Disclaimer: There is no correct English spelling of “Channukah,” and I have made no attempt in this essay to find one. You have been warned.

My feelings about Hanukkah and its place in the “holiday season” are. . . complicated. 

I grew up in an extremely WASP-y and homogenous part of southern Maine. The crowd around me, however, was mostly pretty liberal — and so the small acts of anti-Semitism that I experienced, rather than being actively oppressive, were often broadly comedic. I never got a single “My pastor says Jews are going to hell,” but I did receive plenty of “Santa got me an XBOX and a dirt bike and three Bionicles for Christmas, and you should convert to Christianity so you can get presents too.”

One time in seventh grade (I don’t remember this story but my mom loves to tell it), my homeroom teacher approached my mother, asking whether I would mind if the class had a Christmas party. My mother responded that he should ask me directly, and told him to prepare for the possibility that I might, in fact, mind. And believe it or not, when my teacher ran into my mom again, he said “I asked him and he said he minded! What am I supposed to do now?”

At which point my mom said something along the lines of “Well, you could just not have a Christmas party.” Which then presumably caused my homeroom teacher to short-circuit. I do remember that we ended up having a Christmas party — not just in homeroom, but in Every. Single. Class. The people of Kennebunk, Maine loved a good Christmas party, and neither hell nor high water was going to stop them.

This was my first brush with the fact that many goyim (a word which here means non-Jews) are quite keen on making other cultures feel “included” in this Holiday Season, but are rarely receptive when you challenge the very notion of such a season.

On the one hand, reiterating this point feels like old hat, but lots of folks still seem not to know about this, so here I go: Hanukkah is one of the minor Jewish holidays. The reason it’s the most famous is simply because of its chronological proximity to that towering December titan, Christmas. Historically, it’s more akin to Independence Day than Christmas, and gift giving on Hanukkah was not a thing until the twentieth century. Against all odds, Hanukkah has been catapulted to notoriety, to the point where it’s seemingly the only Jewish holiday many goyim know about. This is less the case today, but when I was young in Kennebunk, I heard so much “Hannukah is the Jewish Christmas, right?” and saw so many nine-candled menorahs as generic symbols for Judaism that it honestly began to grate. Hannukah itself was never the problem — it’s a delightful holiday, and Lockman family Hanukkah parties absolutely slapped — but its dominance in the non-Jewish sphere made me resentful.

The overemphasis of Hanukkah has continued to this day, of course, just in more subtle ways, and often with the best of intentions. As a theatre critic, now is the time of year when I review shows like Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, or Grace and the Hanukkah Miracle — kid-friendly fare that is often steeped in Jewish history. And on the one hand, these shows are glowing celebrations of our culture; an inarguable social good. On the other hand. . . well, amidst a sea of December shows that are nearly all Christmas-themed, are shows like Herschel or Grace contributing to this widespread misconception, conflating Hanukkah with Judaism? Reducing an entire culture to one holiday? I have never seen a children’s show about Passover, or Purim, or Sukkot, or Rosh Hashanah. 

I don’t really have an answer for you. I guess I’d like more shows about Sukkot (objectively the BEST HOLIDAY, you can’t change my mind), but in the end, what I really want is less Christmas. Nothing makes me feel more like the token Jew than staring at the spreadsheet of Chicago shows I could review in December, and seeing a slew of Christmas media — but look! There’s the one Hanukkah show, just for me! Guess I’ll take that one! (I’ve reviewed Christmas shows in the past, but I’ve disliked most of them for obvious reasons that are usually unrelated to the production, and I’ve decided that it just isn’t fair to the Christmas show.)

A similar feeling comes over me when I see Christmas displays in lobbies of buildings, festooned with trees and baubles and tinsel — and then there’s a cute little electric menorah in the corner. Honestly, when this happens, I feel condescended to. My gut reaction to such a display is twofold:

1. Jeez, can you tone it down a little?
2. Please leave me out of this.

And therein lies the problem! In my experience, goyim do not want to be told to tone it down. Christmas is the dominating force, and they’re not gonna back down one bit — but they still want to be nice to you! And if they leave you out of it, how can they feel like they’re being nice?

