TF Views

Dominic wrote:Saying "girl robots are stupid" is not the same as saying "girls are stupid". One is showing disdain for Silver-Agey junk. The other is actually calling people out for their gender.

What the fuck is 'Silver-Agey' about introducing females of a goddamn species, especially when all previous members of said species had been definitely male? These aren't the fetishized gynoids that adorn Heavy Metal covers, these are, you know, actual characters from an actual species. TFs are 'robots' yes, but they've always been 'aliens' as much as 'robots', and no one would get saddlesore about 'female aliens', especially if we'd seen a shit-ton of clearly-male aliens up until that point.

Furman putting down that a Transformer who was girl would be a deranged aberration scorned and feared by all is on the same level as Toshiki Inoue murdering off any female who put on a Kamen Rider suit because 'girls can't be Riders'. How are female members of the audience supposed to react to that portrayal? The only similar situation I can remotely sympathize with is that time Furman (!) used War Within Jetfire to portray his apparent understanding that all Atheists are arbitrary doubting thomases who would maintain their ardent skepticism even with Satan literally staring them in the face, completely refusing to reevaluate and update their beliefs in the face of new evidence. That, like his portrayal of females with Arcee, was a little on the wrong-headed and messed-up side.

And this is why Windblade and the other characters are a major annoyance. Because now we're discussing gender issues instead of Transformers.

andersonh1 wrote:And this is why Windblade and the other characters are a major annoyance. Because now we're discussing gender issues instead of Transformers.

You're right, we should keep those pesky women out of our comic books, so we don't have to talk or think about them. How annoying!

BWprowl wrote:

andersonh1 wrote:And this is why Windblade and the other characters are a major annoyance. Because now we're discussing gender issues instead of Transformers.

You're right, we should keep those pesky women out of our comic books, so we don't have to talk or think about them. How annoying!

You know, we used to discuss plots and characters and whether Prowl was going bad and whether Thundercracker died or not.

I miss those days.

Can't my light entertainment be free of politics and social issues? I guess not.

COOTIES!!!

andersonh1 wrote:You know, we used to discuss plots and characters and whether Prowl was going bad and whether Thundercracker died or not.

I miss those days.

We did talk about all that stuff. JT and I and others had plenty of discussion on the plot and Windlblade dealing with Starscream and the art and everything. One guy here was the one who made it about social issue by complaining that Scott was apparently trying to advance some feminist agenda by 'introducing' something that the franchise has had for decades. Transformers have always been people with apparent genders, I don't know why it's suddenly an issue now that there's a book actually starring a female one.

Can't my light entertainment be free of politics and social issues? I guess not.

Since when the fuck is it 'yours'? You aren't even reading the book, and from what I recall of your dismissal of it, our 'annoying' discussion of those uppity women-folk didn't factor into your decision then.

And we've talked social issues plenty times before. I recall that we had a pretty compelling discussion about whether Bumblebee in RID was justified in 'killing' Horri-Bull and what it implied about authority. Of course, that was about those nice, 'default' male Transformers, so you were probably a lot more comfortable talking about it.

Shockwave wrote:COOTIES!!!

Seeing that I've been married for almost 14 years, I can honestly say I got past the "cooties" stage a long time ago.

Dominic wrote:Saying "girl robots are stupid" is not the same as saying "girls are stupid".

Exactly. They are a genderless species. Giving them one at all is stupid.

andersonh1 wrote:

Dominic wrote:Saying "girl robots are stupid" is not the same as saying "girls are stupid".

Exactly. They are a genderless species. Giving them one at all is stupid.

What about all the male Transformers we'd seen up until now? They're as gendered as the female ones (which have also been around forever).

Transformers have never been a 'genderless species'. Even the Bay movies, which arguably had the TFs at their most alien, had female members of the species.

BWprowl wrote:

andersonh1 wrote:

Dominic wrote:Saying "girl robots are stupid" is not the same as saying "girls are stupid".

Exactly. They are a genderless species. Giving them one at all is stupid.

What about all the male Transformers we'd seen up until now? They're as gendered as the female ones (which have also been around forever).

Transformers have never been a 'genderless species'. Even the Bay movies, which arguably had the TFs at their most alien, had female members of the species.

So they reproduce sexually? Have little baby Transformers? Grow up and hit puberty? Go on dates? We perceive them as mostly male because of the voice actors in all the cartoons, and because some genius had to write that episode with the female Autobots, which made all the others male by default, and because someone had to add Arcee to the mix without thinking the whole concept through. But the Transformers are neither male nor female. They are genderless machines.

The only place it's ever made some sort of sense is Beast Wars, and those Transformers had organic material incoporated into them that affected their behavior. I"m not surprised that they would develop feelings and attachments that hadn't been present before in the species.