Comments on: Inspirational fictional feminists: She-Ra

By: Miranda

Miranda — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:48:40 +0000

In reply to Shona. Hey Shona, I just wanted to thank you for commenting as I've just discovered your blog as a result :)

By: Shona

Shona — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:11:05 +0000

Wow; great take on She-Ra. My own personal take though is a bit different. I brought (as a grown ass adult) both He-Man & She-Ra — Season 1 (for both) on DVD. As a child, I of course loved She-Ra. But now looking at it, it seems that He-Man had a better written script than She-Ra did. Also outside of the first episode (which explains how She-Ra came to be), I find little affinity for Adora. Her official job was to be the leader of the rebellion. However she doesn’t seem to be very successful at that, in that she always runs off to become She-Ra and the slightest sense of trouble. It just didn’t seem believable that no one questioned that. At least Adam was expected to be a lazy prince & that’s it! Also She-Ra did have a boyfriend of sorts with Sea Hawk — who she openly fawned over. That was cute.

But yes, I agree that She-Ra was very progressive. Especially when you consider that she developed totally independent from the comics, and was created to be the “girl counterpart” of the He-Man franchise.

By: Links and things « hilann

Links and things « hilann — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:33:20 +0000

[…] She-Ra […]

By: A new sales venue, emotional writing, plagiarism, women in epic fantasy and awesome feminist cartoons | Cora Buhlert

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:11:03 +0000

[…] Reputation also offers lots of more good stuff, including this appreciation of She-Ra, Princess of Power, He-Man’s much cooler sister. Related content: Leipzig Book Fair interviews, sexualized […]

By: Colleen

Colleen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:01:02 +0000

Thanks for an amazing article! She-Ra has always been my favorite cartoon character, heroine, superhero, and all-around kick-ass chick. I always thought it was interesting that she had more powers than He-Man.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:50:35 +0000

In reply to Russell. "He-Man" is a terrible name. They needed a better starting point than MALE PRONOUN HYPHEN NOUN, really, to avoid the issues with She-Ra you've just mentioned. Her name is only better cos it goes RAAA at the end, I suspect...

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:18:01 +0000

In reply to Joff. Actually, research shows that her name was originally supposed to be He-Ra, tying her even closer to He-Man and referencing the Greek God Hera. Presumably someone then realised what the "He" in "He-Man" was actually doing and decided to be boringly gender-essential about it.

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:16:33 +0000

In reply to Lavender Menace. Fasten your safety belt, Beast-Man! (my personal favourite Skeletor line)

By: Joff

Joff — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:46:24 +0000

She-Guevara?

By: Lavender Menace

Lavender Menace — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:31:25 +0000

For a cartoon series created to sell toys it wasn’t half bad. I was absolutely obsessed with She-Ra, dragged my poor mother to the feature-length version which almost killed her and had all the dolls. And I never believed in She-Ra’s relationship with that Bo dude. I reckon she was more of a lady’s woman myself.

I liked He-Man as well and had a lot of those dolls, sorry “action figures”, too. My sister and I have hysterics when we remember how gay that cartoon was. Skeletor was so camp. The action figures weren’t much better; there was one call “Fisto”. I can’t help but wonder if someone was having a laugh somewhere.