She-ra, una heroína lesbiana en una serie de animación

Abstract

 If heroines have their own path on their journey, although somewhat distant from Campbell’s theory, lesbian heroines also have an even more peculiar journey. Like the various feminisms (black, lesbian, decolonial, etc.) that often need to demarcate their space, with their own guidelines, the heroine who does not fit into cis-heteronormativity also claims her place of protagonism. In commercial/occidental animated films, lesbian characters are not common: since the late 1990s, only after the depathologization of homosexuality by the WHO, the lesbians began to appear in cartoons. Kept in closets, relegated to very discreet roles or, even worse, being a laughing stock and comic relief in several drawings, it was only in recent years that some important characters emerged, such as Garnet (Steven’s Universe), Jujube and Marceline (Adventure’s Time) and She-ra (She-ra and the Princesses of Power), who has become the first lesbian protagonist/heroine in occidental commercial series, in 2020. From the first version of She-ra, commissioned by Mattel - Barbie doll factory (1985-1986) - to the Netflix/Dreamworks remake (2018-2020), the character She-ra has taken a very interesting path. Starting with the change in the title of the series (the previous one was called ‘Shera: the princess of power’; and the new one, titled ‘She-ra and the princesses of power’) because if before she was alone, now she will be accompanied by other powerful friends. Throughout the narrative, the key theme is the development of friendship between the characters. The new version deepens the characters and their relationships (between friends, mother-daughter, stepmother, family). The new series is aimed at children and was made almost entirely with handmade drawings. It was directed by Noelle Stevenson, a lesbian illustrator and director, and her team of writers and artists is composed mainly of women. Noelle said in an interview that “all the characters in the series are LGBT+ until proven otherwise”. However, the romantic relationships between the characters were gradually introduced during the series. Through an on-screen ethnography (Rial, 2014), I analyze the changes between the previous version and the most recent one, from a feminist and gender perspective, as well as the development of lesbian affections within the narrative in the five seasons of this version. The objective was to understand the subjectivities in the construction of identities, sexualities and the choices of the direction of the drawing with regard to the emotions represented. In the cartoon fantasy universe, non-human characters can also be read in a recognizable way in terms of attitudes, loves, choices. The discussions focused on stereotypes, representativeness, body shapes (diversity of bodies and ethnicities, changes in costumes, makeup), heteronormativity and hypersexualization of female characters. The results were possible interpretations about the relationship between the historical moment of exhibition of the movie and the narrative choices; the space-time connections between feminist/LGBT+ social movements and the representativeness found in the protagonists and, mainly, the place of the speech of the directors/artists in direct relation with the positive image of the character in the story. Anyway, one realizes how a heroine has her own construction and needs to have some forms of redemption that do not overlap with a male hero: or hypersexualization (Bernárdez-Rodal, 2018), or motherhood, romantic love, family - because this way approaches the roles expected for acceptable femininity. Lesbian heroines, moving away from heterosexual romantic love, need to find other ways to be welcome or seek strategies to gain some recognition. Considering that in 2021 there are still 69 countries where homosexuality is considered a crime, the presence of protagonists and strong lesbians in animated movies is, in itself, a heroic act.