The thing is that Steven Universe has much better writing than your bog-standard "villain-take-over-world" Saturday morning formulaic cartoon staple. And it has writing that deliberately tackles complicated and difficult issues with some nuance. Made appropriate for kids, but still. The entire Sardonyx/Keystone Motel arc was a really thoughtful examination of betrayal and forgiveness with sympathetic but messy imperfect people. Was it a little pat in the end, because ten-minute cartoon? Yeah. But it's silly pretending that Steven Universe doesn't present itself, artistically, as a narrative that's meant to be read on multiple levels. The entire conceit of fusion as a metaphor for intimate relationships basically begs you to analyze the show beyond a surface adventure with cool combo powers.
People treat Steven Universe as deep because it is deep. Is it utterly brilliant and perfect? Of course not. Is it the only cartoon that has more complicated messages than "don't bully"? Of course not. But it deliberately and explicitly is not shallow.
Where people go wrong is thinking that all that nuance and character realism (in the sense of acting like real people instead of caricatures) extends into the realm of politics, which it doesn't, not because "it's not that deep", but because the depth is in a different spot. The villains don't just "want to take over the world" - but they're also not portrayals of serious war crimes and totalitarianism either. The diamonds are LITERALLY a family, and their totalitarian space empire is a metaphor for authoritarian and abusive family dynamics. EVERYTHING in Steven Universe is about how to navigate our connections to other people with both strength and self-respect and compassion.
So the people who want to look at it through the lens of the real implications of genocide are reading against the intentions of the show - which is fine! art is separate from intention and you can have a lot of interesting and fun thoughts reading against creator intentions! - and it can sometimes get silly, and it's not a reason to hate the show that it does something badly when it is not trying to do that thing. But people who are taking Steven Universe seriously as a show with themes and messages and serious things to say about the human condition are not, like, pulling that shit out of nowhere. There's stuff there. Just not the stuff some people are most interested in.
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People treat Steven Universe as deep because it is deep. Is it utterly brilliant and perfect? Of course not. Is it the only cartoon that has more complicated messages than "don't bully"? Of course not. But it deliberately and explicitly is not shallow.
Where people go wrong is thinking that all that nuance and character realism (in the sense of acting like real people instead of caricatures) extends into the realm of politics, which it doesn't, not because "it's not that deep", but because the depth is in a different spot. The villains don't just "want to take over the world" - but they're also not portrayals of serious war crimes and totalitarianism either. The diamonds are LITERALLY a family, and their totalitarian space empire is a metaphor for authoritarian and abusive family dynamics. EVERYTHING in Steven Universe is about how to navigate our connections to other people with both strength and self-respect and compassion.
So the people who want to look at it through the lens of the real implications of genocide are reading against the intentions of the show - which is fine! art is separate from intention and you can have a lot of interesting and fun thoughts reading against creator intentions! - and it can sometimes get silly, and it's not a reason to hate the show that it does something badly when it is not trying to do that thing. But people who are taking Steven Universe seriously as a show with themes and messages and serious things to say about the human condition are not, like, pulling that shit out of nowhere. There's stuff there. Just not the stuff some people are most interested in.