She-Ra Reboot

Something a lot of readers asked us to chime in on is the recently revealed artwork for rebooted She-Ra cartoon. 

Considering the showrunner for it is Noelle Stevenson, aka @gingerhaze, the author of Nimona and co-creator of Lumberanes, and from whom we reblogged a couple times in the past, it’s quite safe to assume it will be much more interesting and diverse than the original’s “exactly like He-Man, except looks like a Barbie doll and rides a flying unicorn.”

First off, judging from the EW interview, Stevenson intends to take full advantage of the heroine’s backstory, in which she was kidnapped and raised from infancy by the Evil Horde before she turns against them as She-Ra. That leaves a lot of story potential for internal conflict and development of relationship between princess Adora, her antagonists and friends (some of whom will likely be one and the same). 

Second, and more relevant to BABD, her character design is pretty damn solid mix of stylized magical girl elements (long hair, barely any armoring) and some practical choices, like comfortable looking shoes, short pants under her tunic and breast piece without the original’s cleavage. This is what we mean when we say a warrior design can be feminine without being objectifying. 

And yes, since we need to address the elephant in the room: there is a vocal minority of entitled manbabies crying that their childhood icon got snatched by the evil gay SJW agenda. 
That Adora/She-Ra, a teenager, is deliberately unsexyfied and that is bad because sexyness is totally what original show’s intended audience (young girls who wanted a He-Man’s feminine counterpart) liked about her. Not to mention allegations that the story is going to be “forcibly” turned into a queer narrative by the lesbian showrunner, which would be a bad thing, because…? 

[Because Diverstiy & Comics dude is a raging bigot, that’s why]

Also, people who who think that She-Ra or He-Man can be suddenly turned gay clearly didn’t rewatch either of the 80s shows lately. 

Here’s hoping that if this series catches on, then maybe a He-Man reboot comes next, this time turning all the gay undertones into overtones and angering  dudebros even more. 

~Ozzie

see also: Original She-Ra’s co-creator calls bullshit on claims that she was supposed to be “an idealized woman” | The Backlash Over She-Ra’s Redesign Is Why Girls Can’t Have Nice Things