In the tenth episode of the third season of Steven Universe, Steven tries to help Lars become a better person, but it has disastrous results. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Steven Universe.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of consent and abuse.
If you’ve been around Mark Watches for a good while, you know I’ve had a field day talking about body swap episodes. By and large, I hate them; it’s as if writers all over suddenly forget what consent is, how it works, and why it matters. Body swap tropes are used almost exclusively for humor when the experience itself, if it ever happened, would probably be horrifying. And yet, this aspect seems largely unexplored, and instead, consent is violated for laughs.
When Steven magically wakes up with his mind inside Lars, one of the very first things he says is that he needs to respect Lars’s privacy and his body. Now, what comes after this absolutely matters; you can’t state something like that and expect it to cover anything a character does. At the same time, I was shocked. That is Steven’s first cognizant thought inside someone else’s body, and this never fucking happens. I can’t think of a single example of a character being this aware of the implications of this scenario.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Steven lives up to his proclamation. Indeed, out of his misguided desire to make Lars a better person, he certainly violates Lars’s body and privacy, even though his intent is pure and good. That intent, though, doesn’t negate what follows. Indeed, as soon as Steven went downstairs and started to interact with Lars’s parents, he violated Lars’s privacy. Look what he learned in the span of sixty seconds! Lars’s parents are concerned about Lars’s terrible grades, despite that they also appear to have spoiled their son, desperate to get him to care about anything. Steven now knows something about Lars that he otherwise wouldn’t have shared with him. The same goes for his conversation with Kiki, Sour Cream, and Buck. Steven speaks to them as if he is Lars, but in doing so, he creates a false sense of who Lars is, which later backfires REALLY BADLY.
It’s not like this episode validates Lars’s jerkish behavior, either. Kiki is surprised that Lars actually complimented her; his parents are shocked that he didn’t swear at them; and later on, Sadie knows Steven is telling the truth because Lars would never actually apologize to her. Throughout “The New Lars,” we’re shown that Lars does have things he needs to work on, and there’s a glimpse of a life he could have if he wasn’t so mean all the time. The problem, however, is that Steven cannot force him to change! He can’t use this magical occurrence to make Lars’s life different or to give Sadie what she wants.
As unbearably uncomfortable as the scene in Sadie’s house is, it’s perhaps the most important part of this episode. Steven thinks he is giving Sadie what she wants: Lars’s declaration of his love for her. However, Steven doesn’t actually understand what Sadie wants, and let me tell you, y’all: I HAVE NEVER IDENTIFIED WITH SADIE MORE THAN IN THIS EPISODE. My first boyfriend was, in a number of ways, very much like Lars. He was rude, selfish, and completely unwilling to be seen with me in any public way. He hated holding hands. (Though he did with previous partners and the men after me.) He would not confirm our relationship on social media. He wouldn’t take photos together. If I wanted him to meet my friends, he was always conveniently busy during that time. If I went out with his friends, he made a big deal of how we were just friends and it wasn’t that serious, and he would openly flirt with other people. In private? That’s where I saw the man I fell in love with. God, it even feels dirty to admit that. Hindsight makes it all so much more clear to me, but at the time, I made up so many excuses for this behavior. I told the very few people who ever met him that he was much nicer in private, that he just got overwhelmed when meeting new people. (OH GOD, IT’S SO MUCH BULLSHIT, WHY DID I SAY THAT.)
Above all else, he was nice and sweet to me when it was convenient to him. When it got him something. He manipulated me and abused me to get what he wanted. So when Sadie rejected Lars in this episode, I understood it completely. It feels shameful to get attention from someone, but only in situations where no one else can see it. It is painful and embarrassing when a person will make dramatic rejections in public, only to come crawling back privately. Steven got it wrong; Sadie didn’t want Lars to tell her that he loved her. She wants her to show it.
It’s why this ends in such a giant disaster. Lars has every right to feel hurt and violated, and hopefully, Steven learned an important lesson about consent. And maybe Lars learned something as well, that his relationship with Sadie cannot remain so one-sided. If he wants to stay friends with her, he has to give back a little.
The video for “The New Lars” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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