Do female transformers attract more hate?

The only reason I would ever hate on a female character is if she's a bad "character" if the character is lame (Airachnid) then I'll hate on the character, but not at all because they are "female"..... heck it bugs me MORE when a TF series tries to explain there NOT being female characters.

"Yeah this is a series about a race of robots born from a god entity spawned at the birth of existance fighting a civil war that has last millions of years with the same combatants....but Females?! thats just unrealistic!"

Yeah. I know some people think it's a bad thing when fans become official writers, but personally I'd prefer for the comics and shows to be written by someone who actually enjoys the material vs. someone who views their work as just churning out material for a toy franchise.

I guess what I'm trying to get at with that analogy is that when I look at these characters and see a long list of traits and actions that are stereotypically thought of as masculine (or, in the case of the vast minority that are female, stereotypically feminine), and yet the company and its writers insist that the audience view them as "really genderless" I feel like I'm getting a very mixed message and their explanation comes off more as a very weak excuse.

Well, I'm not sure I'm seeing many curvy, feminine lines on Tracks. And I'm not sure that "charm, wit, and subterfuge" or being "cute and youthful" are traits associated mostly with femininity (in regards to the former, that description makes me think of James Bond more than anything else). I'll concede with all your other examples, though.

Still, that's a small list of characters...most of which are those who hardly ever get any spotlight at all, let alone get much of a chance to display these traits. When was the last time we saw Grapple doing anything? Or Smokescreen? It kind of doesn't cast a favourable light on your case here when most of the examples you give of "male" characters that display "feminine" traits are characters that we hardly ever hear from.

Perhaps better examples would be Blades and Boulder from Rescue Bots. Blades is very sensitive, shy, and maternal (that one episode with the robo-baby...), and Boulder is also sensitive, kind of soft-spoken, and enjoys creativity. If you ask me, that show is a surprising step up when it comes to this sort of thing.

It's certainly an underdeveloped concept that I'd like to see done well by someone who knows what they're doing/talking about. Hopefully we'll get that one day.

As for that last part, trust me when I say that that part of the fandom is very...creative. They'll find a way no matter what is officially done.

Nice ideas! There could be some sort of cultural issue with them having different altmodes or something, since the current IDW comics seem to be playing up that angle a bit. There's all kinds of possible avenues to explore there!

But, like I said, I'm not exactly holding my breath that such a thing will ever be tackled in canon. Despite the fact that the comics are geared more towards adult fans, there are some things that I doubt many writers would want to touch with a ten-foot pole, and this is probably one of them.

I'll gladly eat my words if it ever does happen, though.

I was surprised that he didn't see it, too. Those legs and "heels" are pretty darn obvious.

I don't know if I'd ever call sexual objectivity a "benefit". I mean, I know you're saying that more fans would like them because they look good, but isn't liking a character mostly because of their looks rather...shallow, and quite a problem, especially when said characters who are objectified are in the minority and most of the time aren't developed well as characters?

Okay, I might be getting this wrong (and feel free to correct me if I am!), but are you implying that the only thing that would visually make something look masculine is something like (forgive my bluntness) a prominent crotch bulge? Because broad shoulders and a comparatively narrow waist/hips are usually considered the defining physical traits you apply to a character that you want to look masculine, not gender neutral. Look at the DCAU characters, for instance. With very few exceptions, the male characters in the DCAU have those traits to a pretty "sameface" (or in this case, "samebody") degree.

I'm interested in what you think a character would have to have to look undeniably male. A beard?

Although I agree with you that most of the fembots in the Transformers franchise having the same sort of slender, curvy build is weird and off-putting. More variance in body types for fembots really is needed.

But if they are being poorly portrayed because they are adhering so much to tired female stereotypes, wouldn't people who hate them for that reason then pretty much hate them for their femininity, thus making female Transformers become more hated than their male counterparts?

Whoa, wait a minute, that reads a little confusingly even to me. Umm... What I mean is, since "female" Transformers are in the vast minority in the franchise, and since they're by and large not written as well, and since there's a bias amongst the fandom against having them even exist, wouldn't this mean that female Transformers technically do attract more hate than those who are "male" if we compared percentages (like, say, most of the "females" being disliked and "males" not being as disliked percentage-wise simply because there are a whole lot more examples of them).