It’s occurred to me that I’m describing Christmas almost like an invading army. And honestly? For me and a few Jews I’ve talked to, that’s often what it feels like. If there was a War on Christmas, we have long since lost it. December is an occupied country, and the only way to survive in it is to keep your head down, not make too many waves, and pray for January.

And here’s the thing: describing this feeling? Especially to my well-meaning goyishe friends who love Christmas but want to support me anyway? It sucks. It feels like by critiquing the larger phenomenon, I’m trying to poo-poo their individual Christmas traditions, when that’s the last thing I want to do. Things like going home to see your family, creating a spirit of generosity and gift-giving, and celebrating warmth, togetherness, and light in the darkest, coldest time of the year? Those things are objectively wonderful. 

I’ve talked a lot in this essay about “Christmas” and “the goyim” as a large, powerful group — and I want to be careful not to generalize. I hope this doesn’t feel like I’m attacking any individual. But in encountering these things over and over and over again, my frustration with the season has built up, and this is my attempt to describe the shape of that frustration. In all likeliness, I won’t start to hate you specifically if you think, feel, or say anything I’ve described above! It’s the cumulative effect that takes its toll. I’m not asking you to stop loving the things you love about Christmas. I am asking you to take a step back, look at it from the outside, and try to gauge how your culture is affecting the world as a whole. It’s worth doing, especially in an era when anti-Semitic violence is on the rise in America, and religious persecution in general is on the rise all over the world.

***

I have a confession to make. Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that I regularly celebrate.

It feels almost hypocritical to admit that, after railing against its overemphasis for a thousand words. But for a broke millennial such as myself — who’s not quite comfortable enough in their faith to go looking for a congregation — it’s simply the most convenient holiday. Passover requires a big, complicated dinner with lots of room and preparation. Purim, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur involve going to a synagogue. And Sukkot gets its label as the best holiday because it’s the only one that involves building a RAD FORT — and with my small apartment and smaller budget, I just don’t have the space or resources for a RAD FORT.

Hanukkah is comparatively easy. If you can afford a $10 menorah from Target, as well as a $1 box of candles (and if you want a traditional meal in a hurry, a $2.50 box of frozen latkes from Trader Joe’s and a $2 bottle of applesauce) you can afford to have a cheap, easy Hanukkah. You can light the candles and say the blessing by yourself; the party has always been optional. And in a blasphemous twist, it’s the most Instagrammable holiday as well. The simplicity and beauty of the burning candles translates well to social media. 

I can rant all night about how Hanukkah’s importance is inflated and Christmas is ruining everything. But I’m a part of the system like everyone else. And I’m not at all interested in berating myself for that.

***

So. What do we do? How can we move forward from this?

I’m not sure. I’m talking about a small issue here, but of course nothing is as separate as we think. There are larger struggles at play here. 

This morning, I tweeted a dumb joke: “I don’t believe in Christmas. I don’t think it’s real.” And all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I seem to have attracted the attention of Twitter Nazis! Yay! Now, my mentions are full of things like “Happy Holocaust, Schlomo,” and “Say hi to Satan!” I have made liberal use of the block button today, my friends, but they keep popping up.

Should I delete the tweet? Make my Twitter private? That might make them go away for now, but it’d almost feel like an admission of defeat. 

And furthermore, what do I do with the biting anger I’m feeling now? Do I tweet about it? Again, that’d feel like letting them win; telling them they’d got to me. 

This is not metaphor; this is actually happening. And yet, I can think of no better metaphor for the state of the nation right now. How do you comport yourself with dignity when dignity — or at least the illusion of it — went out the window long ago?

Lastly, I know that for many folks, this is a time of reflection and reset. And that is something I have always liked about this particular week; how most of the world just shuts down for a few days, nobody goes to work, nothing seems real, and we all take a few moments of quiet. 

Let’s try to sit in that quiet this week. And maybe, when we open our eyes, there’ll be some concrete solutions ahead of us. Fingers crossed. Thanks for reading.

Well, here we are. It was inevitable, I suppose, that we would come to the first episode to merit a SKIP stamp from me. Now, none of this is to say that I don’t absolutely love “Cheeseburger Backpack” — it is an icon of the show and has some truly delightful moments. However, it feels a little stagnant in terms of the larger story. Still, like any Steven Universe episode, there are some interesting things to look at.

