Coming of Age Cartoons, and What They Mean for Today's Youth!
OK...so recently, I had a spirited debate with a collegaue of mine concerning the way that media has changed when portraying the LBGT community. Let's call a spade a spade here. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, there were no cartoons of any kind that would portray any sort of all-ages queer entertainment. He-Man was with She-Ra, GI-Joes were the epitamy of masculinity...the list goes on. All-age inclusive television consisted of these shows and more with typical gender roles and stereotypes. The cartoons matched the times. During those decades, the LGBT was largely at the background of most of America's media. It has only been the past decade where significant strides have been made for gender inclusion and all-ages media. Even so, children cartoons were probably among the last things to take the leap...until now! The following link is written by "Mey", an online blogger and all the credit goes to her for this article (which is brilliantly written). In summary, the article focuses on "Steven Universe", a new cartoon through Cartoon Network which deals with a child (Steven) being raised by three Crystal Gems. Reading through it at first can throw you for one, but after watching the accompanying videos in the article, you might be able to grasp it a bit better. Take a read, and let me know your thoughts!