She-Ra Reboot Boss Opens Up About Crew Being Underpaid, Overworked

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power developer ND Stevenson says the working conditions endured by the Netflix show's crew were less than ideal, describing a culture of staffers being exploited, overworked and underpaid.

"The only reason She-Ra was possible was because of the passion of people like Jen [Bennett] on our crew... and that passion was exploited as an excuse to underpay, understaff, and overwork. No one should have to go through that again," Stevenson wrote on Twitter. They also used the hashtag #NewDeal4Animation, which has been used by the writers of The Animation Guild (TAG) to call for more equitable treatment for those working in cartoons.

Stevenson continued, "We're losing so many brilliant voices to burnout in this industry. We love our jobs... and our jobs aren't sustainable. Animation workers deserve to be fairly compensated and treated humanely. We deserve to last." Stevenson's posts were made in response to a tweet from the aforementioned Bennett, who served as a storyboard artist and director on She-Ra.

"I am so glad I was able to work on She-Ra," Bennett wrote in their original post. "It was the first show I worked on that had a voice I immediately GOT. But it was produced under Sideletter N in conditions that I would never, EVER willingly sign up for again. We NEED a #NewDeal4Animation!" For the uninitiated, Sideletter N is described by TAG as "the part of the Guild's Master CBA that covers Streaming Media."

Bennett continued, "If you don't think the crew was projecting whole-ass onto [main protagonist] Adora in those final seasons... Support TAG negotiators and animation workers in their fight for better conditions!!" A number of other creatives have voiced support for the #NewDeal4Animation movement, including The Owl House creator Dana Terrace, Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch, My Life as a Teenage Robot creator Rob Renzetti and The Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken, among many others.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power was produced by DreamWorks Animation Television and Mattel Creations, and distributed by Netflix and NBCUniversal Television Distribution. The show ran on Netflix for a total of 52 episodes across five seasons from late 2018 to mid 2020. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a reboot of the 1985-1987 Filmation cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power, which was itself a spinoff of Filmation and Mattel's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

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Source: Twitter (1, 2)