Exactly. Too often, that is the only reason for them to exist in some stories. Obviously there is also the idea that, due to cultural OR biological programming, women also tend to be more interested in these types of stories/activities than they are in space wars... so I also understand that romantic plotlines can be more appealing to girls, even if they also tend to marginalize them to some degree.

To be fair, not all romance in fiction is part of some kind of Stepford Wife/ Cosmopolitan magazine indoctrination... to take it that far is too extreme.  

Agreed. I think it's just your wording that I find funny... as if the presence of "woman" makes falling in love happen. Again, "woman" sounds like the X factor, with men as the default. Men fall in love too! Sometimes with each other even, though that's not necessarily where I was going with it.

I think the issue is that women are almost ONLY introduced in Transformers in that context, and are rarely allowed to exist apart from those aspects. It's as if the writing standpoint is "what's the point of girls if they don't tease/fall in love, etc... ?" It seems like that is the only reason to have one there rather than just another male.

Agreed.  

I guess there will always be a division between gendered roles, but running a video store, I do see more and more women who would rather watch action movies and sci-fi adventures... though men are a bit slow to catch up with frivolous romantic comedies.  

The examples I use are from Art History, though in essence it means the same thing as the normal usage. It's just that in certain periods when women were marginalized as human beings, there was also a tendency to undermine their humanity by only exalting them in the form of abstract ideals, never as specific people. IE: a woman at that time would never have a statue made to commemorate her contributions to a society (certainly many important men have been immortalized in such a way)... but there are lots of statues and depictions of female deities and such, who are mere representations of an abstract concept.

In some sense, I think yes... though those examples are a long way from the 19th century (a really bad time for women). They are also characters in their own right, though they do both represent the divine maternal qualities of "mother" Earth.

One might argue that, by equating a woman with a divine premise, one gives them an "authority" they might not normally be allowed if they were just "women in charge". On the other hand, associating a primal creative force or keeper of secrets also hearkens back to a very fundamental expression of iconic female power (wise women, oracles, fertility goddesses, mother earth, etc...) so it's not necessarily a negative thing.

Heh... we're getting pretty far out here, aren't we?  

zmog

 

unlike most of you guys I actually believe humanizing Transformers actually adds depth for without things like gender or religious issues then it just devolves back into the cliched little boy's fantasy of big huge robots beating the living tar out of each other and that the absolutely only continuity I'm interested in them being treated as truly unknowably alien is the Movieverse

 

I find that a tremendously limited view of the potential. The notion of Gender and Religion have their place in an exploration Cybertronian life, but not in the lame, easy ways that it generally is addressed. That becomes far more cliched than a "little boy's fantasy"... and indeed, the extremely "humanized" TFs of the original G1 cartoon series sort of proves that.

I believe that removing the conventional "gender" approach and rethinking the concept of their "alien" nature adds complexity rather than subtracts.

zmog

 

i bet all the Arcee's are okay exept the Rotf version(and im talking about toys)

 

See, I believe that, as humans, we are very, very strongly "hard-wired" to perceive gender, considering all vertebrate (and a great deal of invertebrate) life has it. Even some of the best sci-fi authors, like Ursula K. LeGuin in The Left Hand of Darkness end up using the concept itself, just in different ways. So we may as well use that perception and not try to ignore it.

Heck, the novel Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear (on which the movie was based) had the main human character quite literally perceive the Drac as being either male or female, depending on what part of its cycle it was in. There's a section where, while the alien is pregnant, the human basically admits to himself that, aside from the fact that sexual activity between them isn't even possible, he basically considers them to be lovers.

Oh, some trivia. Zammis, the Drac kid in the movie? Bumper Robinson.

- Coeloptera

 

I remember Enemy Mine, but not the LeGuin.

But see, these examples sort of complement what I am saying... in addressing or exploring the notion of how genderless TFs would be different than humans, we are, in effect, addressing gender. See what I mean?

The mere fact that we, as humans, would be reading a story about robots that posits an alternate view of gender (or how a species functions in different ways without it), we are creating a dialogue on gender. Even if there are no humans in the story to create a counterpoint to the Cybertronians (which I think should be an important part of a TF story), the human audience creates this context by reading the story.

