Steven Universe has been celebrated for the way it seamlessly fused queer characters and storylines into an animated narrative. At the time the program was greenlit, Rebecca Sugar — who is also nonbinary — was the first woman to have her own show at Cartoon Network. But as Sugar continued blazing a trail, she encountered resistance to having LGBTQ+ representation on the show.
In an interview with Paper, Sugar said she created the concept of “fusion,” in which two of the show’s characters combine into one person, as a novel way to explore queer relationships. That includes characters like the genderqueer Stevonnie (A.J. Michalka), which merges the duo of Steven and Connie.
But once the studio caught on to the way Sugar and her team went about writing the script, they weren’t too thrilled about the queer direction of the show.
“They told us point-blank, ‘You can’t have these characters be in a romantic relationship,’ but at that point Garnet was so established that audiences could instantly understand what the relationship was, the song had already been written, the episode had already been boarded so we were already in full production,” she told the magazine. “I’m really proud of the patience we had and the time that we took to fully explore these characters at a time when that was not necessarily possible.”
However, as time went on, Sugar says she was told directly that she wasn’t allowed to ever discuss the show’s subversively queer themes publicly. Network executives told her that doing so would bring the series to a grinding halt.
“They basically brought me in and said, ‘We want to support that you’re doing this but you have to understand that internationally if you speak about this publicly, the show will be pulled from a lot of countries and that may mean the end of the show,’” Sugar recalled. “I would privately do drawings of these characters kissing and hugging that I was not allowed to share. I couldn’t reconcile how simple this felt to me and how impossible it was to do, so I talked about it. The show survived in a large part because of the support from fans.”
Reflecting upon the show’s success, Sugar said it’s ridiculous that a person’s ability to make cartoons could hinge on their sexual orientation — but it remains all too true. She added that LGBTQ+ programs and creators are making progress but said things still need to continue shifting in the right direction.
The interview took place alongside a conversation with Noelle Stevenson, who created the Netflix show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and reflected upon her own experiences writing queer storylines into animated programming. Stevenson noted that after She-Ra began production in 2016, the team looked to Steven Universe as a guide to how they could successfully queer up the show. She said those discussions were only possible because Steven Universe had done it first.
“Whenever a show manages to incorporate a really powerful piece of representation, that clears the way for other productions,” she said. “At the same time, I think when we have conversations about harmful trends that keep popping up over and over again that are not as helpful as we want them to be. Steven Universe laid the groundwork for our path and gave us a platform to be able to build the story we wanted to tell and were passionate about.
“I can’t give you enough credit for that,” Stevenson added, speaking directly to Sugar, “because honestly it changed everything for us.”
Steven Universe ran for five seasons on Cartoon Network from 2013 through January 2019. It also spawned a film spinoff, Steven Universe: The Movie, as well as the limited series Steven Universe Future.
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