Oh! Well, umm, thank you for the compliment! I do try to discuss topics as intelligently and respectfully as I can. And it's not like that's a difficult thing to do in this case, anyway, since you're also conversing in that manner.

See, guys? Isn't it nice when people get along?

Pretty sure that point wasn't mine. Heh, I know Greyley and I have surprisingly similar opinions on a lot of things when it comes to Transformers, but I can assure you that we're different people.

OR ARE WE?!

Oh dear god, I really hope you mean "bedroom eyes". I don't even want to begin to think about what "bathroom eyes" could mean!

Originally Posted by Gingerchris Prime Soundwave is a stripper that always keeps her shirt on.

I assure you that not every fan finds no fault with the scenario you mentioned. But it's less a question of realism exactly, but having developed, intelligent, self-consistent ideas. Ever since Transformers has gone from being a pure kids franchise to a "fan" medium, fans have been trying to reinterpret and revise the fiction to suit the more mature (haha) tastes of adult sci-fi nerds. The gender thing is a big blind spot, rife with contradictions and cliches. So it's not strange at all that many of us would want to see it examined and explored with a slightly stronger edge of realism or sophistication.

For sure. In some authors, their fanwankiness really shows through, but in terms of the GOOD writers, I'd much prefer one with a real investment and knowledge of the material.

I get that, and the messages are mixed, because the media and property and audience is itself very mixed. And inevitably you run up against conceits like robots with five fingers, and humanoid faces, and considering the completely alien nature of mechanoid life, why should they resemble humans in ANY way at all. So yeah, I get that. Transformers occupies an awkward place between science fiction and pure fantasy for some of those reasons (not to mention the ways that commercial marketability affects all of that).

By G1 standards, Tracks is very sleek, and he inherits some of his curves from his stingray alt mode, though obviously his vanity is his primary "feminine" trait. Bumblebee's upbeat cuteness and small inoffensive size are often used as "girly" traits. Just stick a bow on his head and call him Card Captor Sakura. Smokescreen's characteristics are exactly those that are often associated with female fighters and femme fatales in adventure fiction. Plus he's got a great rack.

But my point in all those examples was to highlight the fact that it's actually quite difficult to even isolate what a "masculine" or "feminine" trait might be. Even "maternal" nurturing is something found in characters like Optimus Prime or First Aid. Pretty much anything "feminine" can be rearranged to fit a masculine paradigm, and vice versa. I mostly chose those guys at random... but whether they're popular characters or not really doesn't matter. The point is that their traits are all pretty much gender neutral. We create gender-identified behaviour with our own cultural biases and associations (that may not have much to do with reality, though it can affect the way people behave).

I agree that's an interesting thing for a kids show (especially from characters named "Blades" and "Boulder" )... but it only illustrates my point. Why is being sensitive, shy, caring, or artistic "feminine"? Those gender attachments are largely artificial (even if societally reinforced).

It's like saying "Men don't cry. Women cry." even though both sexes have exactly the same biological predisposition to crying. It's just that men in many cultures are told to hold it in, or risk looking "feminine". So why would robots have similar gender norms?

Agreed.

What's "official" has never stopped them before. In fact, shipping and slash fiction is pretty much diametrically opposed to "official canon" by its very nature.

Yeah, that's what makes Roberts exciting to read. It seems like he really wants to explore some of this stuff and present interesting possibilities and twists on old ideas. We can hope...

Well, pretty much anything that a writer does that makes a definitive statement about a contentious TF topic is bound to raise some hell. I also wonder if certain topics have been deemed verboten by Hasbro. Like, "sure, kill whoever you want, but stay away from the whole gender thing... no good will come of it and it may hurt our sales with single moms aged 36-45"

I'm not saying it isn't shallow. But in terms of popularity, it is still a "benefit"... in the same sense that "sex sells". I think that many people who champion Fembots may be doing it for all the wrong reasons.

I mean, you can see it in comic books, movies and video games, where in the last decade there's been a huge upswing in female action protagonists... but in many of those cases, is it really progressive if their popularity is based as much on legs and jiggle and male consumption as anything else?

