by cybercat » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:27 pm
At risk of being extraneous, I gotta say something about the dogpile on Siren Prime here. I'm a sucker for the downtrodden. It's been bugging me all day.
Here's what I was thinking, and if I may presume to restate Siren's point:
First, we all do, if we admit, get kinda upset if someone else's vision of our favorite character diverges widely from our own. I remember considerable flap about how ugly Monkeyscream was in the Bay movie, because, man, that Michael Bay is wrong! That's totally not how he looks! That's totally not how Jazz is supposed to act! I overheard two students in class today upset because Edward who is a character in that whole like STephanie Meyers _Twilight_ movie didn't look like what they thought Edward should look like. We all do it. It's not a hate crime to dislike someone else's vision. It's actually kinda close to *aesthetics*.
Second, I have to say in all honesty I'm kinda down on any sort of sexualization of the Transformers. Before Arcee, Elita-One, Black Arachnia, I hear a lot of people say, well, they're all male. Huh? Really? Based on what? Their voices? Do we ever see any, ahem, *physical* evidence of masculinity on them? If so, what episode 'cause I musta missed that one. You have no evidence that they are *male*. That is an interpretation you're going on based on boxy body type and vocal timbre. If you think body shape and vocal range are solid enough criteria, go to Bragg Boulevard in Fayetteville and try to pick out which of 'workin gals' was born female. Good luck with that.
In the 80s, we saw a rash of cartoons that tried to avoid the gender issue altogether (this is when they all had Educational Consultants, remember?) by having only 'neutral' characters, whom our culture automatically codes as 'male' the same way a little kid will think 'fire*man*' and 'police*man*'--kid isn't being sexist, he's articulating 'male' as the neutral position the same way I just unintentionally used the 'generic he'. Transformers, for one, BA (Before Arcee). Smurfs for another. My Little Pony, too. I could go on. Then Smurfs introduced Smurfette, which raised a lot of hackles among parents at the time. Prior to Smurfette, a whole bunch of smurfs living in the forest in a commune all happy together was just, well, I can't resist saying *smurfy*. Once a girl was introduced, a lot of parents had to struggle to explain how suddenly a group of guys living alone in the woods with *one* female was supposed to work. Suddenly the Smurfs became creepy. To mitigate the creepiness, they introduced two smurf kids (remember them?). That actually only made it creepier, because NOW parents had to explain where smurfbabies came from. WIth only one female Smurf. Oy!
Okay, back to Transformers. A young audience sees a bunch of non-sex differentiated things living together and it's totally cool. Kid doesn't even THINK creepy. Or sexual. It's just cool. Remember that kid him or herself hasn't hit puberty and thus probably has a pretty undifferentiated notion of his or her own sexuality. When we introduce a female, that complicates things. For one thing, if we think female we think sexual difference and thus sexual desire and I don't know about you, but I really don't want to think about exactly how or what is involved in robot sex. Call me a prude if you want, but that's not a hate crime either.
So, someone who dislikes yaoi or yuri may simply be saying they don't like to think about characters they have their own conceptions of (my two students and Edward) acting in a manner that would be inconsistent with their personal image. A gay or lesbian reader might be likewise offended by hetero relations, for the same reason. OR they may be trying to say that they just don't like thinking about robot sex, straight, gay, bisexual, bestial, sadomasochistic, High Victorian or whatever. It doesn't justify a flame war or a dogpile or public shaming. Some of us don't like to think about robot gang bangs of any variety. If you do, hey, do yo' thang, but don't lay some PC guilt trip on someone who disagrees. I don't judge you for your robot rape festivals, don't judge me for my Decepticon tea (and wanton destruction) parties.
Sorry for bringing up something some of you probably hope will go away. I feel very strongly about people on forums feeling that they're talking to friends (aren't you the least bit sad that she's so upset she's physically ill?) and I'm not a huge 'rush-to-judgment' fan (I lurked here for 3 years) or public smackdown fan.
HK, who reads too much gender theory. But does have Decepticon tea parties.
and i really like u i seem to have a crush on u just by the way of your reasoning not many people have that 
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