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.
