home, Frankly, I was kind of relieved for her. The resistance Princesses are, well, kind of jerks to her. Good for Entrapta – the Horde suits her much better.
Adora, Princess Glimmer and Bow manage to unite the Princesses despite obstacles and Adora learns a bit more about the title of She-Ra before the season wraps up.
The story itself is simple, allegorical and adheres very closely to the kinds of writing I am used to in American Cartoons For Kids TM. In fact, this was my main complaint about the series. I wrote on Facebook, “It’s got all the problems of conventional cartoons, in which basically every single plot is “no one says what they have to to the person they have to say it to.”
The characters were the weakest point for me. The only character I genuinely like is Scorpia. She’s an absolute delight. Everyone else I find annoying in one way or another. I find several of the Princesses intolerable.
I was also quite confused about the queerness, as many of my friends were singing paeans to how queer it was…and I was not seeing it at all. Yes, in the Princess Ball episode, Katra came off all butch and she and Adora have a friendship/rivalry sprinkled lightly with some romantic tension, but this was not even as gay as the first season of Sailor Moon. In the final few episodes, we are at last introduced to Princesses Nettossa and Spinnerella, who are very overtly a couple. So yes, there is queerness, and it is absolutely suitable for a small child, which hits the brief this cartoon had.
There was controversy about the character design, but only if you count the grunting of animals as something to be commented upon. I do not. This was, from the first, a cartoon designed explicitly for children, with a focus on girls. I mention all of this only to note that if you are over 12 years old and have some complaint about the art or character designs, you’re welcome to make a fool of yourself in the comments, but you will be making a fool of yourself. ^_^ I’m not saying you can’t dislike the art, just that if you want it to be sexier, it is explicitly designed to not be for you. ^_^ It gets good marks from me for body type, race, gender and romantic diversity.
As an adult watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, I was not as blown away by the series as I am regularly by Steven Universe, but for what it is – which is to say, for children 50 years younger than I am – it is a pleasant cartoon.
Ratings:
Art – 8 Honestly, I like it.
Characters – 4 Scorpia ftw
Story – 6
Service – 0
Yuri – 6
Overall – 6
I am 100% supportive of the effort to bring empowering characters, body and race diversity and complex emotions into children’s cartoons so I’ll keep watching new episodes, but not on a loop, the way I watch Steven Universe.
Approved.