That's sort of what I'm saying, though for example if you look at DCAU characters, you're looking at highly exaggerated hypermasculinized figures. In Transformers, due to their variety of robotic bodies, alt-mode engineering and general tendency away from normative human body proportions, it's very hard to say that something is masculine/feminine. There are as many "male" bots with small shoulders or thick hips as ones without. Some TF proportions are all over the place. Some have broad shoulders AND huge bosoms. So I think it's problematic to assign genders for those reasons... especially when the things we associate with gender are not necessarily as representative of real sexual traits.

If you're from the Caribbean, Rung would probably be a realistic masculine body type. And maybe if more Fembots looked like Cosmos, we could start making a case for "realistic" feminine characteristics in transformers.

There are lots of ways to make a robot look subtly male or female. Obviously we have a lot of subjective traits that we, as humans, associate with gender. But why would that apply to alien robots?

Grab a totally random sampling of G1 transformers, and you'll see that they are mostly just robotic humanoids... with maybe some male-identified traits. The truth is that the physical appearance of many "male" bots is only subtly male, and mostly "Transformer". When it comes to Fembots on the other hand, it's exaggeratedly female and far more anthropomorphized to accentuate their femininity, almost to the exclusion of those more "robot Transformer" characteristics. G1 Arcee is a perfect example. She's really just a naked Barbie doll who happens to have a bit of kibble on her shoulders (sometimes drawn like wings, or omitted entirely).

In other words, the gender traits are far over-emphasized on the females, to the degree that it creates a sense of aesthetic schism.

Agreed. I really have two stances...
1) that it would be more interesting to explore the absence (and alternatives to) gender in Transformers, rather than following a conventional boy/girl model

2)if we have Fembots, they should be better developed, both in terms of where they fit in the society and ecology of Cybertron, and by integrating them more aesthetically with other TFs... (probably by cutting back on the simplistic sexual dimorphism a bit).

Which would leave us with more Fembots like this, who have subtle feminine aspects without necessarily looking like a doll.

uhhh... you lost me there.

I think that's still getting sort of convoluted... but I think we established early on in this thread that Fembots tend to get more attention in general because they stand out for a variety of reasons.

However, my point is more that however much hate they are subjected to based (hypothetically) on their gender, they probably receive just as much (or more) attention and affection based solely on their being female, so I don't think it's correct to say that Fembots are unfairly reviled for this reason. Also, the so-called "haters" are a diverse crowd that don't necessarily represent one united point of view (as we've seen here).


I have to admit, with all the back and forth, I'm starting to lose track of who said what...

zmog

Excellent point. We define romantic love as being male/female (though in recent times, other combinations are finally becoming accepted too) and involving sex, but there's no reason why that has to be the only definition. Even in the human race there are people who consider themselves asexual, but they still want to find love with another person. It's entirely possible that there are some TFs who want a deeper connection than just friendship.

I dunno...Chromedome and Rewind are close enough that a lot of people are raising an eyebrow. And if anyone could tackle the issue with intelligence, it would be James. Though Hasbro or IDW would be likely to veto anything if he did try to explore that concept.

That's a pretty cool theory. Liquid metal is a common fan explanation of how they move their faces and make expressions, so it makes sense that it could droop or flow downward over time. I like the "stalactite" description...if these are beings that live for millions of years, it's completely plausible that they could have the metal equivalent of geologic formations on them.

Sure, why not? It works okay for dwarves. Solus Prime should have an ornate ladybeard to go with her giant hammer.

LOL, yep, the dudebots are usually the ones with the impressive racks.



Yeah, this is a bizarre phenomenon that happens all the time. Nerd guys complain about being lonely, about how no girl they date will accept their geeky hobbies, how they're alone in the things they love with no one to share them with...and then when they encounter a woman who is EXACTLY what they complain about not having, they treat her like shit. It makes no sense whatsoever, but unfortunately it's very common. Someone fandom oriented student doing a psych thesis should study this to see what the heck the psychology behind this is, because it's completely nonsensical.

True. People will cherry pick what they consider realistic or not, based on their own viewpoint. The same could be said of mass-shifting or a variety of other concepts. It's hard to determine "realistic" in a science fiction story anyway, because we have no way of knowing for sure what's possible with a highly advanced alien species.

