she ra is a prime example of a "diverse" show that was told through a white queer lense & meant for white queer ppl to digest: a thread

Before I get started, if any She Ra stans come across this thread and are offended: please learn to examine the stuff you like critically. I used to like this show A LOT but after hyperfocusing on it for a couple of seasons I began to notice things that bothered me

Let's start with the cast of characters, and their ethnicities - this is important, primarily because of some of the central themes in the show that are present surrounding war & colonization

I couldn't fit it into one tweet so here's a screenshot of what I interpreted all non-alien/humanoid character's races and ethnicities to be - the majority of them are either white or mixed with white.

So the Horde / Hordak / Hordak Prime is obviously a symbol of colonialism. They are destroying & conquering worlds. There's a pretty obvious good vs. evil side, and Adora is on the good Princess Alliance's side while Catra is on the evil Horde's side for most of the show.

Glimmer, Bow, Scorpia and Entrapta are all secondary characters with their own respective plotlines - some of which are larger than others. And then most of the other characters are kind of just There and have one-episode plotlines.

The only black women in this show are Netossa and Lonnie, both of which only really have 1 or 2 episodes that somewhat focus on their conflicts. Netossa's is about saving Spinerella and Lonnie's is about supporting her teammates through being in an abusive military establishment.

It's nice to see them have screentime but neither of them get much until seasons 4 & 5. Netossa is very much the sassy angry black woman, and Lonnie is...another facet of the strong supportive black woman.

Bow is the only other black character that has his own repeating subplots - he wants to be a good inventor, he is trying to protect his dads from the war, and he is shown working through Glimmer's betrayal & the stress of having to be the leader when she is kidnapped

But he...doesn't really have much development beyond that? He falls into the black best friend support trope, and then in the last season most of his importance rounds out to the romantic relationship development between him and Glimmer.

Scorpia is afforded significant development when it comes to setting boundaries and realizing she was in an abusive friendship. Entrapta - while I have issues with how she is portrayed, and I'll get back to that later - gets a lot of development later on in the series and Glimmer

plays a large overarching role and ultimately has the biggest development out of all the secondary characters. Not as much care was woven into Bow's plotline. And let's not forget the incident where the staff made a very insensitive slave joke -

So this show very clearly...makes it hard for black people to identify and connect with anyone, and largely falls flat. The same could be said for all the other non-white characters: they may be non-white but their stories are told through a very white lense

There were zero black people in the writing room and very few people of color working there in general. I think that characters of color need people of color writing for them. The very least they could have done was hire a sensitivity reader. But let's move on -

Okay, I messed up and forgot about the Star Siblings, who are black characters, BUT they literally only show up for one episode and are never heard from again. It's worth mentioning Jewelstar was later confirmed as a trans man & Tallstar is disabled.

Mara is...ambiguously brown, and I'm not sure what race to interpret her as. She's been debated to be Black, MENA, or South Asian. Either way I don't think Blonde Hair and Blue Eyes should have been part of her transformation, as if those are ""superior traits""

The above was also canon whitewashing which bothered me lmao. But this brings me to my next point about other forms of representation, and I'm going to mainly talk about Catra and Entrapta here and mention a few other characters after that.

(I'm taking a break to eat and take care of myself lol brb)

(before I go though--) catra's whole entire character, her design, her traits, while wonderfully complex and serving as a foil to adora's...has inherent racist undertones to it.

Catra is portrayed as wild & animalistic. She's easily angered and likes to fight people on instinct. Yes, she's a cat girl, and yes, this is part of the story. But this automatically puts Adora in the White Savior position since she was intended to be Latine. And you can see it

throughout the seasons. Did Catradora make history and provide some of the only lesbian representation a children's animation has? Yes. The journey there was good. But I have to acknowledge the undertones and implications that their racial coding and character development has

Entrapta is neurodivergent as confirmed after the show ended. I'm also neurodivergent and I formed an attachment to her, and while I enjoy most of her character, I have problems with how her neurodivergence is handled & the implications of that

She clearly has special interests, she's a picky eater, and she has a hard time with social cues. She was confirmed autistic after the show. As someone w/ ADHD & Autism that was nice to hear what I already knew, BUT...I had a few problems.

She always didn't understand the conflict, or right and wrong, and she was doing whatever she wanted just so long as she could do science. As someone who is Afro-Asian, that's not something I do. Even if I am neurodivergent, I'm aware of good and bad and right and wrong!

Now, she could also be a "morally gray" character / neutral and just manifests differently (like Double Trouble) but I don't like that the only canonical ND character is...morally gray and supports whoever is helping her do science, especially if it's a colonizer lol

that AND she's brown, and that implies a lot of not great things. That said, how everyone treated her was also not great to see. Her friends put her on a leash and treated her like a child. Catra scolded her & the Horde made her build weapons, people only saw her as useful bc

Of her skill and talent with technology and used that to make her build weapons. Scorpia was probably the only character that treated Entrapta like a person, even if Entrapta's former friends mourned her "loss" in the first season

Entrapta has issues with conveying that she cares about people and people often shun her, which is a neurodivergent experience. It's nice that they had episodes where Bow, Mermista and friends struggle with her. But even then it was like...a little too late seeing everything else

I did like her in the last season, and I liked the little forgiveness arc her and Catra have. It's nice to be represented but I'm still very :/ about how Entrapta was written and treated.

So, Double Trouble, while I love their character to bits - as I've said before, they're another example of the nonbinary alien character. I'm nonbinary and I'm kind of tired of having aliens and rocks be my only representation.

It's cool to see them shapeshift and see how they move the plot along. There's another implication that Prince Peekablue is a trans guy because of this, but ultimately Prince Peekablue wasn't a real character we got to see lol

I think Perfuma was confirmed to be designed to be a trans woman after the show, but they couldn't confirm her as trans for i guess, parental reasons? Bow was also asked if he was trans, and subsequently that was also something that was up to fan interpretation

I'm not going to delve too deep into redemption arcs and how they were handled. Ultimately I dislike how Hordak's "redemption" was handled in the Deus Ex Machina way where She Ra erased the bad part of Hordak away and it was sunshine & rainbows. Meanwhile, while I don't consider

This redemption, nor do I think she deserves that chance, Shadowweaver died by sacrificing herself and even went out saying that she was doing a favor for Catra and Adora AFTER abusing them for their entire lives...

Hordak gets a magical colonizer eraser and is suddenly good and healed from trauma? I would have taken Wrong Hordak being the new Hordak over that.

That and the First Ones/the OG She Ra was also revealed to be colonizers and Mara hid the planet to prevent anyone else from being further colonized. It's the "let's hold hands and forgive each other because even the good guys can be bad guys sometimes!" Ignoring like....the

real world implications of that. It's.....phew.

At any rate, these are my criticisms of the show laid flat out for y'all to see. I did like the show. I liked it! Anyone who follows me knows that. But it didn't hit home for me like it did for a lot of other people !

I don't think I'd be able to watch She Ra for the second time. It was enjoyable but there was enough wrong with it that I do not see value in rewatching it.