While Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe has gotten an avalanche of positive attention for being one of the only children’s shows with queer characters, atypical family structures, and phenomenal representation in terms of race, body type, gender expression, and mental illness, I have yet to see anyone discuss how the show utilizes time to “queer” its narrative. So here I go.
If it wasn’t queer enough that the Crystal Gems (and all other Gems) are magical genderless aliens who all present as women and who fall in love with other Gems (except in one instance throughout all of Gem history), they also do not age. In the episode “So Many Birthdays,” we learn that the Gems are literally thousands of years old, and while they cannot age (and learn later in the series that they can regenerate if only their physical being is hurt), they can get injured and die if their gems are sufficiently damaged. This relates to Halberstam’s article, in that Gem culture “open[s] up new life narratives and alternate relations to time and space” (2).
Steven complicates this already alternative narrative, as he is half human and half Gem. In a more recent episode titled “Steven’s Birthday,” it is revealed that Steven is actually 14 years old, which is slightly older than his best friend Connie (a 12 year old human) and most viewers would have guessed. His birthday photo album reveals that he has not actually aged in several years, explaining why he looks young. Being the first known half human/half Gem, no one is sure how or if Steven will age any more, or the parameters of his ability to die. According to Halberstam, “Queer subcultures produce alternative temporalities by allowing their participants to believe that their futures can be imagined according to logics that lie outside of those paradigmatic markers of life experience — namely, birth, marriage, reproduction, and death” (2). Steven’s nonnormative aging process muddies a number of these experiences. If he can even reproduce to begin with, does he become able to when he is physically pubescent, or when he reaches a certain age regardless of his body? Could he reach “marrying age” and still look like a pre-teen? Can he die????? Who knows!
Another fact that further convolutes Steven’s temporality is that, under certain, uncontrolled circumstances, his physical age can fluctuate based on his mentality, as he turns into a withering old man in “So Many Birthdays” and reverts back into an infant in “Steven’s Birthday,” implying that time is not fixed and that age is an illusion. But that is something to explore at another time since I’m nearly 50 words over the limit. 🙂
I think this is an incredibly interesting way to analyze time. The fact that Steven ages in a peculiar way due to the fact that he is half gem, and therefore, half ageless, really connects well to the notion of “queer time.” What do you think is the purpose of his character being male when his mother gave up her form to have him? I think this post was super interesting. Thank you for it!