ENTERTAINMENT

She-Ra turns 25 as show comes to DVD

BY MATTHEW PRICE

She-Ra, one of the most popular animated heroines of the 1980s, turns 25 in 2010, and the first 20 episodes of "She-Ra: Princess of Power" are available on DVD. Actress Melendy Britt, who played She-Ra and her alter ego, Adora, recently reminisced about the 93-episode series.

The fantasy series was a spinoff from "Masters of the Universe," which featured He-Man; She-Ra was He-Man's sister. She fought the forces of Hordak on the world of Etheria.

She-Ra was one of the premiere female heroes on television at the time, and Britt said her theater experience helped her with the dual role.

"Some things in life are just fated or meant to be," she said. "I was trained in theater, and I did the classics. Shakespeare and Chekhov. Some of these characters were larger than life. So I was very accustomed to the stage and being larger than life."

Adora, the secret identity of She-Ra, drew inspiration from a Shakespearean character, for example.

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"Her innocence was a bit like Juliet in 'Romeo and Juliet,'" she said. But She-Ra was perhaps more universal.

"It was a feeling that I had that I wanted to be able to express power and wisdom and kindness and love in a voice," Britt said. "And that's how she evolved."

Even though She-Ra was an adventure program, it often shared a positive message and included moral lessons in the epilogue. Britt revealed one tale that had real-life heroic implications.

"She-Ra says to the children, 'It's your body. No one should touch you in a way that you feel is wrong.' And He-Man chimed in and said, 'It may be hard to tell someone, but do tell.'"

Britt said producers subsequently received a letter from a parent of a child who had been molested. The child had been in therapy but had until then refused to reveal the name of the perpetrator.

"But when she heard her heroine She-Ra tell her to tell, she began to open up," Britt said. "And to have been instrumental in that kind of help and justice was just monumental to me."