𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝟸

The feminism in this show could use work

When I first got into Star Darlings, the episode "Dear Libby" always rubbed me off the wrong way 

I was a pretty feminine girl and I still am. I love colors like purple and pink (especially purple) and pastel things. I also love cute things, frilly dresses, magical girl shows, etc. I'm also good at cooking and baking and even my personality is traditionally feminine lol

The episode "Dear Libby" 's entire plot centers around how Libby is annoying cuz she likes boys, parties, pink, shopping, and pretty much everything feminine and girly 

Which i really, really don't like lol

It's lowkey implying that if your traditionally feminine, that is a problem. Which it is not. Libby ain't even the only feminine character, she's just the most obviously feminine character by virtue of being pink

Tessa, Piper, Leona, Sage, Adora, Cassie, etc. all fit feminine archetypes to an extent. Tessa is motherly, Piper is mystical and dreamy, Leona fits the vain girl trope, Sage is the energetic sailor moon-style protagonist, Cassie is shy, sweet, and emotional, and Adora is a fashion designer. Even Scarlet walks around in a frilly tutu and no one says anything lol. All of the Star Darlings are feminine in varying levels, and is that bad? No. But why does Libby get treated as a problem for being the most openly girly? 

This becomes worse when you factor in other things. Astra is pretty much Libby's opposite, both in personality and interests and zodiacs (Libra and Aries). Astra is as tomboyish as Libby is girly. Astra isn't treated as annoying for being super into sports or having traditionally masculine interests. She's even treated as cool. So it comes off as saying "It's fine to like guy things, but if you like girl things very much that makes you annoying"

Another thing is that Lady Stella, who is supposed to be this franchise's equivalent of Princess Celestia and a paragon of female empowerment... doesn't do too well at her job

She is pretty much the one to partly blame for Rancora being Rancora. Instead of being held accountable she gets a huge job promotion and it's kinda difficult to tell whether or not she shows remorse over what happened to her friend. The advice she gives is vague and she's poor at mentoring. The SDs trust for her doesn't take much to be ruined. Also, there was no real reason to hide why the SDs are pretty much breaking the law lol

And now Good Wish Gone Bad

As Knuckles from Sonic Boom said-

"any time someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo."

Good Wish Gone Bad 

Sheesh-

A good chunk of the book is meant to be feminism and female empowerment which is incredibly obvious since they yell about it a lot lol. They even outright state that females on Wishworld are having a hard time, instead of just making it subtext or implying it since I'm sure the target audience isn't dumb. Female empowerment/feminism isn't about how all the awesome characters are females, it's that they just *happen* to be female

This all gets weirder when you factor in the guys

Honestly, the only genuinely important boy character is MO-J4, and his role is pretty much being robot Spike and being a cute mascot which he excels at protect him. His title of being important is nearly only cuz he's an assistant to the main characters

Is there a specific reason for Starling Academy, THE most prestigious, renowned, and fancy school in the entire planet, only accepting girl students? Like what is the reason lol. Is there something female starlings have that make them more worthy of having a dedicated school then male starlings? Are they naturally more powerful or something? It appears that female wish granters are much more common than male ones, and then factoring in the usual feminine association with emotions, perhaps it's just widely low-key believed that girls are just better at wish granting?

Is it like LoliRock where girls have this magic puberty that amplifies their powers? And even then, the boys in that show not only got actual attention but the ones who had magic abilities could hold their own with the girls. Even one of the boys without magic powers got a pretty epic moment for himself

Still, Star Prep which is just boy S.A barely ever gets talked about. I know more about it from fanfics then the actual series tbh. The only male starling characters that have interactions with the SDs are Ganymede and Leebeau 

Ganymede, in all honesty, is pretty useless as a character. His one appearance in the animated episodes is a voice chat with Libby. If you replaced him with Tom Holland nothing would change lol

Poor Leebeau is forgotten after Astra's book. He pops up a few times as a potential love interest but nothing else comes out of it. Even Ganymede got artwork and a profile and cameoed in some promo art

The episodes and even the books mention a "Shining Star Dance" which could've been the series equivalent to Ever After High's Thronecoming or the multitude of celebration things in Descendants. Not only would it have been cool to see the schools get together to throw a giant party and see the SDs in stylish outfits but it's an easy way to introduce some male characters and give the already existing ones more attention. Yet it never happens for some reason- Even a page describing the event would've been nice lol or a one shot in some other book like the Wish a Day Diary

Star Prep is said to be across Starling Academy from a lake. They aren't that far away from each other, they seem pretty close even. So when school is over for the day you'd think students wandering around the campus of both schools would happen. But nah

I will not deny that this is gorgeous colorful and detailed art

But boys don't seem to visit the school in both the books and the series despite them not being too far away from each other 

So why then, in this picture clearly set in the Star Quad which is said to be apart of the S.A campus, are there dudes lol. I could just be being nitpicky tho.

We know nothing about Star Prep. We don't know who's the headmaster (or possibly headmistress-). It's very likely that it's classes are the exact same as  S.A's tho. Is it also a hard entrance exam or is enrollment much more open? Is it selective like Hogwarts, where they invite you to attend? What's it's relationship with S.A?

Then again the lack of information on Star Prep means headcanons galore lol

So yeah. All this stuff makes it seem that Starland kinda values the girls over the guys while also being a bit weird to the girls. And that's kinda it. Like always if you have any thoughts pls leave comments ・3・