Dead Metal wrote:Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that. Sure some variety would be nice, but we can only start asking for that once female TFs have become common and accepted.
Well said.
Va'al wrote:As much as I think you're just trying to be provocative, I believe you're misinterpreting the point. Noideaforaname made a good statement by showing the range of different shapes and sizes that 'male' characters have come in, such as the ROTF Constructicons.
(And the fandom hated those too, by the way.)
As I said earlier, it's a good thing that fans wanted a female character, and that Hasbro gave us a female character. It's the fact that the only way to make it clearly so, was to make it conform to some gender stereotypes and attributes. And what's the major perceived difference between men and women? Breasts, and a more slender figure. And how do they get posed? Like this:
And to show how a slender figure makes fans scream 'he looks like a girl!', as if that were a bad thing, here's Prime Starscream, in the same pose.
The issue is not with female-looking robots. The issue is with the fact that there seems to be only one way in which we can mark female-looking robots.
But to respond to your Hulk provocation:
Deadmetal summed up the point I was trying to make in my verbose (and provocative)way. But I'll take time to respond.
If my goal was to simply be provocative, there are easier ways to do it than to take the time to illustrate the imbalance in accepted gender features(masculine) in toys like Tranformers.
As far as the Hulk "provocation", it is simply an example of an obviously non-feminine form. It's extreme but so is Strika. How is the Hulk picture fundamentally different than the Botcon Strika using the Generations Warpath body?
Noideaforaname does have a great point, the question of since there is a nice amount of non conventional humanoid body types in "male" Transformers robots, why can't we have the same in "female" Transformers robots. I agree with that but I also think that it would happen more if the population of female robot Transformers was more significant.
What proportion of the "male" Transformers population have unconventional body types? The number of "male" Transformers characters/toys with unconventional body types outnumbers the number of "female" Transformers characters/toys. We'd see more variety in body types if we had a more female Transformers toys.
I also agree with you that it's a good thing, a great thing as far as I'm concerned, that a female character was created by fan vote and that Hasbro would put effort into bringing it to the mainline market.
The people who pose toys in your example of Prime Arcee and Starscream are the same people who cry foul at fembots existing. The ones who view with any negativity the way that Starscream can be seen as feminine...these are the kind of people who are the problem. It's the "ewww girls" reaction that can be understood if coming from a child, not adults.
Incidentally, Prime Starscream is an exception to the largely masculine proportions standard in Transformers. Where is the clamouring for less "male" looking masculine Transformers? Why do male transformers have to have masculine features? Why do we need gender at all in these fictional characters and their toy representations?
The answer is that it reads quickly and easily on a visual level, making for efficient identification experience.That's visual design 101.
The fact of the matter is Transformers character designs are
largely based on human inspiration for humanoid bot modes. The fact of the matter is that majority of character designs use
overt male physical proportions/traits for "male" characters.
To even ask why a
feminine robot has to have
feminine traits is odd to me because it's not a difficult question to answer.
Looking at the finalized character design for Windblade, the most feminine aspect of the figure are the hips. The bust is not nearly as prominent, it's actually even more slight than what is seen on Prime Arcee's character model.
If you take away the shoulder armour of Windblade, she'd have pear shaped proportions. With the shoulder armour, she displays the inverted triangle silhouette associated with the ideal male proportions(shoulders broader than the waist).
So basically, Windblade's design is slim shoulders(beneath large shoulder armour), slight bust, wide hips. Feminine? Yes. I don't see it as a Barbie doll or an idealized female form held by modern popular culture, though.
Frankly, I think that a fembot with a pear shaped appearance is a move forward for the brand and the toy industry as a whole.
I don't really need to give Hasbro ideas on how to properly represent women, do I? 
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