The show was a pretty big success, though I think we can all agree her catch-phrase, "For the honor of Greyskull", was not as catchy as He-Man's "By the power of Greyskull." Nonetheless, I, along with millions of other children tuned in after school to watch her battle Hordak and his minions of bad dudes. While he was a capable enemy, Hordak was no Skeletor in terms of sheer evil determination and general bad-assness.
Dave, why this trip down cartoon memory lane? It's so out of character for Rubinville.
Right, right.
Well, when I saw that She-Ra turned 25, it reminded me of something else about watching the show when I was a 9 or 10 year old. I do remember having this vague sense of shame, even though I didn't really know what it was, as if I shouldn't be watching a show that was for girls. Really though, there was no reason to think that show was for girls, other than She-Ra was a woman. Besides that, it was pretty much the same thing as He-Man. (Sorry to all of you who want to get really deep on the differences between the two. We can do that about She-Ra and Jem sometime, if you want.)
Ironically, I'd bet that 90% of the kids that watched She-Ra were boys, and I wonder what percentage of those boys were gay and were feeling them same thing I felt. I guess it just shows the subconscious things that kids can deal with while growing up.
Anyway, time passed and I moved onto bigger and better cartoons such as GI Joe and Transformers. Fortunately, neither of those caused any sexual confusion for me, though come to think of it, my two favorite bad guys, Starscream and Cobra Commander were both a little gay. (And voiced by the same guy, Christopher Collins, aka Chris Latta, who in an ironic twist was also a comedian. Sadly, he died a rather mysterious death back in 1994. Man, this post is all over the place, huh?)
Oh, it should be noted that my feelings about this don't apply to all female superheroes. I never really liked Wonder-Woman. The idea of an invisible jet just seemed utterly ridiculous to me.
Now if Betty White had an invisible jet, that would be a show...
