OK, I'll be honest, I didn't think through what I'd have to do if She-ra actually won. This is gonna get personal, so bear with me.
Expressing all this is difficult. My initial reason for watching the Netflix She-ra was a mix of boredom and spite. Hey, don't judge me harshly. I'm an adult male whom collects toys and builds robot models, I don't claim to be especially mature. I'd just got Netflix for the first time, as I was on holiday. The show was on my radar as it seemed to be pissing off exactly the kind of person I dislike, so why not? I had no skin in the game, no attachment to the original, and not much to do. I was therefore gratified to find a well-written kids cartoon.
She-ra, when you get down to it, wasn't for me. I am not it's target audience any more than the haters were. I mean, look at those colours. It's a show for children, mainly girls, and as time went on, the LGBQT community. This is a separate matter from its objective quality, and ultimately why it attracted bile from some quarters. It is not pandering to 80's nostalgia, and it wasn't trying for adult geeks like say Steven Universe did. What the creatives did was retool the concept from the ground up, everything being a more interesting or smarter version of its source, until the merit became undeniable. But as She-ra found an audience far wider than anyone expected, it also got bolder with the LGBQT themes until it was shouting them. Cheering them. She-ra looks like a show about a girl empowered by destiny and a magic sword to fight off an alien invasion. But She-ra is actually a love story about two abused child soldiers finding themselves on opposite sides, doing the Mulder/Scully thing for 5 seasons, before literally saving the universe with a kiss. And they both happen to be women living on a world where such a relationship would be a total non-issue. And it is here where I regret my limitations as a writer. This was a show that did one of those "big first" moments, and thus will mean a lot to a lot of people. So much so, that I feel that there are better and more necessary voices than me whom should address these themes before myself. The show belongs to them and mine would be a well-meaning, earnest, but clumsy voice with little new to add. Let me just say that I'm very happy with how it turned out.
OK, I suppose I should go in a different direction, then, hadn't I? Something I do feel I can talk about adequately and with some degree of novelty. Oh. Crap. It has to be that, doesn't it?
Recently, around the time the series first streamed, I was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and I didn't especially want to be. It was something of a bittersweet realisation, coming as it did in my late 30's, and I'd imagine it would be like discovering that you're adopted. It's not a bad thing, but a fundamental assumption of your life has changed. I find myself questioning and revisiting past interactions and habits. Its an entirely new strata of self-doubt if I'm honest, but maybe I know myself better now? Its questions like: oh, is that why I behaved like that? Is that part/some/most of the reason why I have difficulty connecting with people? Is that why I like this thing obsessively? Is that character Neurodivergent? Is this meant to be like me? There's certainly a lot of scifi I've watched with that question over it now. And then, this realisation: Ah yes, Entrapta. Oh. Well, there's also Rick & Morty, but I'll take the less toxic option, thanks. So , I'm gonna talk about Entrapta for a bit, before I curve back around and tell you that the show is good, once more.
Princess Entrapta is the primary technological expert of the series, whom ends up switching sides twice due to circumstance and not really having a moral compass in the conventional sense. Usually cheerful and eager to please, Entrapta is entirely about the science, building robots as friends, and fangirling about the fabled First Ones technology she comes across. Wider problems like there being a war on, and that she's maybe making weapons for the bad guys, do not register unless its really apocalyptic. For her, social norms and subtext is something that mainly happens to other people, although that's not to say she's indifferent to them. Entrapta's personality made her easily manipulated into working for The Evil Horde, but that meant she encountered the dictator Hordak, forming an unexpectedly adorable relationship. Lots of stuff to unpack with that, most of it involving said dictator, but lets keep it simple and say they both bonded as outsiders with techy interests. Following a betrayal, she ends up banished to the notably unpleasant and insanity-inducing Beast Island, and it barely slows her down. On rescue, Entrapta rejoins the Princess Alliance once a few misunderstandings are cleared up, but there are still consequences to be faced, ones she was largely oblivious to. But, as much as anyone other than the titular She-ra, Entrapta helps saves the day, firmly on the side of good when it really mattered. She also, at the last possible moment, ends up being what prompts Hordak to turn against the ultimate villain of the show.
I suppose Entrapta is one of those characters that is treated in-universe as being strange, but I'd not viewed it as meaning anything beyond just her being herself. I took her as a mad scientist archetype, eccentric certainly, but not someone I gave any thought to as being different with a capital D. Maybe that was because its a kids TV show at the end of the day and there's much more eye-catching stuff on display. Maybe my attention was on more important characters. Or maybe I just didn't recognise her as different from me, because she wasn't. I didn't realise this at first; Entrapta manifests many of the mannerisms and thought processes I didn't recognise as Autistic traits until very recently. Mainly the happier ones, as befits the show, but also the social awkwardness, naivety, and isolation. Things I personally still struggle with. And this is deliberate. Its not the only thing about the character, but it was the intent of a very inclusive creative team to have someone on the spectrum. And they did it just as I needed it, before I even knew that I needed it. Thank you. Thanks for having a nuanced autistic character on screen, and one whom seems to be at ease with herself. And, of course, she went and said this:
Imperfection is what makes scientific experimentation possible. Imperfection is beautiful!... At least to me.
Expressing all this is difficult. I'm still learning what it means to be on the spectrum, and its not been an easy road. But I'll take what help I can get, and if that's a supporting character in a quality kids show, so be it. And that character is far from the only worthwhile thing in the cartoon. I'm gonna stop writing this one. You go watch it.
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