Prof. Burnett takes a closer look at the She-Ra franchise

Prof. Burnett takes a closer look at the She-Ra franchise

In a blog post for the Animation Studies journal, Prof. Burnett examines She-Ra as a cross-media narrative.

Showrunner Noelle Stevenson's Netflix series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-2020) has garnered attention on a number of fronts, for its fresh character visualizations, for character diversity and scripting (including body positive and LBGTQ characters), and for an animate style that draws on anime, which distinguishes the new show from the original She-Ra produced by Filmation (1985-1986).

But what is the relationship between Stevenson's series and other available She-Ra continuities?

In his contribution to an Animation Studies 2.0 dossier on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Prof. Burnett argues that She-Ra is an instance of threaded media storytelling, producing a poly-canon of official series that tell and retell the same continuities, dynamically stretching and condensing them as context demands.

Read On