As someone who doesn’t watch television very often, this year became a surprise for me as many cartoon shows do not catch my interest very much. Late to the game a friend of mine referred the show “Steven Universe” to me and I must say I have never enjoyed a cartoon this much since “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. Created by Rebecca Sugar and aired on Cartoon Network in 2014, became a hit amongst children, teens, and adults, but how?

I recently started watching Steven Universe about three to four weeks ago from beginning to current episode and with the show being on its fourth season, I began to realize what this show really is. What this show perceives itself, is an amalgamation of issues that people may handle on a daily basis. The issues that are touched on are racism, abusive relationships, jealousy, insecurity, and most importantly the loss of a parent. Rebecca Sugar created a show that allows kids to understand that somethings are okay and some things are not okay and one of the biggest features of the show is that it does not include gender roles among the non-human characters in the show. The main non-human characters are also referred to as Gems, these Gems are Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl who is referred to as “The Crystal Gems”. While in the show they come off as female, it does present the idea that Steven, a 13-14 year old kid never questions it because he loves and accepts who they are. Garnet, who is a combination of two gems (which is referred to a fusion) is in a “same sex” relationship, but that is only due to the fact that all gems in the show are perceived to be female even though that is not the case.

The show ingeniously crafts subliminal messages about certain real life conflicts that people can go through. Steven deals with the fact that he will never meet his mother because she died to make him. His mother, whose name is Rose Quartz died and rebirthed as Steven. Gems form to what they see themselves as and Rose wanted Steven’s father to have a piece of her but to also have a child that he can see grow-up. The only issue is that Steven has to go through hell due to the things his mom caused before she reformed into him.

Photo of Peridot

Although Steven is the main character of the show it certainly does not mean the supportive characters do not get any kind of spotlight either. Peridot, who was introduced at the end of season one, represents the issues of insecurities that people go through. From the beginning of Peridot’s creation, she was told throughout her whole existence that she would never become anything more than she was. Starting off evil and being surrounded by people who shamed her for not having any real power besides being incredibly smart, it left her at a moment in the series that she just accepted who she was. Once she sided with Steven and the Crystal Gems she began to realize that she was much more than what her people told her and she eventually learned that she had the power to control/bend metal.

Photo of Jasper (Left) and Lapis (right).

Another set of characters in the show that deal with some pretty rough issues are Jasper and Lapis. Japser being the villain of the second and third season and Lapis being the friend of Steven, the conflict between the two are thoroughly present in the show as Jasper and Lapis represent the issue of being in an abusive relationship. At the end of the first season Lapis and Jasper fuse together, and to save Steven and the Gems, Lapis entraps herself with Jasper to remain under the ocean. Later in the show when Lapis and Jasper unfused, surprisingly both begin to miss being fused with each other as they both think they liked being together despite fighting all the time.

While this is only a brief explanation of some of the characters in the show, I believe each represent some issue that someone will go through. Steven Universe is great as a kid show, it’s also great as a show for adults to understand messages and even though I didn’t touch on all of them, these were just a set of characters that share this realistic relationship with viewers. I highly recommend for those who like this style of animation to check it out as it can aspire to create inspiration for those out there.