I find it funny that some people don't realize that a story about non-gendered alien machines can still address some of the interesting subject matter (even meta-textually) they assume can only be provided with conventionally (reeeeaaaally conventionally) gendered characters.

Curvy thighs, robo-boobs and lipstick anyone?  

zmog

 

Haha. I like reading these.  

 

Oh and from wiki

(This is talking about the Marvel UK comic series though....)

"There are no female Transformers until a human feminist accused the Autobots, who are treated as males, of being sexist. The Autobots initially argue that sexism is impossible for their genderless race, but they build Arcee to prove they are not sexist. Though Prime later decides that it was a mistake to build her just to prove they aren't sexist, he recognizes Arcee as a valuable Autobot."

Funny, huh?  

 

Yeah... that was an old Furman story that rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way... though it makes marginally more sense to me than Furman's IDW origin for Arcee.  

zmog

 

I am I like the only person who didn't mind that?

Mind you, partially because it opens up the possibility of what a male Transformer would actually be like, because by Furman's reasoning, we haven't ever seen one.

- Coeloptera

 

See, I think that's amusing, because while that's actually an interesting possibility, it also demonstrates how completely ludicrous Furman's whole idea was to begin with.  

"We have no concept, culture or physical definition of gender, but somehow I get the feeling that we're MALE, so I'll go about making a FEMALE of my species... even though it hasn't even been established in this canon where Transformers come from anyway."

Seriously?

zmog

 

I know what that reminds me of, now!

A Dark Horse Aliens comic, Aliens: Rogue.

Some scientist tries to introduce the male gender, specifically, into the xenomorph species, hoping that it will be aggressive and territorial, able to be let loose on Earth in numbers and will clear it of the (then current) infestation.

Here he is, the alien king:



Didn't go well, but one very interesting element was that, while he was highly aggressive and went straight for the resident queen when he sensed her, he expressed curiosity and a total lack of hostility against anything that clearly was not a threat. The human who supplied the cell cultures and androgens for his development was exposed to him while strapped into a chair, and the king spent some time simply examining him, apparently indulging a nonspecific curiosity not present in the species before.

So, let's explore that. Let's say Jhiaxus just tossed a coin and it came up "female". So what would we get if it hadn't?

- Coeloptera

 

No you're not, I too also enjoyed that origin. But of course for different reasons and personally I hope to see them do more with the character. Also if you notice that Arcee is not the only female Transformer, she is simply the first and least stable. Yeah the ones on the Megatron origin could be chalked up to miscommunication but there were female TF's that appeared in later stories in the this same continuity. More specifically the last Sunstreaker story.

Well it was up to his personal choice to do so, so depending on what species he had observed he may have made his choice depending on them. Like human males and females we are inherantly different from one another. He may have based it around a species where both genders were extremely different and decided to introduce one that would make them "evolve" as that seemed to be his intention. That and "Why not?"

THIS.

Really as far as the readers, and the supposed demographic this is aiming at, what would have been the difference between the characters they were already reading about and a "male" one? Also if IDW had gone by "they have no gender" without her spotlight how else would her character been able to come into play? That's why you can't really say too much about her design either because if she had been made to look more "realistic" from their point of view no one would be able to recognize her, and the fans would have complained worse than they did.

That's how I look at it at least. Man I'm using a lot of quotation marks today.

 

Sunstreaker story? Which one? Wasn't that just a MOSAIC... I can't recall now.

But besides Megatron Origin, there's also the Blurr Spotlight, which happens a the outset of the great war, and features female "barmaids" and similar groupie-bots if I remember right.

Which I believe is a pretty blatant contradiction/error... honestly, if IDW is going to retcon Furman's Arcee thing, they should actually make an effort to explain it, rather than just pretending it's not there.

But Transformers as a species are "always changing, always evolving, it's in their nature, blah blah blah"... why bother?  

Sorry, that was my sarcasm speaking. However it must be said that despite the fact that all TFs appear to be generically "male", they do still possess an astonishing biodiversity, so attempting to imitate organic sexual reproduction as a means of evolutionary innovation is a pretty weak premise. TF's are WAY more diverse than humans are, even disallowing gender.

Also, I believe there is a lot of academic thought that might contradict your suggestion that human males are females are "inherently different from each other". There are certain effects that can be attributed to different levels of hormones (like testosterone), leading to certain psychological and physical tendencies... but a big part of the difference between men and women is culturally ingrained.