Speaking as someone who has been in a relationship for 18 years now, I think I can confidently say that 90% of true romantic love is "asexual".

The other 10% is pretty good, mind you.

Especially Hasbro, I would imagine.

I was thinking of dwarves too. I'm a nerd.

My first response to that image was WTF?? And then I realized it was japanese, and it all made sense.

zmog

Makes sense that they have a human range of relationships if they have a human range of emotions. Who knows, there are all sort of "Those Two Beings" (being gender neutral) in transformers, so they might define their relationship differently then we would.

Thanks. I'm a crazy theory person. I planned to do a "Travel/ Survival Guide of Cybertron" and I still might during the summer. I'm thinking the ornatations thing might make more sense now though. They're hardly ever seen wearing non-earth based 'clothing', but they have a lot of distinguishers on their (far more static) heads; like visors, helmets, faceplates, chevrons, etc. Who's to say they wouldn't cover their lower face in a beard like construct as a further distinguisher?

I Don't see why not. (Save for Solus being sadly dead) She did create the one gun to rule them all


I don't get it either. I want to offer a theory on it, but all I can come up with is "Those people are morons". I think that sums it up pretty well actually.

Originally Posted by Autovolt 127 Megatron Growls So he can hopefully lower Optimus's attack stage by one point. However Optimus has the special ability Hyper Cutter which negates Growl.

The answer to this one is actually pretty simple.

The 'nerd guys' in question have unrealistic ideals of the fairer sex, spawned by the female anime/cartoon/video game characters they hold so dear. Their fixation on these imaginary figures plus their social isolation/ineptitude bring about a near-complete ignorance of what real women are like. When confronted with the genuine articles, they reject them on account of said women being nothing like the objects of their masturbatory fantasies, and out of frustration at being unable to grasp female personality, emotions and behaviour.

A lot of it is poor self-image coupled with social insecurity. Insecure people often bully, and both sexes do it. The social retreat Nachtsider mentions is an effect, not a cause...and again, both sexes do it, sometimes in different ways.

Kids don't start out without confidence, but they're impressionable, and it's easy to shake. Confidence can be acquired later, but naturally it's difficult to feel good about yourself, if you've spent years feeling bad.

BRT at TFW: 1/29/13 with killer butterflies.
Archive here: www.blurryrobot.com...B.A. Nebulacus here!

Fun thread! I've been away on vacation so catching up tonight on the boards this has been an interesting read.

Like in this very forum, where several female members are refered to in masculine terms because the posters don't know the sex of the person they're quoting and they default to male.

The arguement can be made about talking period. In the Marvel Comics, they "talk" to each other in space over radio communications and then we've got bleep-bloop Bumblebee in Prime who everyone understands. Given the mechanical nature, you'd think data-packets would be the norm; after all it's far denser and can contain far more direct information.

Talking could be a form of anti-spy techniques that caught on at some point to justify it within the fiction, but I'm getting off point.

Funny you think that, since (usually in jest), I've made the arguement that G1 Prime is a femme.

• Sticks nose in everybodies business
• Cares a lot for everyones rights
• Likes to boss everyone around
• Goes out of the way to foil Megatron
• Has boob-windows.
• Has a purse-- err trailer that is ported everywhere to carry "stuff" in it that never gets used.

I laugh at the idea that the Great War is nothing but a divorce between Megatron and Optimus and everyone on Cybertron ended up taking a side and it got ugly. (Also, most of the Autobots are women.)



Also, I've always been of the thought that Prime Starscream is a femme (with a Doctor Girlfriend voice) and that there are other figures who have been male that I've seen as female.

As an aside, I had never viewed Armada's fiction until last year or the year before, but at the time when Armada toys were on the shelf, after purchasing Demolisher, I could never see the toy as a male. It had way too many female characteristics for me to see as anything but female.

There are times when I want this so much I start feeling disdain for the franchise because it seems doomed to always be so limited.



Actually most of the Japanese fandom disowned KP even at the time. Even Takara nowadays sees KP as a mistake.

Dude I'm getting married and some of the things my fiancee and female friends do still fucking baffle me. You're not any less right in your overall assessment, but women can still be mysterious creatures to the less perceptive among us. Like me for instance