Synopsis

Steven sits on the beach by his mailbox (by the way, does Steven’s house even have an address? His house doesn’t appear to be by any road, but it has a mailbox, and mail carriers know where it is) as he waits expectantly for a package. Jamie the Mailman makes his first appearance and delivers Steven a novelty backpack shaped like a cheeseburger, which Steven eagerly shows to the Crystal Gems. The Gems, meanwhile, are about to embark on a mission; replace a small, magical statue on top of the Lunar Sea Spire to restore it to its former glory.

Steven begs to come along on the mission, and the Gems give him the statue to carry in his Cheeseburger Backpack. Excited, Steven packs as many potentially useful items as he can carry, and they set off.

The group arrives at the crumbling Sea Spire, and proceed to climb their way to the top. At every level, they face obstacles and challenges that might prevent their ascent — but Steven keeps pulling unexpected solutions out of his backpack: a rope of tied-together sweaters as a grappling hook, a leftover sandwich to distract the Crystal Shrimp, and so on. When the Gems reach the top of the Spire, Steven reaches into his backpack only to discover that he forgot to bring the magic statue. He attempts to use a stuffed animal instead, but it doesn’t work, and the Sea Spire collapses into the ocean. The Gems comfort Steven, telling him that he did a good job regardless, and begin the long paddle home.

Analysis

This is the first time we get to see the Crystal Gems embark on an actual mission, and our first time seeing a location outside Beach City — thus far, magical phenomena have only ever infringed upon Steven’s home life. It is also the first use we see of the warp pad, a key magical device throughout the entire rest of the series — and I enjoy the little humorous touches, like Steven sticking various parts of his body outside of the warp stream, that also illuminate for us the mechanics of warp pad travel. 

“Cheeseburger Backpack” is also notable for being the first episode to pull its structure directly from video game narrative conventions. The music has so far been extremely video game inspired, of course, and that theme continues here with several triumphant 8-bit fanfares every time Steven solves a problem. But here we have:

• A mystical environment that our heroes must progress through by literally ascending through different “levels.”
• A protagonist with an “inventory” full of items that are useful for overcoming challenges in the environment. 
• An inventory container, namely the cheeseburger backpack, that seems comically small for all the items that are able to fit into it.

All these mechanics, plus the aquatic setting, almost take me back to playing the Freddi Fish games as a little kid. The influence of video games on Steven Universe will continue to be relevant, and I’m sure we’ll come back to it.

We also have a few small world-building touches, which this episode mostly come from clues in Pearl’s dialogue:

PEARL: Oh, Steven, you should have seen the Spire back in its heyday. It was an oasis for Gems on Earth!

PEARL (looking at the abandoned spire): It wasn’t like this a hundred years ago.

PEARL: Steven! This place is your heritage. I want you to stay and help, but you’ve really got to take this seriously. Can you do that, Steven?

From this, we can conclude a few things we didn’t know before:

• There are more ‘Gems’ than just our four main characters — and they seem to be an entire race, with a long history.
• Gems have been on Earth for a long time, but might not be from Earth.
• Gems seemingly have very long lifespans.

Again, I enjoy the slow trickle of information. 

There is one fun side note here. Ian Jones-Quartey, who co-wrote this episode with Rebecca Sugar and also served as its supervising director, also voices Mr. Queasy, Steven’s talking stuffed animal. Mr. Queasy is equipped with a voicebox that utters various catchphrases concerning gross bodily functions — which might be a connection to Jones-Quartey’s work on another cartoon, Bravest Warriors. In Season 2, Episode 9 of that show, “Dimension Garden,” the character Ian voices, Wallow, is shown in flashback as a young kid — and we see that he has a whole menagerie of talking plush toys who also dispense gross bodily humor to comedic effect. “Dimension Garden” was published on YouTube about five months after “Cheeseburger Backpack” aired on Cartoon Network, so I’m not sure what was inspired by what, but it’s certainly a fun reference either way.

Other than those few things, though, I have surprisingly little to say about this straightforward adventure episode. The central dynamic here, the one most important to the series — namely, the Gems allowing Steven to put his human creativity to the test and forgiving him when he fails — is self-explanatory. It’s entertaining, but relatively free of opportunities for analysis.

