We are gathered here today to celebrate Ruby and Sapphire.
Narrator: You're looking at the first LGBTQ wedding
in a kids' animated show.
And this is the first kids' animated character
to directly identify themselves as gay.
Benson: Yes!
Because I'm gay.
Narrator: These are just a few examples
in a recent push to include more queer representation
in children's animated shows and movies.
But it took a long time and a lot of work to get here,
battling decades of harmful stereotypes
and queer-coded villains.
Rebecca Sugar: You know, it was just a matter of
not so much busting down these walls,
but just very slowly chipping away at them
for years and years and years and years.
Narrator: Let's take a look at how we got to this
from this.
This is a scene from the 1933 animated
Flip the Frog short "Soda Squirt."
The flamboyant character turned Hyde-like monster
pretty much sums up to the extent
to which "queer" characters appeared on screen at the time.
A year later, in 1934,
the Motion Picture Association of America
started enforcing the Hays Code,
which banned in films, quote,
"Sex perversion or any inference to it."
That was the same year the US government established
the Federal Communications Commission
and the first set of commercial TV regulations.
This created an era of internal censorship
out of fear of being hit with reprimands, fines,
or having their broadcast license revoked.
But creators did get creative,
especially when it came to animated films.
Melanie Kohnen: People actually found ways
of inserting queerness into cartoons
and stretched the boundaries of the Production Code,
because animation in itself is a medium
that already lends itself
to surrealness or strange situations.
Narrator: Live-action TV couldn't show two men kissing,
but a character like Bugs Bunny could kiss hunter Elmer
and pass it off as a joke.
Speech patterns, mannerisms, costumes, and more
also became signals of queerness, or queer coding.
Let's take a look at Bugs Bunny again,
who first appeared in 1940.
In addition to kissing other male characters on the mouth,
he also cross-dresses in many episodes.
But this didn't make him queer.
According to creator Chuck Jones,
this was all meant to make him "funny."
Viewers, however, could have their own interpretation.
RuPaul, for one, has said that
Bugs Bunny was his "first introduction to drag."
Cartoon characters were also given the freedom
to veer from traditional gender roles,
so we could see characters
like an effeminate bull who refused to fight
or a tea-sipping dragon.
Queer coding may also have been a way around censorship,
but it wasn't ideal and relied on harmful stereotypes.
And as television grew in popularity,
these stereotypes would play out again and again,
sometimes in damaging ways.
The '50s.
A time known for conformity in the States
and for the television cartoon boom.
Both those things came into play
with the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters,
a set of evolving guidelines
that covered everything from decency and decorum
to TV's responsibility towards children.
The original 1952 code stated that
"Sex crimes and abnormalities" were unacceptable topics
and that shows should foster "commonly accepted moral,
social and ethical ideals characteristic of American life."
This was all happening
with McCarthy's Lavender Scare in the backdrop,
and it became visible on screen.
Queer characters were no longer just a source of ridicule,
but violently attacked,
fueling a decades-long "bury your gays" trope
that persists today.
Many popular characters were still coded
from the '60s to the '80s,
despite a sexual revolution
and the start of the gay-rights movement.
But queer-coded characters
were also increasingly cast as villains.
Melanie: If you go with the classic
hero-versus-villain model,
the hero will embody what's normal,
and then the villain has to be the opposite.
And an easy way to suggest that is
to draw on really obvious stereotypes
that suggest queerness.
Narrator: Let's look at the earliest entry
in Insider's database that cataloged
more than 200 confirmed LGBT characters.
This is Skeleton, a villain in the 1980s show "SuperTed."
The creator confirmed Skeleton's sexuality as gay in 2014.
Skeleton: Do you think I look best in diamonds or rubies?
Narrator: Many iconic queer-coded Disney movie villains
emerged in the late '80s and '90s.
Ursula from "The Little Mermaid"
was inspired by the drag queen Divine,
and queer communities welcomed her with open arms.
Melanie: Audiences may, in fact,
embrace the villain over the hero
because the villain offers an alternative vision of life
or an alternative life path,
and one that doesn't end in heterosexual romance.
Narrator: Other characters like Gaston and LeFou
from "Beauty and the Beast"
and Jafar from "Aladdin"
could have been influenced by their makers.
They were created by Andreas Deja, an openly gay animator,
and sang music written by openly gay lyricist Howard Ashman.
But that sliver of representation had its downfalls.
If you can only exist as a villain or a joke, I mean,
that's a really heavy thing to be saturated with as a kid.
Narrator: And despite code improvements,
networks were still hesitant
to show any obvious representation.
Powerpuff narrator: The only safe way to refer
to this king of darkness is simply ...
Him.
Narrator: Animators described a "culture of fear,"
with studios worried about losing advertisers
and boycotts from conservative groups and angry parents.
This fear was realized in 2005
with an episode of "Postcards from Buster,"
an "Arthur" spin-off series.
"Sugartime" featured two lesbian moms,
one of the earliest overt queer representations
in children's animation.
In response, Margaret Spellings,
the then secretary of education,
said PBS "should strongly consider"
returning the funds it used for the episode.
It was a major setback for queer representation at the time.
14 years later, an episode of "Arthur"
featured the anthropomorphic aardvark
attending the wedding of his teacher,
Mr. Ratburn, to his partner, Patrick,
and strangely enough,
we have the rise of cable TV and eventually streaming
to thank for that.
With fewer regulations and less government oversight,
cable TV opened the door for more representation.