Furthermore, it's not so much the notion of introducing gender into the TF race that is problematic, but also the way that Furman wrote it...

...especially with that ridiculous and pretentious discussion between Arcee and Magnus on the topic of pronouns. Are you KIDDING? Cybertronians intuitively, spontaneously come up with a new word in their language to distinguish gender between themselves, along with all the associated culturally ingrained biases and attitudes, and instantly apply it to Arcee subconsciously... on sight?

There is so much fundamentally wrong in that story that any merit the idea might have had is buried under all the issues.

Agreed. Although the story would have been more thought-provoking as a result...

However, you raise the obvious question... if the shoe doesn't fit, why the hell wear it? If you want to introduce Arcee and the concept of a "female" TF into a new canon, why do it in such a flawed, contentious way?

I'm not saying "Don't introduce Arcee". Obviously, for better or worse, she is a well-known part of the TF franchise, and deserves to be integrated somehow. But, honestly Furman's old G1 explanation for Arcee holds up better, in terms of it's basic premise.

zmog

 

Here's a thought. Since Transformers was originally a childrens cartoon, it of course made sense to make the Transformers very similar to human beings. In the ways they act, speak, fight, their civilization and social structure, even the divison of gender.

Why would the writers make a cartoon that dealt with robots from an alien world as they would likely be, that is, Alien.

But neither children nor adults can sympathize with or rationalize the actions of life that is completly alien. And face it, the cartoons were made to sell the toys, so they had to make the characters in a way the kids would want to have their parents buy them the toys. And for the mostly male population, guys, come on, when you were a kid, you thought girls were gross and wierd, and the show was marketed to little boys.

 

everyone says that Animated Arcee got cancelled but some still say it will come in 2010 so im confused

 

On the topic of Furman's Arcee thing, did anyone specifically state that Arcee was the only female Transformer? Furman himself acknowledged at one point the Megatron Origins art as being canon, I think.

I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with this guy here.

I mean, in G1, Elita-1 and her team were there simply to pair up with Prime and co. and show that "Hey, we're not sexist! Look! Girl robots that are pink!" and Arcee was just there to look pretty.

In Beast Wars, Blackarachnia was a far more complex character than some of the male robots (say, Skorponok or Terrorsaur), really stole the show when she was onscreen, and presented one of the VERY few examples of a Transformers romance done right (everything done with romance in G1 felt very flat and forced, personally).

Despite all this, though, Strika remains my favorite "evil" fembot, simply for the reasons stated above. She showed up and became a formidable enemy to her opponents, without instantly being paired up with a male character (consort doesn't always mean girlfriend, especially when she and Obsidian show absolutely no sign of romantic attachment), and was the least stereotypically female Transformer of all time, in terms of appearance.

Understandable, man, I was confused too. She is still going to be released, and 2010 is the likely time at which this will be done.

 

Unless you do, there's not much point in hinting at it.  

Well, I also noticed that they seem to be speaking english a lot too. Gendered pronouns are our bias, not theirs. They merely work within the constraints of our own linguistic conventions.

Amusingly, English is one of only a relative few human languages that doesn't use gendered objects as well. In French, cats, tables and milk (?) are masculine, while cars, towers and (amusingly) beards are feminine. Naturally, this has nothing to do with the sex of inanimate objects... but it does shed some light on the human need to assign gender.

  I'm not sure if I know what you're talking about.

zmog

 

Lots of good stuff to respond to and comment on in this thread. TF gender is always a hot topic for discussion!  

Blackarachnia and Silverbolt.
Yes, she's a female transformer. Yes, she has a boyfriend. Yes, it can seem cliche, but the unique thing about their relationship is that Blackarachnia is the dominant one of the two. Silverbolt is often portrayed as slackjawed and naive, even condescending in the way he always insists she needs to become a Maximal. She, in turn, shoots him a lot and ridicules his attempts to make her a Maximal at his behest. Probably most significant is when she chooses to leave the Maximals at the end of "Proving Grounds" despite Silverbolt's best efforts to make her stay. Only Optimus Primal is able to convince her otherwise, not the doting boyfriend. It makes for something we haven't seen before in a TF relationship.