Conclusion:

“Cheeseburger Backpack” is skippable not because it’s bad, but because it doesn’t do much to progress our understanding of Steven, the Gems, or the season’s arc. All the important information that it reveals, mentioned above, is touched upon again later on, such that a new viewer can pick them up from context clues in better episodes.

The personalities of (and dynamics between) Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl are on display here, and are delightful as usual. I particularly relate to Pearl’s type-A agonizing over how messy the Sea Spire is. Amethyst continues to be fun and scrappy, and Garnet continues to be stoic and mysterious, with a strange unmentioned ability to know what challenges lie ahead. Again, however, we’ve seen these traits before and will see them again.

In addition, this episode in particular is a good example of how the animation style takes a while to find itself in the first season. Characters and items fluctuate in size a great deal, and the way Steven’s closed eyelids are stylized is weird and unnerving. Despite some beautiful images, the visuals clearly still have a long way to go.

Outtakes:

• At the beginning, the song Steven is singing is a hilarious mashup of “Please Mr. Postman” and “Mr. Sandman,” two jazzy mid-20th century songs. “Mr. Sandman” was popularized by the Chordettes, a trio of three singing ladies — but “Please Mr. Postman” was a hit number for the Marvelettes, a group of four. Interesting.
• The gag where Steven’s belly sticks out of the front of the warp field, preventing the Gems from warping, again seems a tad fatphobic.
• I like this little touch: at the end of the episode, Steven floats up to the surface of the water and gasps for air. Moments later, the Gems emerge as well — and Amethyst is the only one who is also gasping. Probably just for fun.
• Ian Jones-Quartey would go on to take the video-game-inspired structure inherent to Steven Universe to its most extreme when he quit the show to work on his own Cartoon Network project, OK KO.

If you are watching Steven Universe for the first time as you’re reading these, you’ll likely notice me assigning meaning and depth to things that you, an initial viewer, might not give a second glance. This episode in particular sets forth a very important philosophical argument that will be relevant to the series time and time again — but it does it very subtly, and couches it in the goofy, childlike tone prevalent in these early Season 1 episodes. As a result, there are definitely moments in this essay where you’ll be like “Dude. . . what are you doing? This is a kids’ show. There’s really not that much to it; what is even happening right now.”

But I assure you, the creators of Steven Universe are playing a very long game, my friend, and appearances can be deceiving. This is gonna be a fun one; let’s get into it.

Synopsis

As Steven and Amethyst are spending an afternoon tooling around on the boardwalk, a menacing orange sphere, which looks like a glaring eye and shines ominously, approaches Beach City from the sky. The Crystal Gems congregate on the beach to brainstorm how to stop it, and Garnet mentions that the only thing powerful enough to destroy the sphere (called a Red Eye) is a light cannon that once belonged to Rose Quartz, Steven’s mother. However, Rose Quartz is gone, along with her cannon. Steven offers to go and see his dad, Greg, to see if he might have the light cannon. The gems, skeptical, stay on the beach to brainstorm other ways to defeat the Red Eye.

Greg lives in a colorful van, parked next to the local car wash. Steven arrives and wakes him up, and Greg emerges from the van in an undershirt and sweatpants, disoriented from his nap. After some delightful and adorable dialogue that establishes their loving father-son relationship, they head to Greg’s storage unit to see if the light cannon might be in there. The storage unit is overstuffed and filled with junk, but after a bit of spelunking Steven locates the light cannon at the very back. Perhaps a tad ungracefully, Steven and Greg use the van to tow the light cannon to the beach — and just in time, as the Red Eye has come close enough to start causing some disastrous gravity anomalies. The group panics when they realize they don’t know how to activate the cannon, but discover on accident that Rose programmed it to only respond to Greg’s old catchphrase: “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.” In a beautiful pyrotechnics display, the light cannon destroys the Red Eye, and the day is saved.

Analysis

This second episode continues the first episode’s work of slowly building the world and laying down backstory – if you were confused at the whereabouts of Steven’s biological parents in “Gem Glow,” here’s your answer. We also get the story of how Greg and Rose met (he was a traveling musician, and when he played a concert in Beach City, Rose was the only one who showed up), as well as our first glimpse of Rose in the form of a framed photo of her and Greg that Steven encounters in the storage unit.

