Dear Frank,

This is a true story — I didn’t learn how to swim until the age of 12 because of She-Ra: Princess of Power. Well, and my own stubbornness, I suppose. When I was four or five, my parents, wanting me to be safe both on land and at sea, signed me up for swimming lessons. But the lessons were at the same time that She-Ra aired after school and in that pre-DVR age, missing She-Ra after school meant missing it FOREVER. This was unacceptable to me. So I staged a multi-pronged offensive, including temper tantrums, passive aggressive comments, and (to the best of my memory) one or two bathroom lock-ins, and eventually they gave up on the swim lessons and I was able to watch as much She-Ra as I liked.

I tell this story not because I’m particularly proud of it, but to make the following point: Frank, I REALLY LIKED SHE-RA. It was MY FAVORITE SHOW. But because not only was I watching it in a pre-DVR era, but a pre-DVD era, it wasn’t a show I was able to religiously rewatch; instead, as I grew older, I moved onto other animated entertainments, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men and Gargoyles.

This means that now, as a lady of mature years, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch a She-Ra episode at random — as if I were watching the show for the first time. I mean that pretty much literally, because WOW, Frank. I do not remember She-Ra AT ALL.

The episode I watched, “The Stone in the Sword,” was selected largely because it was the first episode available on Netflix. As a sampling of this beloved show, though, it seemed fairly representative of the series. Which is to say, WHAT THE FUCK. Read the rest of this entry →