Cartoon Network’s animated series Craig of the Creek premiered its fourth season yesterday, and launched a storyline in which Kelsey, one of the three main characters, realizes she has romantic feelings for her female friend Stacks. Watch a clip here.
Kelsey Pokoly (voiced by Noël Wells) is a friend of the eponymous Craig, often having adventures with him and other friends in the forest near the Maryland town where they live. In yesterday’s episode “Fire & Ice,” Kelsey is writing a story for the Creek book club with her friend Isabella Alvarado (“Stacks,” voiced by Montse Hernandez), and realizes that the romantic storyline she wrote for two female characters reflects her real feelings for Stacks. Here’s a clip—but there’s even more of their budding romance in the full episode, which you can watch here (or on the Cartoon Network app) via your cable subscription.
Kelsey and Stacks are not the first LGBTQ characters on the show. Teens Tabitha and Courtney are in a relationship, as are J.P.’s grown sister Laura and a woman named Kat. Craig’s grown cousin Jasmine also has a girlfriend. Raj and Shawn, two boys from a nearby neighborhood, are implied to be in a relationship in several episodes, which seems to have been confirmed by Angel Lorenzana, a storyboard artist on the show. Additionally, Lorenzana, who is agender, voices character Angel José, who is nonbinary.
Kelsey and Stacks are the first younger two-girl couple on the show, however—and appear just two weeks after the first (unrelated) picture book to feature a young two-girl couple, Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Charlene Chua’s charming Love, Violet. I’m thrilled that girls who realize at a young age that they like girls are now getting the representation that is their due. Let’s hope it continues!
Kelsey is Jewish and Stacks is Latina, so their existence bolsters representation of other identities as well.
For more on LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ shows, check out my previous posts about children’s television.