by
JULIA
who is not cooler than
he-man, but is definitely cooler than beast man
"Damsel in distress I am not."
- Teela, MOTU 2002
It's not every chick that can call herself a Master of the Universe.
And before feminists start throwing things at me for using both the term
"chick" and the wrong gender on the title: I mean that in the best way possible.
See, Teela has been the token female on the MOTU squad ever since its
first inception back in that golden age of thirty-minute toy commercials,
the 1980s. I always appreciated the fact that she was kicking butt and
taking names alongside He-Man himself - although I must admit that she was
a little eclipsed in my childhood eyes by She-Ra, because let's face it,
She-Ra had a sword AND a flying horse.
But now, I've come to realize that it's Teela who really deserves the
praise, for several reasons. First and foremost, she has no magic sword.
She has no cybernetic arms, hands, or neck (we should all be so lucky).
She has no wicked-cool armor like her adoptive dad, Man-at-Arms, although
the outfit she's sporting these days is a giant improvement on the white
unitard she used to wear. She has no phenomenal cosmic powers like
her mom, the Sorceress. The snake staff is cool, and the new Teela
has obviously been to Wonder Woman's School For Deflecting Projectiles,
but it's not much protection against laser cannons and meteors and stuff.
In other words, she's fighting against magical, cybernetic creatures
with absolutely no advantage save her ability to kick serious butt.
And some of these enemies are tough enough to make He-Man - the Most Powerful
Man in the Universe, mind you - to make even him blink. For Teela
to so much as walk away from a battle with a heavy like Beast Man or Trap
Jaw is something to talk about, and here she is, regularly handing villains
their heads on a platter.
Second off, Teela is the token female. I've said that already,
but I'm gonna say it again, because it's a major point. Other than
Queen Marlena, who's a fairly tough chick in her own right - NASA don't
take no sissies, yo - Teela doesn't have any women around to, you know,
hang with and get that quality ya-ya sisterhood girl time. (The Sorceress
doesn't count either, 'cause she's stuck in Grayskull.) And I don't
care how tough a chick you are, and how big a tomboy you've grown up as;
sometimes, you just want to talk to someone of your own gender. Who
do you complain to when your hair just will not go into that ponytail
- although these days she could maybe get some sympathy from Man-At-Arms
on that issue. Or when the testosterone levels get high enough to
gag on, which they will obviously do in a kingdom composed of 98% men,
most of whom are Heroic/Evil Warriors?
And you just know the MOTU guys are expecting her to make coffee
and pick up their nasty, dirty laundry and stuff. Well, maybe they
did back in the '80s. Today's Teela seems to have an extra-low tolerance
for that kind of crap, so she probably breaks their arms when they start
in with the patronizing sexist requests, instead of just ignoring them old-school
style. Witness the anti-damsel line I quoted above.
The third reason is that she's got the most thankless job in all of Eternia
- the most unnecessary one, too, if you think about it. She gets
to babysit Adam and, along with that, try to make him into something resembling
a warrior. Which is just not going to happen, because the moment Skeletor
and his Evil Horde start trashing stuff, Adam runs off and becomes He-Man,
and once the danger's gone, he has to keep his secret I.D. intact, which
means being a lazy, do-less prince until the next crisis. Of course,
Teela doesn't get to know all that (which has to be sexism of some
kind or another), so she's left with the exasperation of nagging at Adam with
zero results. But does she ever give up? No! For 130 episodes,
she goaded and prodded and guilt-tripped after Adam to get his sorry butt
in gear and start acting like a prince, and she's already starting all over
again, this time with an even bigger slacker. That's dedication
, folks. Not to mention she was also 1) defending Eternia from assorted
villains; 2) being captain of the Royal Guard; and 3) having the occasional
heartfelt search for her mother. Meanwhile, He-Man was only out busting
heads and rousting low-lives, the wuss. Let's see him multi-task.
Thus we segue rather nicely into the issue of He-Man himself. Okay.
All you guys reading this, stop drooling over Teela for a minute and
try to see Eternia's champion from a female perspective, which is: Teela
regularly hangs (and gets sweaty) with a guy who's not only built
, he's wearing less than the average Mr. Universe competitor. Now,
there is not a red-blooded woman out there who wouldn't give their eyeteeth
to have the opportunity to oggle a piece of beefcake like that on a daily
basis. Heck, I'm jealous. Almost. (They are cartoons,
after all.) But aside from the infrequent little bouts of sort-of flirting,
Teela never did anything. She never threw herself at him, which was
probably a good thing, because we all know how far that tactic got Frosta
- how many times did Adam go to Etheria after that, right? - and she
certainly didn't do stupid things like put herself in danger for the express
purpose of He-Man saving her. The danger-putting and rescue-needing
happened for other reasons, thank you very much. But what restraint!
What professionalism! She's not going to fall prey to her teenage/twentysomething
hormones when there's a battle to be fought. You go, girl!
So there you have it. But just in case you missed it, I'll sum up
the main message of this whole rambling ordeal, the big, overarching reason
why Teela is so much cooler than He-Man. It's really very simple:
she's a woman in man's world, a planet filled with enough monsters and evil
to give even He-Man trouble, and she'll take 'em all on by herself if she
has to. Fiery temper? Spunk? Impulse control problems?
Whatever. This chick is a Master of the Universe, and sister,
she means business.
Now, if only she had a flying horse...
Pictures of Teela, who is in fact cooler than He-Man, were shamelessly
pilfered without permission from The
He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site
, and from the message boards at He-Man.Org
, where they were posted by TheShadow in the New Cartoon forum. Teela
and MOTU belong to Filmation, Mike Young Productions, and the All-Powerful
God That Is Mattel. Sue me and I'll send Teela over with snake-staff
kidney-punches for everyone.
