Steven Universe 

The need for kind and caring savior,
even if "only" a cartoon​

It ​

​"Pick your hero .  Jesus?  Prometheus?   The Buddha?  Donald Trump?   Steven Universe?   I'll take Steven.   If he could talk or hug his way out of any problem, he would.   He believes in relational power.   He adjusts to any new situation, always trying to understand the pain.  And he's enough of a goofball that I can identify with him.   I don't need a savior who scares me into goodness.  I need a savior who inspires me to become my better self.   I find Jesus in Steven.

​- Imaginary Next Door Neighbor who loves Cartoons

​"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." 

- Joseph Campbell

*

"There’s a growing audience of kids and kids at heart who are treating Steven Universe’s adventures like sacred scripture, and the world might just be a more humane place if we all looked to its starry brightness for guidance."
​
- Micah Bucey

​*

"One of the great things about Steven is he's often not fighting to simply defeat his antagonist. He's trying to understand their pain, help them through it and win them over in the process. As the opponents and their pain grow through the series, so Steven has to grow to help them. It's what makes his character arc so fascinating. He is constantly changing and reacting to the needs of those around him. You will not meet a kinder, more gentle cartoon soul than Steven Universe."

​-- Courtney Lanning

​
​"The Crystal Gems are a team of magical beings who are the self-appointed guardians of the universe. Half-human, half-Gem hero Steven is the "little brother" of the group. The goofball is learning to save the world using the magical powers that come from his bellybutton and he goes on magical adventures with the rest of the Crystal Gems, even though he's not as powerful -- or smart -- as fellow group members Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. Despite his shortcomings, Steven usually finds a surprising way to save the day."

Excerpts from Reviews
​

Steven Universe: The Movie is a joy. There is so much love in every frame, every note, that it’s hard to not spoil it for everyone right here and now. It is a reprise of sorts that reminds viewers why they fell in love with the show in the first place while also hammering home, again and again, that change is essential to growth, and life without change isn’t any life at all.

​In a world filled with so much hatred on every channel, so much horror, it is a wondrous thing to watch these fictional characters overcome seemingly insurmountable problems through compassion. Steven Universe, be it this movie or the series, inevitably features some amount of fighting, but it is never the goal nor the desired outcome. If Steven could talk or hug his way out of every single problem in life, he would.

And this outlook on life, this constant cheerful resilience to anything thrown his way, is never looked down upon. The film practically puts Steven back to square one during the course of its 90-minute runtime, but it only ever makes him more resolved to keep pushing forward despite it. Yes, there’s moments of despair and doubt, but those brief interludes are always in service to some greater realization or epiphany."

-- Rollin Biship, Gaming Editor for Comicbook.com

Steven Universe: The Movie is an openhearted invitation for all to join the eternal quest to be a better human being. The fact that this lesson is embodied by a bunch of animated aliens and one little human-alien hybrid should deter no viewer from accepting the invitation. This is mythology on par with the greatest epics of our canon; it’s just a bit more fresh than most of those musty stories. But take note: There’s a growing audience of kids and kids at heart who are treating Steven Universe’s adventures like sacred scripture, and the world might just be a more humane place if we all looked to its starry brightness for guidance."

-- Micah Bucey, Spirituality and Practice

Is a Cartoon Savior Enough?  A Little Metaphysics

Imagine that you live in a world where people are seeking saviors.  Some turn to Jesus, some to Muhammad, some to the Buddha, some to Donald Trump, and some to Steven Universe. 

Admittedly, many consider Jesus and Muhammad and the Buddha and Donald Trump as real people, while they think of Steven Universe as a comic book figure.  However, truth be told, all of the saviors are held in their followers’ imaginations through the lens of mythic tropes.  There is a bit of the comic book hero in all of them.

This fact does not make the heroes less real; it just makes them real in a different way.  As images that people carry iin their minds both consciously and unconsciously, they are what Whitehead calls propositions or lures for feeling.  We might also speak of them as living metaphors.   Here's the point.  Whether or not they are flesh-and-blood figures in real life, comic book heroes have agency as living metaphors, as lures for feeling.

Do these metaphors really exist?  It all depends on what is meant by existence.  In the philosophy of Whitehead propositions are one of what he calls eight categories of existence.’ Here’s a diagram, used in China as well as the United States, naming all eight.
​

​For Whitehead actual entities and eternal objects have a kind of primacy.  The other eight forms of existence are
derivative.  However, as derivative, they have power in human life, especially the propositions.
​
Whitehead believed that the universe unfolds in the larger context of a Great Compassion.   This Great Compassion is not outside the universe.  Instead the Great Compassion embraces the universe and is the soul of the universe, albeit with feelings and aspirations of its own.  The Great Compassion is indeed the life of the universe as a whole.

The Compassion operates in the world through persuasion not coercion, love not hatred, empathy not callousness.  Thus the Compassion is not all-powerful in the traditional sense.  The Compassion cannot prevent all sadness and tragedy.  And yet, like Steven Universe, the Compassion can and does adjust, again and again, with possibilities for healing and hope, relative to what is possible.  

Consider, then, the living metaphor of Steven Universe.  We do not know how long Steven will live.  He may survive for a season, several decades, or more.  He will survive only inasmuch as he has mythic power in people's imaginations.  But to whatever degree he does have that power, even for a short time, he is a means through which the Great Compassion finds its way into the human heart.  He may or may not have more power than other saviors,  But his power is good.  Yes to Steven Universe.

Is Steven enough to save the day?  Probably not.  I can hear Christians saying "I'll take Jesus" because he was actual.  But I cannot help but wonder if Jesus doesn't need Steven Universe, too.  That is, if he doesn't need not only human beings, but also living metaphors, who communicate and extend his aspirations that human beings live from love not greed, compassion not selfishness, and who accept their humanity, and have some fun, along the way.  Yes, Jesus needs Steven, too.

- Jay McDaniel