But getting anything approved for children to watch,
whether it was commercials for bike helmets or junk food,
remained a long process,
with requests having to go
through seven or eight levels of approval.
This could add extra hurdles for creators,
and did for Rebecca Sugar during her time
at Cartoon Network.
In 2010, Rebecca was working on "Adventure Time"
and floated the idea of a past lesbian relationship
between Princess Bubblegum and the vampire Marceline.
But even then --
It was pretty much impossible
to have characters in an animated show
that were openly LGBTQIA.
Narrator: Pendleton Ward, the show's creator,
supported this idea.
But Rebecca said she faced years of pushback
from the studio, which was concerned about
distribution in countries where being gay or lesbian
was censored in media and considered a crime.
Rebecca: When we tried to talk about it openly,
the hammer came down, and they basically --
it went all the way to the top and came down hard on us.
Narrator: The characters' relationship wasn't confirmed
until 2018 when the two kissed in the season finale.
After her experience with "Adventure Time,"
Rebecca decided to create her own show
and push the boundaries even further.
♪ We ♪
♪ Are the Crystal ♪
♪ Gems ♪
Narrator: So in 2012,
she started developing "Steven Universe,"
about a gender-nonconforming boy
who is friends with extraterrestrial nonbinary beings,
or gems.
In season one, viewers learn
that two of those gems are in love,
but revealing this relationship was a slow process,
and each step was a struggle with the network.
Rebecca says she received
specific feedback from Cartoon Network
that the two characters couldn't kiss.
Rebecca: And it all became very disturbing,
and realizing that I was sort of getting these direct notes,
this really made me realize
that I had been receiving that message indirectly
from all of the content that I had seen growing up,
where LGBTQIA characters just aren't present.
And they aren't present because they're being,
you know, blocked from existing.
You know, they're being systematically removed.
Narrator: Their relationship was first hinted at
in an episode called "Jail Break,"
which aired in March 2015,
just as same-sex marriage was about
to become legal in the US.
Rebecca: Even the audience members
who were excited about it or who liked it
would say things like,
"I can't believe you're getting
these adult themes into your show."
It was all treated as if it was very subversive.
It's not that we snuck adult ideas into a children's show.
I mean, children are flooded
with heteronormative content all the time.
Narrator: Most animated Disney films,
like "Sleeping Beauty,"
involve the love between a princess and a prince.
Those scenes inspired Rebecca
to create ones for queer audiences.
You know, I wanted to experiment
with some of these really classic visuals.
Narrator: In 2015, Rebecca says,
studio executives told her
it was her choice to make Ruby and Sapphire LGBTQ.
They warned her that some countries might pull the show
and it could get canceled altogether.
But the next year,
Rebecca came out as bisexual at San Diego Comic-Con
and began to speak more publicly about LGBTQ issues,
both in the industry and in her work.
It's really hard to twist yourself
into a different person to make art.
It was hard for me to try and make heteronormative art,
and that's part of the reason I ultimately realized
that I could come out and I could speak about this
and that it was a part of who I am.
Narrator: Coming out helped her speak more openly
and advocate for her characters to be LGBTQ,
and it paid off.
In 2017, "Steven Universe" was nominated
for the GLAAD outstanding comedy series award,
and in 2019, it won in the kids and family category.
And then, all of a sudden,
the force of decades and decades
of activism and advocacy were suddenly behind me.
Narrator: The first gay proposal and wedding episode
aired in the summer of 2018
and made kids' animation history.
Steven: I now pronounce you Garnet!
Narrator: "Steven Universe" was the start of a wave
of animated shows with LGBTQ representation,
and the rise of streaming apps
would make that wave even bigger.
Without FCC regulations or broadcast codes
and with fewer layers of approval,
creators were given more autonomy with their characters.
This is where we start seeing
much more representation in animation,
and not only with sexual orientation,
but with gender identity and queer communities overall.
Velma from the original 1969 "Scooby-Doo" cartoon
was long read as gay
before being officially written as lesbian in a 2010 update,
"Mystery Incorporated."
Benson, a leading character
from "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts,"
made history as the first kids' animated character
to directly identify as gay in dialogue.
Benson: Yes!
Because I'm gay.
Narrator: And Noelle Stevenson's
"She-Ra and the Princesses of Power"
featured a multiseason queer story arc,
capped off in 2020 by a famous on-screen kiss
between Adora and Catra.
The show also broke ground
by featuring a trans male character, Jewelstar,
voiced by trans male actor Alex Blue Davis.
From 2017 to 2019,
our database showed a more than 200% spike
in queer and gender-minority characters
in children's animated TV shows.
We need to have queer representation
in children's animation between queer children exist
and they deserve to see themselves on the screen.
They deserve to see romance and happiness
that represents the things that they already feel.
Narrator: There are still some limitations
to the progress, though.
90% of the characters are behind a paywall of some sort,
preventing all children from equal access
to LGBT representation.
And the stories don't always do the characters justice.
Shiro, the leader of the Paladins
in "Voltron: Legendary Defender,"
was revealed to be gay at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con,
but his partner was killed off
in the same episode he was introduced in,
a controversial moment that played into negative tropes
and didn't sit well with fans.
But just like Rebecca Sugar
pushed the boundaries in the past,
a new generation of animators
is raising the bar for the future.
What I hope for in the future
is that more and more marginalized artists
are going to be in a position
to make the art that they want to make
and to reach people with that art who can relate to it.