Childhood Ruined: Filipinx American Representation in Steven Universe
Filipinx American Representation in Steven Universe
by Noreen Ocampo
Childhood Ruined is a four-part series by the COUNTERCLOCK blog editors. We partnered with the concept of Twitter, your mother’s photo albums, and the reboot of Arrested Development to ruin your childhood. Specifically, we will review and interrogate shows from the past to recognize and name some of their underlying problematic aspects. By doing this series, we intend to honor the media we cherish by being critical of where our media has failed us and, by extension, confront our own unconscious biases.
If you missed them, revisit Woody’s introduction to the series, Sarah’s article on misogyny and elitism in Asian dramas, and Ashira’s article on hypermasculinity in Johnny Bravo. Continue reading with Woody’s article on neoliberal recuperation in The Legend of Korra!
Despite his initially abrasive personality and apathetic facade, Lars has always been one of my favorite characters in Steven Universe. The aspiring Cool Kid and former Big Donut employee is a surprisingly sympathetic character once you get to know him, and although he struggles with low self-esteem and a hidden yet ever-present desire to fit in, his character development by the end of the series is unmistakable, inspiring, and important.
But there’s another reason for my soft spot for Lars’ character. In the episode “The Good Lars” during the fourth season of Steven Universe, Buck Dewey invites Lars, Steven, and Sadie to a potluck. The invitation throws Lars into a nervous disarray as he contemplates what dish would most impress The Cool Kids, whose approval he chases throughout much of the series. When Steven suggests that Lars simply bring a dish that represents him, Lars’ choice comes as a surprise to many Filipinx viewers.
He decides to bake a beautiful ube roll, ube being a type of purple yam that is a common and loved ingredient in many Filipinx desserts. With Filipinx representation still sparse in American cartoons and media, Filipinx viewers were understandably ecstatic to see a sliver of our culture make an appearance in Steven Universe. Following the release of the episode, Ian Jones-Quartey confirmed Lars’ Filipinx heritage in response to a fan’s question on Twitter.
Lars worries if his “weird” childhood dessert will be impressive enough for The Cool Kids.
Like other Filipinx viewers, I was excited to see Lars pick an ube roll as the dish that best represents him, and I felt both surprised and lucky to have a Steven Universe character with whom I shared my cultural background. Despite this initial enthusiasm, however, I couldn’t help but wish that Lars’ cultural identity was something that had been more fully embraced rather than briefly revealed at an appealing — and maybe even “trendy” — opportunity so late in the series. Articles from 2016 depict ube’s rise to fame in the United States as “the new most Instagrammable food” and “the hottest new food on Instagram,” continuing on into 2019 and 2020.
You don’t have to be Filipinx for these headlines to leave a sour taste in your mouth. For me, considering the ube roll in this context has evaporated my initial excitement for this sliver of Filipinx “representation,” and I’m left with more questions than answers. Why do we only see Lars’ Filipinx identity in this one way, compressed into a cake (that is also, conveniently, hot, “new,” and Instagrammable)? Why exactly is Lars embarrassed of his “weird” ube cake? Is he ashamed of his culture? Is he afraid of seeming feminine because he enjoys baking? How is this potential aversion to femininity connected to his identity as an Asian American man, someone historically emasculated by our media and society? Considering all of these potential sources for Lars’ shame, what does Lars’ fear of judgement reflect about Beach City?
Representation of Asian Americans — and any other marginalized groups, for that matter — can be tricky. In some cases, creators push homogenized and caricatured portrayals, reducing their characters to stereotypes and overused themes rather than uplifting unseen narratives. (Think nerdy Asian characters and exotic Asian girlfriends in shows and movies. The unnecessary perpetuation of stereotypes exists within the community as well, but that is another story.) In other cases, we have characters who end up so whitewashed that the initial goal of increasing diversity in media remains unachieved and forgotten. (Think Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell. Outside of Asian American representation, think Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6.)
Lars presents Steven and Sadie with his homemade ube roll.
I appreciate the subtle and clever nod to Lars’ cultural identity, but even so, I do wish that the writers’ choices regarding their representation of Lars’ Filipinx identity were handled differently, even outside of the ube roll. In the show’s pilot, for example, Lars has a darker skin tone and black hair, but both are lightened in the actual show (although interestingly enough, in the image above, we see a photo of a darker-skinned baby who may or may not be Lars). And unlike Connie Maheswaran, who is of Indian descent, Lars’ surname — Barriga — remains a mystery until the show’s fifth season.
Details such as physical appearance and surnames can influence how viewers relate to and connect with characters. Although all Filipinx people do not share the same set of physical traits or last names, darker-skinned Filipinx children who don’t tend to see themselves on screen deserve to do so, and even simply confirming Lars’ surname could’ve given Filipinx viewers a more concrete notion of Lars’ background without having to speculate and reach out to the writers. I think it is important to acknowledge the untapped potential of Lars’ character with respect to representing the Filipinx community — the Filipinx identity is far too complex to be reduced to an ube cake (that only makes a singular appearance, no less!).
It is also necessary to note biases in the Filipinx community that embrace our proximity to whiteness rather than uplifting the existing and multi-faceted Filipinx identity. For one, due to the rampant use of skin-whitening products like papaya soap and the domination of Filipinx media by light-skinned individuals, many Filipinx kids internalize an aversion to having darker skin from a young age, as is the case in many other Asian cultures. In a similar vein, the pressure to elevate the usage of English among diaspora Filipinxs and even in the Philippines has, in many cases, resulted in the loss of Philippine languages due to the perceived superiority of traits associated with whiteness.
Steven visits Lars’ parents, Dante and Martha, when Lars doesn’t show up to The Cool Kids’ potluck.
Another aspect of Lars’ identity that I became aware of while writing this piece is that Lars is likely biracial. The possibility that Lars’ background changing from full to half-Filipinx as Steven Universe creators shifted from the pilot to the actual show does explain the changes in Lars’ physical appearance, but because biracial Filipinxs are not any less valid in their Filipinx heritage, this change does not alleviate the necessity of Lars’ Filipinx background being properly represented in the show. In fact, the issue of incomplete representation only grows if Lars is biracial since the show’s representation of Lars’ non-Filipinx side is even more invisible and undeveloped. Ian Jones-Quartey has confirmed that Lars is not white on Tumblr, but other than that, Lars’ non-Filipinx side remains an absolute mystery. Again, we see this conflict of confirming Lars’ identity offscreen while not letting him embody this identity onscreen, where it is most important.
All in all, I can’t deny that Lars’ presence as a Filipinx character in Steven Universe is important to many people, including myself. At the end of the series, when Lars owns his own bakery, we see another Filipinx dessert, polvoron, displayed in his shop, and I appreciate Lars’ growth from worrying if his ube roll would impress The Cool Kids to making and selling his own Filipinx baked goods. I love this heartwarming touch, and I would love to see even more moments that celebrate characters and their cultures in their entirety — if creators are going to be praised for contributing to racial diversity in media, they need to do the work. They need to let characters of color exist, struggle, grow, thrive on screen as people of color with real, developed backgrounds, not as potentially Filipinx mysteries or as vehicles to include a particularly Instagrammable cake.
Noreen Ocampo is a Filipina American writer from metro-Atlanta. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Taco Bell Quarterly, Depth Cues, and Marías at Sampaguitas, among others. She was also a music fellow in the 2019 COUNTERCLOCK Arts Collective and enjoys experimenting with various artistic mediums. An undergraduate at Emory University, she majors in Film and Media Studies as well as English with a concentration in multi-ethnic literature.