The character of Sheen Estevez

 

Recently I completed watching the cartoon "The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" and it got me thinking about the character of Sheen Estevez. This is only going to be based on information from the original series as opposed to Planet Sheen; primarily because I have not seen the latter and secondarily because from what I hear it is a poor series whose depiction of Sheen is inconsistent with his original depiction. Watching a random video about JN and you will quickly see a widescale tendency to lump Sheen and Carl as sort of a single unit; an illogical unintellect contrast to Jimmy's genius intellect. However I think Sheen plays a role in the series not acknowledged.

It's quickly apparent after his introductiont that Sheen is abrasive being loud and in-universe at least, annoying. However more details are revealed about Sheen overtime that paint a very clear picture about Sheen. Sheen lives in a single parent household with his father, Mr. Estevez along with his grandmother and mentioned on at least one instance a younger sister whom he had an argument with. Mr. Estevez is an air conditioner repair man who by himself has to essentially keep up a house and food for his family by himself. While I'm not savy to the cultural issues at play here; Mr. Estevez also speaks with a much more pronounced accent then his son does; implying he may be a first generation immigrant. Being an immigrant brings with it's own challenges such as adapting to new culture, lacking local contacts, and perhaps learning a new language. As such it's pretty safe to say Mr. Estevez probably doesn't have a lot of time to spend with his son, something implied by the show before that with how rarely he appears in it compared to Jimmy and Carls' parents and in the one episode strongly featuring him "El Magnifico", he is depicted as busy and wishing he could connect more with his son. 

This is a problem because Sheen definitely requires more attention then most children. Sheen is impulsive, easily distractable, loud, and disruptive; textbook symptoms for ADHD. It's possibly insensitive to just outright say a character has a real mental condition but not only is it quite clear in this case (with it even being mentioned at one point that Sheen takes mediciation), even if it was not the case Sheen would still struggle for similar reasons and require a lot of attention he simply doesn't get. This may go a long way to explaining his attention-seeking personality. Another trait one immediatly learns of Sheen is he is obsessed with the "Ultra Lord" television series. I don't just mean fixiated on it the way a child might normally be. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the series, wrote the Ultra Lord website where he claimed Ultra Lord was the father of his country, and begins bawling at the thought of Ultra Lord being canceled. It's very likely that lacking parental influence in his life Sheen adopted Ultra Lord as a surrogate father figure, something implied in "El Magnifico" when Sheen's father's conflict is trying to show that he is as cool as Ultra Lord.

So while all this explains Sheen's past and motives; it doesn't explain his present. Why is he friends with Jimmy Neutron and what is his role in the series? It's easy to imagine why Sheen might befriend Jimmy and Carl; the three are social outcasts and would likely make friends simply on shared experience. But more then that; Jimmy often gets into superscientific adventures. And in this we start to see Sheen's most admirable quality. Sheen exhibits despite his past tremendous optimism and exhuberance which is likely what attracted him to the superhero genre. As compared to Carl's fearful cynicism and Jimmy's rationalism; Sheen exhibits the idealism that is linked to heroism. Sheen has himself saved the day a few times, and helped Jimmy do so numerous more. This is the kind of thing one might expect of Jimmy; the supergenius, not of a struggling-in-school eccentric geek held back numerous times who has trouble paying attention. For a person like Sheen who is clearly disliked by his teachers (Mrs. Fowl at one claims she misses everyone....except Sheen), who has probably struggled his life just to get attention, this is far beyond what anyone would expect of him. 

In season 3 it is revealed that the Monks of Shangri-La view Sheen as the chosen one. They do this because he "puts his leg behind his head." A silly reason, comical because of the sheer mundane-ness of the action compared to Yoo-Yee being able to fly and defeat many trained warriors. However it is in this mundane-ness that we perhaps see on a meta level what Sheen's role is. Sheen's role in the story is to show the heroism of a normal human; to provide an accessway point into this world of science for the kid whose not a genius, who maybe doesn't even do well in school. In that episode "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen" we learn not only about Sheen's nature as the chosen one but that he values his relationship with his girlfriend Libby more then even Ultra Lord, which allows him to unlock the fabled Tiger's Eye. And in the episode El Magnifico Sheen reveals he cares for his real father more then Ultra Lord. For a kid who early in the series seemed utterly delusional about Ultra Lord viewing him as a real person who did real major historical events; it is a demonstration of not only his development but the reason he was picked as the Chosen One. Sheen is not Jimmy; he doesn't possesses abilities to make mortal men shudder and weep; if anything he was born lacking, and succeeds mostly through pluck and optimism.

The culimination of this comes in the finale of the entire series where Sheen is the one who befriends Tee begining the sequence of events that defeats the League of Villains. For all Jimmy's intellect; he would have been thrown into space there. He was not the one to save everyone; it was simply the idealistic hope of a young boy who is able to believe in others, maybe someone who wanted to give someone else the chance he never got or maybe someone who just wanted to follow in the heroic footsteps of his idol. Sheen is important to Jimmy Neutron because he is a representation of the fact that you don't need to be born a genius who can invent time travel before you hit puberty to be a hero. All you need is the ability to see the best in a world that might not see the best in you. 

It's funny because it's a meme in JN that Skeets is anime's greatest hero because he is a hardworking everyman just trying to do his job and help clean up the mess that Jimmy and the arrogance of his intellect creates. But what if I told you that character was in the series the whole time? And his name... was Sheen Estevez.