Steven Universe, an American animated series, navigates through the coming-of-age of Steven in the fictional town of Beach City. He lives with the Crystal Gems, who are basically magical, mineral-based aliens, including Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. Steven is a half-gem and protects the Gems from external threats.
Rebecca Sugar, the creator of the show, is the first non-binary animator/screenwriter to achieve this feat. She has consistently advocated for LGBTQIA representation in children’s entertainment. She expressed her views on integrating queer content in early education on Cameron Ezposito’s podcast QUEERY. Sugar said–
“I want to champion LGBTQIA, all of it, content … in G-Rated, family entertainment. I want to do that forever”.
Sugar believes that this exposure will help children understand their identity and come to terms with it like it did for her.
She did bring her vision to life with Steven Universe, which earned her a plethora of accolades, including media industry awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, the 2018 Peabody Award for Children’s & Youth Programming, and the 2019 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Program. In 2015, the series was named to the James Tiptree Jr. Award Honor List.
However, Rebecca was embroiled in a controversy involving an unused character in a vault. Viewers believed that the character named Concrete was racially insensitive and perpetuated harmful stereotypes. However, Sugar apologized for the discarded yet archived character, which she didn’t even create herself.
What Has Rebecca Sugar Done?
Steven Universe has several eccentric and quirky characters that give a glimpse of a variety of personalities and issues pertaining to young adults. However, there are several other conceptualized characters that didn’t make the cut into the show. One of those characters was called Concrete.
However, the rough sketch and notes for the character resurfaced a few years back. Many things about Concrete irked the netizens who pointed out that racial stereotypes are problematic to include in children’s educational content.
According to popular opinion, the “can’t read” note is really in poor taste, and the sketch looks a lot like the black-face racist drawings during the slavery era.
Rebecca Sugar quickly and genuinely apologized for the oversight. And she took the responsibility of even exposing this idea to the world.
However, the truth of the matter is that she neither came up with the concept nor did she create the character. Lamar Abrams, a fellow writer, a storyboard artist, and a black creator himself, created this character. He, too, apologized for the tone-deaf character.
Regardless, Rebecca, as a producer/showrunner, is responsible for the approval of all characters. And stating the fact– Concrete never made the lineup to be included in the Steven Universe.
Netizens were split in opinions, considering this was an honest mistake and a learning experience for the creator.
“It wasn’t until after the artbook was published that the wholly unintentional resemblance between Concrete and racist caricatures of black people was noticed. Both Rebecca Sugar and the artist responsible for the design (who was black btw) apologized and the drawing was removed.”
“its good that rebecca sugar apologized 4 the concrete situation & is taking it out of future publications but ppl still have a right to be angry.”
“However she ended up in the art book due to not being caught and cut (the pun was intended this time) and Rebecca Sugar apologized. Also Concrete was designed by a black guy so it was just an unfortunate mistake more than anything intentional.”
“The thing is its not all on rebecca sugar, like the issue with Concrete was an oversight from her and the rest of her team and I feel the same applies with just character portrayals the overall format with the show. The multiple long haitus’, the sudden breaks from the plot with the beach city people and just personally the conflict steven was dealing with, not exactly matching how it needed to be handled. Like the lessons in forgiveness and that people can change, I think would have worked better if the stakes weren’t set so high in SU.”
“I’ll never forgive Rebecca Sugar for putting that Concrete drawing in my mind because every time I’m reminded of SU, I think back to that picture.”
“The person behind the sketch is a black story board artist named Lamar, Rebecca was not involved in the creation of the sketch or the description, she did miss it during the approval process of a Steven Universe art book which she took responsability for.”
What is your take on this controversy? Do you think Rebecca should be the one to blame? Do you agree that Concrete was a harmful stereotype?
Let us know in the comments section below.
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