Perhaps most importantly, we get a very brief explanation as to why Rose Quartz no longer exists:

GREG: And we were always together after that. Until she gave up her physical form to have you.

We’re not really sure what this means yet, but again, I enjoy the slow leak of information.

“Laser Light Cannon” also introduces us to Greg, an important and central character throughout the series. Right from the get-go, Greg’s purpose seems to be to upend some of our preconceived notions about class, wealth, and success. The gems are a little disdainful of him:

PEARL: Greg is. . . nice, Steven, but I doubt Rose would trust someone like him with such a powerful weapon. 

AMETHYST: Your dad is kind of a mess, Steven.

PEARL: Amethyst!

AMETHYST: I’m just saying! Even if she did leave it with him, he probably broke it, or lost it, or dropped it in the ocean by now.

GARNET: True.

And in the scene where we first see him, he is clearly supposed to be extremely schlubby. He lives in a van, works at a car wash, is napping in the early evening, and seems to have a permanent t-shirt tan that his tank top does a poor job of hiding. He’s pretty unkempt, with long hair and a beard. He also has a pronounced hoarding tendency, as evidenced by his practically labyrinthine storage unit.

But despite all this, Greg seems perfectly. . . happy. The traditional markers of success don’t seem to mean much to either him or Steven — rather, they are both content to simply hang out with each other and have a great time. And, you know, save the world. The episode goes out of its way to point out that the things that society tells us we need aren’t always necessary for happiness or fulfillment. And it does this by creating an endearing, loving dynamic between Steven and Greg that is just endless fun to watch. Steven’s unwavering support of his dad’s music, and the goofy little bopping up-and-down dance he does to “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart,” never fail to give me the warm fuzzies when I watch this episode.

Perhaps most importantly, this episode gives us the first use of Greg’s signature catchphrase, which might be as close to a concise philosophical summary of Steven Universe as we get: “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.” 

Put more literally: if you expect perfection from every aspect of a process, you will miss out on a world of delicious opportunities. Even more literally: if all you care about is things going the way you want, not only will you be disappointed, but you’ll be denying a fundamental truth of the human experience, and you won’t have any fun. This philosophy is backed up by the lyrics to Greg’s song:

I know I’m not that tall;

I know I’m not that smart.

But let me drive my van into your heart,

Let me drive my van into your heart.

. . .

And if we look out of place,

Well, baby, that’s okay.

I’ll drive us into outer space

Where we can’t hear what people say.

I know I don’t have a plan;

I’m working on that part.

At least I’ve got a van,

So let me drive my van into your heart!

Let me drive my van into your heart!

I think you can interpret this song in a number of ways: on the surface, it is clearly Greg speaking to Rose, but I think it could also be Rose speaking metaphorically to her fellow Crystal Gems (I can’t expand on that assertion right now, but we’ll come back to it). Alternatively, it could be the show speaking to us, the audience, telling us to embrace our own imperfections.

It is no coincidence that Rose made the phrase “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” the command to unlock her laser light cannon. Metaphorically, embracing imperfection here is the key to unlocking one’s own power. And it’s also not a mistake that the cannon responds to a human phrase, about a human subject, and comes from a human storage unit. Remember, the Gems didn’t bother to look for the cannon, out of a lack of faith in Greg. But Steven has ties to both the Gems, who can fight the Red Eye, and his dad, who has the equipment to defeat it. This won’t be the last example of Steven’s two halves uniting to solve a problem.

Lastly, what does the Red Eye represent? Unlike the Centipeetle that the Gems fought last episode, it doesn’t seem particularly animalistic. Rather than attack, it simply looms ominously over Beach City, looking down on the humans and Gems below. Could this perhaps be a reference to The Great Gatsby, in which a billboard portraying the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg looms over the Valley Ashes, as if God is passing judgment over the events of the book?

I can’t say for sure, but I think we’re on the right track thinking of the Red Eye as an artificial, unfeeling, surveying presence. Believe it or not, we will hear about the Red Eye once more in a future episode. I missed it on my first few watches of the series; it’s a very subtle detail.

