In other interviews she has spoken about how important this kind of representation is, that it is critical “that there are LGBTQIA characters in G-rated content,” because “as long as certain people are considered to be inappropriate for families and children, there is no equality.”*
In creating a show like Steven Universe, in other words, Rebecca Sugar was not simply trying to tell a fascinating story with compelling characters and universal themes—though she was trying to do that too, and succeeded—but she was also trying to use her medium to address what she saw as a social problem, and effect positive social change. And as far as I can tell, she succeeded in that, too. Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney Channel’s hit cartoon Gravity Falls (which we’ve also discussed on this blog) has gone on record praising Sugar for “driving a race car way, way ahead of everyone else” when it comes to the representation of queer people in cartoons.
In 2016, Steven Universe made animation history when it became the first cartoon ever to portray a same-sex marriage proposal, in its much-lauded episode “The Question.” In discussing that episode with Entertainment Weekly, Sugar wrote, “We absolutely must tell LGBTQ+ children that they belong in this world and they deserve to be loved. … We cannot wait until a child grows up to tell them they deserve to exist and that their story matters.”*
I am sharing all of this as part my on-going analysis of Steven Universe, because it illuminates a vital issue that Christians must wrestle with if they want to address LGBTQ issues biblically.
I’m thinking here of the so-called “the gay agenda.”
At least, that’s what the most ardently non-affirming Christians I’ve known would call it. The idea is that the relatively rapid shift in Canadian social mores—from viewing homosexuality as a crime up until 1969, to embracing gay marriage as a progressive leap forward in 2005—was the result of an well-organized political effort on the part of LGBTQ people, to change the world as we know it into one we no longer recognize. It is often used with an undertone of suspicion, as though those who have worked towards this goal have not just been trying to change the world but actually to destroy it.
I am writing as a Christian pastor, serving in a denomination which teaches that, biblically speaking, same-sex sexuality does not fulfill God’s creation-design for sex. In simple terms, my denomination is “non-affirming.” That needs to be on the table in the interest of full disclosure here. And to be sure, as far as I can tell, there has indeed been a very intentional effort on the part of LGBTQ people and allies over the years, to see laws changed, to have school curricula revised, to ensure that queer people will not be unfairly mistreated simply because of their sexual orientation, and so on. I think this is relatively well-documented fact and shouldn’t cause a great deal of dispute.
But even so, I want to explain why I do not think it is at all helpful to talk about a “gay agenda” and why, as a pastor in a denomination like mine, I don’t use the term. It’s because when we do, we are treating the pain, and alienation, and isolation of another human being as though it were a threat to us, turning a very real hear-cry for compassionate acknowledgement into some sort of a diabolical conspiracy theory. This does not strike me as an especially Christ-like thing to do.
And this is why a kid’s show like Steven Universe is so helpful in this conversation, because it illustrates the problem with a term like “the gay agenda.” Did Rebecca Sugar have an “agenda” when she created this show? I guess it depends on what you mean by agenda. It is well documented that she began with a particular end in mind—to help under-represented, and misrepresented children know that there was a place for them in the world, a place where they mattered just as much as anybody else. Whether or not you call that an “agenda” (in the “gay-agenda” sense of the word) depends entirely on whether or not you think this is a “manipulative” or a “subversive” thing to do.
I don’t think it is, either manipulative or subversive. In fact, I think it’s the work the church should be doing, and it’s the work that we consistently see Jesus doing. I say this without settling here whether theologically the church be affirming or non-affirming. I believe very strongly that Christians can do for LGBTQ people what Rebecca Sugar was trying to do for queer children when she created Steven Universe, and tell them that there is indeed a place where they belong, without necessarily settling the theological question about same-sex sex.
What a show like Steven Universe shows us is how important, and indeed, how beautiful it can be to do that. It also gives us a hint of what it might look like to do it well—by telling stories that include those who do not fall into our typical, or “normal” categories for gender, marriage, family and so on—to use language that acknowledges that not everyone is part of the heterosexual mainstream—by going out of our way to represent those who are not “normally” represented in our discussions of what it means authentically to follow Jesus.
It may not look like a cartoon about a band of alien superheroes dedicated to saving planet Earth, for the church to do this. I have a hunch, however, that if a church sincerely acknowledged the presence the LGBTQ people in its midst—if it included the queer experience its portrayals of what a well-lived Christian life might look like—if the church took a small cue from someone like Rebecca Sugar, I mean, and did the work of LGBTQ representation well—I think we would find we have a lot more in common with the so-called “gay agenda” than we ever realized. Not least of these would be a desire to see those who are on the edges of the social-circle brought close to the centre, those who are voiceless to be given a voice, and those who have always wondered if they were loveable, to discover that they are loved more purely and more divinely than they ever could have imagined.
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