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Date Posted: 14:22:01 03/15/02 Fri
Author: Goktimus Prime
Subject: Women in sci-fi
In reply to: Chee-toy 's message, "my 2 cents...." on 09:47:34 03/12/02 Tue

What I do know is that before Star Trek, women were always eye-candy in Sci-Fi. I've seen may old Sci-Fi, women were barely there, a secatary, maid, an airhead there just to scream at something. Though the furture was full of action and somewhat bright, women in Sci-Fi is always be picture as eye-candy or something eles than what they are. I agree with Dark Star, that women may be writen with a broad stroke just to make the writing easier. It's a pity that even in books, women are mostly as objects for men.

Two words: Slave Leia. >:p

What about female Transformers?

Here's my opinion:

ARCEE
* What's with the Barbie colour scheme?
* In Western continuity, portrayed as a standard Autobot warrior. Involved in some battles in the US cartoons and UK comics (e.g.: Time Wars).
* In Japanese continuity, portrayed as being Fortress Maximus' bitch. Seriously. Name ONE Japanese episode where she fights. I can't think of any.

ELITA ONE
* Again, fairly Barbie-esque colours.
* Only ever appeared in one token episode.
* All the femme-bots had "boyfriends" -- implying some inherent dependence that women have on men. Although the episode did imply that they had been fighting Shockwave on their own since Prime and Co. left Cybertron. However, all the femmes ultimately answered to Alpha Trion, so it's still a very paternistic chain of command.

MINERVA
* Field medic who, at least in one episode I can recall (the one where Sixknight challenges Ginrai), is used as a hostage. Go the damsel in distress cliche.

BLACKARACHNIA
* My personal favourite female Transformer -- strong willed, independent and doesn't take crap from anybody. Also has a reasonably interesting personality too. Of course, most BW characters had far deeper personalities compared to G1 characters, who were generally one dimensional.

AIR RAZOR
* Again, a reasonably interesting character, though she wasn't developed as well as Blackarachnia.
* Although Tigerhawk was supposed to be an amalgam of Tigatron and Air Razor, Tigerhawk was essentially Tigatron -- Airazor's personality didn't seem to come through at all in Tigerhawk. That sucked. I think they should've had both voice actors speaking the same lines simultaneously (like how Gogeta and Gotenks are voiced in DBZ).
* Japanese version is MALE, since Takara didn't feel that a female Maximal would've been marketable.

SCYLLE
* Scylle never had a decent persona. She had a crush on Scuba just because they have similar alt modes. *sigh* BWII sucked.

STRYKA
* I think she's pretty cool. Most other female TFs who are fairly low ranking (e.g.: Arcee = warrior, Blackarachnia = saboteur), but both Stryka and Elita One were command officers. And Stryka doesn't sport Barbie colours, nor did she rely on any physical sex appeal (i.e.: feminine anthropomorphic body design in robot mode). She was a tough and efficient general who also retained her femininity (e.g.: when she admired the simulation that Rattrap put her on). I think it's important that female antagonists be portrayed as strong without losing their inherent femininity -- otherwise they're just emulating men, which would be futile (as well as promoting the notion that one cannot be strong without being masculine).

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