Conclusion

“Laser Light Cannon” feels like a significant step forward. It still has that childlike tone common to early episodes, but the animation and storytelling already feel much more confident; the sequence of the firing of the laser light cannon is absolutely gorgeous. I particularly love the things this episode does with color, as the creepy reddish-orange glow of the Red Eye slowly infiltrates Beach City over the course of the eleven-minute runtime. The comedic beats of the show are also making progress; Steven’s aforementioned dance in the van is of course hilarious, but I love love love the image of quiet, powerful Garnet picking up scrappy Amethyst and just freakin’ launching her at the Red Eye like a dodgeball. Followed, of course, by Amethyst’s anticlimactic plunge into the ocean, and her cheerful “I’m alright!”

This episode isn’t necessarily a favorite of mine; despite being ripe for analysis, the interesting stuff is mostly below the surface. As a result, it’s not the best episode to convince new viewers to keep watching, as the emotional engagement has yet to really arrive. But it’s still a rollicking good time with plenty of material to chew on, and it’s integral enough to the series that it does not warrant a SKIP.

Hello! Welcome to Aaron’s Steven Universe Guide, a series of essays where I plan to go through every single episode of Steven Universe, one of the best shows on television, and look at each one from a critical perspective. I love Steven Universe a lot, so much so that I recently started showing it to my new roommate who had never seen it. Rewatching the series from the beginning has been fascinating to say the least, and I’ve been having trouble finding the words to express to my roommate why I find it so fascinating. I’ve nearly always expressed myself better in writing, and I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of this show, so here we are. I cannot promise these will be regular, but they will always be passionate.

I intend for these to be critical — and like when I write theater criticism, I will not be shy about when I love something. But I would also like to take some unflinching looks at Steven Universe’s flaws, which no piece of art is free of. I’d also like to take a look at the show’s tremendous social impact — SU is arguably the most progressive TV show of all time, and I’d like to celebrate that. At the same time, as it bravely forages into untrod territory in terms of representation, it understandably makes some missteps along the way, which we will also be covering as we go along.

I will also be writing these without spoilers, so that you can read them as you watch the series for the first time. I will occasionally discuss foreshadowing, but I will try my best to avoid context as much as possible when that happens.

For now, let’s start with Season 1, Episode 1, “Gem Glow.”

Synopsis

We zoom in on a lazy beach town, and then into the eating establishment The Big Donut. Our story begins in media res, as a young boy in a pink shirt named Steven discovers that his favorite dessert, Cookie Cat, has been discontinued, and is justifiably heartbroken. The two teenage employees on duty are Lars and Sadie. Lars makes fun of Steven and points out Steven’s “magic bellybutton,” and Steven reveals for the first time the round, pink gem where his navel should be. Sadie is more empathetic, and lets Steven take the Cookie-Cat-branded mini-freezer home.

Steven walks home to his residence, a cozy beachside house which seems to be embedded in the front of an ancient, mysterious temple in the shape of a large, many-limbed woman. Inside, he stumbles upon his three guardians; Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet. They are fighting several green-ish, insectoid monsters, called “centipeetles.” As the three gems defeat the centipeetles, Steven discovers that they (the gems, not the centipeetles) have bought a bunch of Cookie Cat desserts and stored them in the freezer, making him understandably overjoyed. Upon eating one, Steven’s gem glows pink, sparking excitement, but the glow soon fades. 

Steven is saddened, and asks the gems to teach him how to summon a weapon from his gem. Each of the trio has a short session with him, attempting to explain how to do so with their unique perspectives and personalities, and each summons a weapon from her respective gem. Pearl’s gem is on her forehead; she summons a spear. Amethyst’s gem is on her chest (one could argue, near her heart); she summons a whip. Garnet has two gems, one on each palm, and summons gauntlets.

After some false starts, Steven finally manages to summon his weapon, a shield, while eating a Cookie Cat. This leads him to the conclusion that he can only summon his shield if he eats ice cream. Therefore, when the mother centipeetle attacks the house, Steven charges into battle armed with nothing but a freezer full of Cookie Cats, with predictably disastrous results. Thankfully, Steven is nonetheless able to help the gems subdue and defeat the centipeetle, which turns into a small green sphere. Garnet “bubbles” the sphere, and the gems comfort Steven, assuring him he’ll get better at summoning his weapon someday.

