How a children’s series tackles negative self-talk

Rebecca Sugar’s STEVEN UNIVERSE masterfully depicts characters struggling with negative thoughts and how close relationships help us negotiate those feelings within ourselves

Take a moment.

Think of just

flexibility, love and trust —

Here comes an article overthinking a children’s show.

The Characters

Firstly, if you’re completely unfamiliar with Steven Universe as a series, you may have zero clue what the music video above means. I say this not because it’s a negative thing, as it’s entirely possible and permissible for someone to have never heard of a television series before. I say that to broadcast that I consider my reader might be someone with no familiarity to the series as there are limits to storytelling: you do have to have an understanding of the characters to derive meaning and get at something closer to a whole picture. But the whole picture is obviously not where we can start, so I must first introduce you to the universe of Steven Universe.