It has been interesting, informative and surprisingly free of sexist nonsense. Which part of this do you not like?

Don't answer actually, I don't care.

 

Slam dunk!

Living up to the sig, I see.  

 

People are just sick of the topic. They'd prefer to just ignore it until some Hasbro affiliate says something sexist, misguided or just plain old disagreeable enough to get the old debate going again. The excuse that people can't stay cool headed enough to talk about it is convenient. (Besides, if that was true, why not just ignore the unreasonable people?)

Something I wrote being of a high enough caliber for SMOG to use is kind of my crowning achievement .

On the topic at hand...

My opinion changes everyday. I no longer think retaining the male gender pronouns is the way to go about things, because... Well, it influences OUR perceptions, and in 2014, being so unfairly favoring towards one gender as to use their pronouns exclusively for a supposedly genderless society is a bit unbelievable.

I maintain that "fembots" introduce gender in a way that "dudebots" don't because saying "This one's different!" calls the nature of the original party into question.

In fact, can we stop arguing about semantics altogether? "Gender" and "sex" can be synonymous. One of them was just arbitrarily tapped to take on identity connotations.

It just comes off like that entire line of argument is a way to discredit the academic chops of the opposing party without addressing their views.

What else?

Oh! Ignoring the issue! Just use those pronouns, we accept other nonsense! Well, that's fine for a lite sci-fi fantasy piece, like Animated or Beast Wars, but it's rather creatively stifling, isn't it? Should we never strive for a higher standard of coherency and intellectual stimulus simply because previous incarnations didn't?

That line of thinking is brand poison. It allows for laziness, in the form of the ability to strive for adequacy rather than greatness. Why do something better, when you can just live up to what's been done?

We certainly wouldn't have ended up with MtMtE if that was the commonly held thought process.

SMOG's "Arbitrarily pronouned androgynous" is probably the camp I find myself in. It's not perfect, but with the English language the way it is, nothing would be.

My original solution of having the Transformers adapt to their surroundings as a survival instinct, and thusly picking up traits from other cultures and thoroughly engraving concepts like gender into their society is still the best one, IMO.

 

Fair enough, I have to admit I get really sick of having to defend the inclusion of 'bots representing half the species for whom the franchise is produced for gets really tiring. This topic seems to have been relatively sensible though.

 

This time . . .  

I think this topic will be more interesting, when the Windblade comic finally comes out and we all get to see how Scott addresses the issue. Then instead of speculating about what might or might not be done, we can assess the solution they've come up with.

@ SMOG
- Almost forgot. When I was talking about Budiansky, I wasn't lamenting on what might have been. Only commenting on the fact that, the guy responsible for developing the fiction saw nothing wrong with including female Transformers. It wasn't beyond his imagination. Only a decree from on high prevented him from including them from the outset.

 

You might want to do a better job enunciating that in future because it seemed like you were just bemoaning the continued development of an unusually civil discussion on the issue.

 

The handful of cases support your view, the majority of her G1 S3 screen time, supports the fact that she wasn't just some Pink token female, you know... the gun weilding, headlong into the action, etc etc.
Heck in Dark Awakeing, where Daniel does appear along side her and the rest of the cast, she barely barely looks at him, as the only one close to nurse maiding him is Rodimus.

As for Headmasters, it's a very cultural heavy show, if it were to be redone today, Arcee would still be in that role, because thats still very much the Japanese culutre. It has no bearing on Western idioms of society.

 

God no, I would not want her to be anything else then female before in first place.

 

I think it means that...all those cases are only relevant to THEIR setting. If in 90% of films Arnolds a bad ass and in 10 he's an awesome dad...the 90% have no relevance on the world built up in the 10. So if Arcee is a glorified secretary/love interest etc (although bar the Wreckers, Headmasters and DW, there's little fiction which focus on this element. Elita, yes, Arcee no. In fact, she faired better than many 80s cartoon women in that regard) but in IDW is a psychotic child in an adults body who is also a girl...then the other examples have no relevance unless IDW is trying to directly reference them. In fact the girlfriend/boyfriend argument as being the reason for existing is far more applicable to Rewind, whose every story points culminates in a possible/definite love interest in IDW i.e. Dominus and Chromedome.

Although as an aside, I'd find Arcee in a romance....fascinating in this universe. Partly because, romance has been in TF since Op and Elita and I think it's one of the humanising elements you often need in fiction. It's a constant and I've never had a problem with it. But mostly, because...she's incredibly fucked up. Arcee as portrayed in RID is a childish, almost innocent individual. She is horrifically stunted emotionally, and doesn't get anything beyond the fight and the kill. So her, being approached romantically by someone (which before someone points out we have already established is something cybertronians experience) would be just...I mean I could see it being massively traumatic for her or confusing or she thinks its how she understands fitting in and goes completely the other way and becomes obsessive. there's a lot of fascinating avenues. Especially with the ladies showing up, so as Arcee is trying to deal with one unknown stimulus, she's having to face these other females who are perfectly normal, fairly together individuals.

 

i like the idea of arcee being made to think she was a male.

 

I wish that too.

 

To the people who are tired of 'defending Furman' in threads like these:

Why not just...stop posting in threads like these?

Especially since some things just shouldn't be defended.

 

Yeah, I love Furman, and I feel like Spotlight Arcee had SUCH great potential.

Perhaps if Jhiaxus had studied gendered species, discovered the traits that, in them, related to sexes that also existed, sexless, in Cybertronians. By introducing a segment of the population with polarized versions of those traits, he hopes to introduce an artificial form of gender.

Having observed a patriarchy, he assumes an androcentric is the default.

So, he experiments on Arcee. Being an alien and thusly not fully understanding the concept, in addition to the actual "feminizing", he makes several surface level alterations (pinkness, body-type, etc.).

Later, he introduces these traits to the Matrix. As actual females enter the population, (Elita-One, Chromia, etc.), they're far more androgynous than what he assumed, IE not metal supermodels in armor.

I think that sort of neutralizes the whole offensive bit, and sort of explains away the lesser number. And that F*CKING pronoun discussion could've been left out...