Analysis

One of the things I enjoy most about Steven Universe is the way that, over the course of the surprisingly long first season, it slowly reveals tidbits of information to the audience. This makes the worldbuilding feel natural and grounds the story in Steven’s perspective. “Gem Glow” has an outwardly goofy and childlike tone, like many early episodes, which can turn off prospective adult viewers and indeed turned me off a little on my first time through the series. Overall, it’s more interesting to re-watch than watch, given that it contains some lovely subtle foreshadowing of future reveals. Without spoilers:

LARS: Tough bits, man. Nobody buys [Cookie Cats] anymore. Guess they couldn’t compete with Lion Lickers.

STEVEN: Not Lion Lickers! Nobody likes them!

 

STEVEN: *rapping the Cookie Cat commercial song* He’s a frozen treat with an all new taste! / And he came to this planet from outer space! / A refugee from an interstellar war! / And now he’s at your local grocery store!

But beyond that, this episode immediately establishes some interesting paradigms.

First, that Steven lives not with his biological parents, but with three seemingly non-human warrior ladies who live in a magic temple and battle monsters on the regular. The fact that they are seemingly all co-parenting him suggests that, even if the Crystal Gems are not yet explicitly queer, there is certainly some queer coding going on.

Next, that Steven seems to have perhaps an unhealthy relationship with food; he develops an extreme emotional attachment to a dessert, and when he suspects the dessert is the key to his magic power, he force-feeds himself a great deal of it, to comedic effect. As a fellow dessert addict with unhealthy habits around food myself, I can certainly empathize. Where it gets troubling is how the episode portrays Steven’s weight. Several visual gags are based around Steven’s ample stomach surrounding his gem, and basing the plot of the first episode directly around sugary food and Steven’s overconsumption seems just a tad fat-phobic, especially as the joke seems to be at Steven’s expense. This contributes to the misconception that fat people have inherently worse food habits than thinner people, which is not only untrue and unsubstantiated, but perpetuates harmful prejudices. Now, if you’ve watched the series, you know that I will eventually have to revisit this particular criticism, as the portrayal of different body types on Steven Universe goes through many different and thoughtful iterations; we’re definitely going to come back to this point.

Lastly, more so than in the non-canon series pilot, “Gem Glow” gives us a small glimpse at the personalities of each of our three main Gem characters. Pearl is graceful, precise, affectionate, articulate, and exudes Mom Energy. Amethyst is more down-to-Earth; she is the only gem we see in a human environment, namely the Big Donut. We also see her messily eating a donut while there, indicating that like Steven she enjoys the earthly pleasure of eating — and her “chill out” attitude towards weapon-summoning establishes her as a more Cool Big Sister to Steven than a parental figure. Garnet, meanwhile, is powerful and inscrutable, and though she speaks affectionately to Steven, it’s clear he finds her just a little intimidating. Importantly, none of the Gems’ personalities are fully formed yet. We are seeing them as Steven currently sees them, and as many of us see our parents when we are young; as powerful, awesome, otherworldly beings.

The final point concerns the actual mechanism by which Steven summons his shield, which is emotion. Although it goes unmentioned, Steven’s gem only glows in this episode when he is happy. The first time, it is because he is relieved at getting his favorite dessert back — and the second time, when the shield appears, it is because the gems are comforting him and giving him encouragement. That both moments occur during ice cream consumption is incidental. The fact that Steven’s powers are tied to his emotions is incredibly important, but we can’t talk about it much yet.

Conclusion

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that kids might enjoy this particular episode more than adults might. One of the fascinating things about Season 1 is how it starts off as a bog-standard adventure show for kids, and then slowly strips away layers to get at complicated adult issues. As such, seeing as I am writing these guides mostly for adults, many early episodes will garner a SKIP stamp from me, indicating that if you are trying to get to the really good, meaty material, you might want to skip this one. But while I don’t find “Gem Glow” particularly engaging on an emotional level, I don’t think it merits a SKIP given all the important groundwork it lays. And I think that starting on a later episode would be a bit disorienting. I like “Gem Glow,” but I also think it’s more necessary than it is enjoyable, if that makes sense.