Yahoo News The 15 Best LGBTQ Cartoons of All Time
It took a long time, but mainstream cartoons are finally coming out of the closet. Now, we can only hope they stay that way.
When live-action television began making inroads for gay representation during the turn of the century, animation remained a frustratingly straight (if frequently queer-coded) affair. The reasons behind the medium’s slowness were obvious and, predictably, homophobic. Animation is too often seen as content made for kids, and same-sex attraction is regarded as an “adult” topic. So, pearl-clutching TV critics would argue, children shouldn’t be exposed to “adult” (read: gay) characters through raunchy cartoons.
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That’s not to say that there weren’t LGBTQ people in cartoons before the 2010s; Japanese anime, in particular, was slightly ahead of the curve on this front, with ’90s classics like “Sailor Moon” and “Neon Genesis Evangelion” featuring explicitly queer themes and love stories. But that content was often mercilessly squashed when it made its way to North America; see the infamous first English dub of “Sailor Moon,” which tried to pass off girlfriends Sailor Uranus and Neptune as too-close cousins, or the English translation of “Cardcaptor Sakura,” which removed all instances of queer attraction and romance from the story.
Western animation, meanwhile, either featured gay characters in one-off episodes (see “The Simpsons'” iconic John Water’s gay steel mill episode) if they were aimed more at adults, or kept hidden in subtext if the target audience was younger. For example, years after “The Proud Family” first aired, creator Ralph Farquhar admitted that the character of Michael was written as gay, but had to be merely queer-coded to conform with Disney’s standards at the time.
Over the last few years though, LGBTQ stories in animation have progressed rapidly. One of the first boundary breakers was “The Legend of Korra,” which more or less made it explicit in the last episode that the title character was bisexual and in love with her friend Asami. That was a squirrelly situation in many regards (the creators had to wait until the last episode to confirm it, and the entire final season was confined to Nickelodeon’s website instead of the channel proper), but it paved the way for “Steven Universe,” which had its queerness baked in from the jump. “Steven Universe” was revolutionary in its own way, and numerous other LGBTQ animated series for kids were able to follow in its footsteps, like “She-Ra,” “The Owl House,” and “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts.”
That said, all of those series have ended, and it’s unclear if there are similar shows ready to replace them. Between the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill and numerous anti-trans laws passed in red states, there has been a concentrated conservative effort to demonize LGBTQ people and prevent discussion of sex and gender identity among children. It’s not hard to imagine corporations behind these series backtracking on the inroads these shows made for queer representation out of political fear. In these conditions, championing queer animated shows is more important than ever.
In celebration of Pride Month, let’s take stock of the best and gayest that animated TV has to offer. This list considers both adult shows, like buddy comedy “Tuca and Bertie” and Hollywood (sorry, Hollywoo) satire “BoJack Horseman” — as well as kids shows like “The Owl House” and “Steven Universe.” We also included multiple anime entries, from classics like “Revolutionary Girl Utena” to modern queer faves like “Yuri on Ice.”
Read on for a list of the 15 best LGBTQ animated series of all time.
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