Why ‘Lesbian Space Princess’ Is The Internet’s Most Hated Movie

There used to be a time when the culture wars were, at least somewhat, entertaining. In the early heyday of the internet, seeing fandoms butt heads with each other over the most innocuous things always deserved a chuckle. There was a time when Star Wars and Star Trek fans were arguing over the superiority of each franchise, and there was a certain charm to it. But not anymore! Now it’s all vitriolic hatred with no real substance. Just hate for the sake of hate, and the latest victim of this campaign is Lesbian Space Princess (2025). 

For the past several weeks, memes have surfaced online of all of the fandoms putting their differences aside just to dunk on this low-budget Australian animated film. The amount of hate this film is receiving is staggering to the point that you would think that it’s not only one of the worst films of the year, but of the past decade. But the internet has been known to dogpile on properties that really don’t deserve it. Remember when Michael Bay’s Transformers (2007) was seen as a blight against humanity when, in reality, it was just a mediocre summer blockbuster? I sure do. So is Lesbian Space Princess a similar situation, or is the hate actually justified?

What Is ‘Lesbian Space Princess’ About?

In case you could tell from the title, Lesbian Space Princess doesn’t hide away from its gay representation. To some unfortunate souls, that may be enough of a reason to hate the film, because something something go woke go broke, but the movie is slightly more complex than that. Slightly.

Lesbian Space Princess is about a princess named Saria who has a bunch of issues. She has a powerful inferiority complex, instilled in her by her lesbian parents, and was recently dumped by her girlfriend Kiki because she was too clingy. Kiki’s kidnapped by a group of aliens who, I kid you not, are called the Straight White Maliens, and ransom Kiki to Saria in exchange for a powerful weapon called a labrys that all lesbians can summon, which, unbeknownst to them, Saria cannot. So Saria goes off on a wild space adventure to rescue her toxic ex, hopefully finding some self-esteem, and learning how to summon her own labrys in the process. 

Let’s be totally clear about this: Lesbian Space Princess is a gay film. It doesn’t shy away from its sexuality, which is commendable, but it’s the sole identifying feature of the film. While other LGBT series like Hazbin Hotel (2024) and Steven Universe (2013) have been praised for their queer representation, those shows weren’t entirely defined by them. To many, that’s all that Lesbian Space Princess offers. A surface-level exploration of gay themes that other shows have already examined more meaningfully and poignantly.

What Made ‘Lesbian Space Princess’ So Polarizing?

So Lesbian Space Princess is gay. Big whoop. A lot of shows these days are, but they’re not vilified to the extent that Lesbian Space Princess is. So what’s going on here?

The problem with Lesbian Space Princess is two-fold. First, its writing is very much a love it or hate it experience. To say that it captures the essence of early 2010s Tumblr is the best description anyone can make about the film’s writing. There’s a level of campiness to the writing that borders on cringe, with all the subtlety of an atom bomb. Saria is from Clitopia. The spaceship Saria takes to rescue Kiki is called the Problematic Ship. The villains are Straight White Maliens, and the film frames them and the things they like, such as Marvel and Magic: The Gathering, as punchlines of nerd culture. Every scene has at least one moment of awkward humor or poorly written exposition, and the characters don’t feel like characters. They’re one-note exaggerations of tropes with virtually no self-awareness. 

But the second problem is how the show presents these characters and themes. That isn’t to say the animation itself is bad, though some people will probably bounce off hard against the wiggly-noodle-like appearances of the cast, but the film’s shallow nature turns some normally innocuous situations into very problematic ones. 

For example, accusations have been floating online that the film is anti-trans. Towards the middle of the film, a drag queen character named Blade, a character that can be easily mistaken for a trans character, steals Saria’s labrys in a blatant power grab, only for Saria to kill her shortly after. Keep in mind that the labrys, in recent years, has been co-opted to be an anti-trans symbol by certain hate groups and is trying to be reclaimed by the gay community as a lesbian symbol. So in doing so, some people read the scene as approving of violence against trans people.

On a first viewing, it’s hard to deny those claims given how simply the characters are written, but that obviously wasn’t the original intent. One of Saria’s parents is a trans woman, Blade is not a trans character, and the directors directly addressed the thematic confusion of the scene, but the damage was already done. Its heart may be in the right place, but a muddy execution ruins all of that well-natured intent.

Is The Hate Against ‘Lesbian Space Princess’ Justified?

Lesbian Space Princess is undeniably a flawed movie, but it does have its fans. It was lauded by critics to the point where it has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it won several awards in its home country of Australia. The hate is not justified, but Lesbian Space Princess makes itself hard to defend at points.

Lesbian Space Princess tries to do what it can on its limited budget, but it’s woefully out of its depth. Every chance the film has to make a message, it doesn’t, instead letting the characters wallow in their worst traits. Saria isn’t a good person, and while having a problematic lead who grows over the course of a film is fine, Saria doesn’t. Her insecurity, co-dependency, and treatment of other characters like Willow, a genuinely kind person who likes Saria for who she is, make her look bad every time. The film is aggressively in your face with its humor and exposition, which people can easily find sermonizing and grating. 

To be abundantly clear: Lesbian Space Princess being a gay movie doesn’t make it good or bad, but gay stories, like any stories, need good delivery. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) is a great sci-fi fantasy adventure with strong gay themes, but it also remembers to tell a compelling story. Lesbian Space Princess’ writing and weak presentation make it open to criticism, but it doesn’t deserve the cataclysmic hatred it’s getting. But it’s everything the internet hates. It’s meme culture, aged Millennial humor, wonky animation, and oversimplification of difficult themes that make it the perfect target for people looking to bite onto something to create buzz and headlines.