I mentioned in my post about Big Firebird Toy's debut TransFormers figure and Arcee-analogue,
Nicee, that I'd started to write a long rant about various issues surrounding
the figure, but that I removed it to keep the focus of that post on the figure
rather than the reactions it generated...
However, it was rather a long post,
and I'd kept adding to it over the course of a few weeks, so I
figured I should save it and make it a post of its own.
After all, I can't very well call myself a Femme-Bot Fanatic without having a few opinions on the subject, right?
...And so, for better or worse, here is that post...
...And so, for better or worse, here is that post...
 |
| "Hey, eyes up here, buddy!" |
Nicee's robot mode is where a lot of the controversy started... because, while
the official Hasbro/Takara Tomy toys (prior to Earthrise) and most of the Third Party efforts
actually make use of a minimum of the front of Arcee's vehicle mode as her robot mode chest, Nicee goes
all-out with a blantantly humaniform body. It's nothing new for
an Arcee to exhibit very little of her vehicle mode as active components of robot mode but,
at first glance, this one genuinely looks like an robot action
figure - clad in the equivalent of a bikini - with a few car parts
tagged onto an elaborate, segmented backpack. However, this backpack is
- miraculously - substantially smaller and more compact than the
average, while part of it also serves a secondary purpose - as a large bow-type
weapon.
Her robo-boobs are, admittedly, straight out of the hentai fever-dreams of some of the more dubious fan-artists, the high-heels are clearly impractical, and - as much as a robot can be considered 'dressed' - she's clearly designed to look as if she's dressed in a metallic pink bra and knickers. This is an aesthetic choice, and a perfectly valid one at that... but, coupled with the generously sculpted cleavage and high heels, I don't think anyone can argue that this figure is not gratuitously sexualised without coming across as either disingenuous or just plain daft. There is a very clear delineation between the 'white' robot and her 'pink' armour/clothing. The inclusion of a 'soft touch' alternate chest pretty much crushes any argument on that point.
However - and it's a pretty significant 'however' - it's also very apparent that this is a stylised robot, not a scantily-clad human, and so the standards are a little different. Sure, it looks as if she's 'wearing a metallic pink bra and knickers' along with high-heeled shoes, but it's also very apparent that what you're looking at is an armoured shell. The inner workings are visible at the hips, knees, ankles and elbows, and the car parts arranged on the back are reminscent of many of the lighter, more agile mecha sometimes seen in anime or videogames. Think C3-PO or, perhaps more appropriate, the Maschinenmensch that becomes the false Maria in Fritz Lang's 1927 movie, Metropolis... albeit with much bigger, shapelier tits. Like them, Nicee is effectively an android - one might almost go so far as to say gynoid - rather than a mere 'robot', per the typical Cybertronian, yet she has the typical Cybertronian's ability to transform.
One of the many rounds of complaints about this figure focused on the idea that TransFormers is a kids' toyline, and this level of overt sexualisation is not appropriate to such a property...
...But here's the thing: TransFormers absolutely ceased to be a kids toyline when Hasbro started constantly rebooting G1, trying to relive the glory days of the 1980s, over and over again, on an ever tighter budget, starting about 15 years ago. It became a toyline cynically pandering to 30- and 40-something Collectors, who were in the 5+ demographic back then, and many of whom - both male and female - now have a varying degree of... shall we say 'appreciation'... for the female form. Why else would Hasbro now insist on shoehorning in new Femme-Bots at every opportunity, or re-using molds which are barely considered adequate, let alone moderately successful, for as many fringe G1 Femme-Bots as possible? I'm genuinely surprised that Hasbro haven't (yet) made a Femme-Bot version of Ratchet, considering that's how Bob Budiansky originally envisaged the character (the name being derived from one of the main characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). If and when Hasbro get round to creating something new, rather than even rebooting a different continuity, TransFormers can then be considered a kids toyline again... But I'm beginning to suspect that Hasbro have, by now, invested far too much - or far too narrow-mindedly - in Bumblebee to even contemplate that.
Furthermore, Nicee was not made by Hasbro or Takara Tomy and is not an official figure with TransFormers branding. She is a Third Party figure costing anything between £75-£90 when first released, and apparently manufactured in a single, limited quantity run, so this is a figure clearly aimed squarely at the Adult Collector market, albeit more affordable than some contemporary Masterpiece figures. Horny teens may get a bit worked up about it - and it would seem that perhaps some Adult Collectors did too, considering the photo ban in the TFW2005.com forum topic - but it's definitely not a kids' toy, or something that a pre-teen would or should have any access to.
That said, take a look at many of the kids cartoons from the 80s and 90s, and try telling me that the female characters were not any more sexualised than their male counterparts. Hell, when Wonder Woman was first introduced way back in 1942, she was little more than the barely disguised BDSM fantasies of her creator, William Moulton Marston. Perhaps it wasn't apparent as a kid, perhaps there's even plausible deniability as an adult, but female characters in most cartoons from that period - Masters of the Universe/She-Ra, X-Men, G.I. JOE, even - would either be only partially clad (bare legs, for example) or wearing skin-tight clothing (Baroness, Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue) and full-on makeup. Did they - in any way - represent anything less than an idealised female form for the male gaze to feast upon?
No, they did not.
Arcee, specifically, was originally depicted as a very feminine, humaniform robot with smooth, curvy legs, backside and belly, and her transformation was discernibly and undeniably cheated in ways only a cartoon can. Pretty much the only angular part of her was her chest, where every male-coded Cybertronian tended to be angular pretty much everywhere. While she exhibited some purely functional attributes - such as her retractable visor - she was also given bold red lipstick, which serves no function beyond the purely decorative, and yet has followed the character through many subsequent iterations. As with all those other female cartoon characters from the 80s and 90s, this could be indicative of the 'Vanity Is Feminine' trope at work.
Her robo-boobs are, admittedly, straight out of the hentai fever-dreams of some of the more dubious fan-artists, the high-heels are clearly impractical, and - as much as a robot can be considered 'dressed' - she's clearly designed to look as if she's dressed in a metallic pink bra and knickers. This is an aesthetic choice, and a perfectly valid one at that... but, coupled with the generously sculpted cleavage and high heels, I don't think anyone can argue that this figure is not gratuitously sexualised without coming across as either disingenuous or just plain daft. There is a very clear delineation between the 'white' robot and her 'pink' armour/clothing. The inclusion of a 'soft touch' alternate chest pretty much crushes any argument on that point.
However - and it's a pretty significant 'however' - it's also very apparent that this is a stylised robot, not a scantily-clad human, and so the standards are a little different. Sure, it looks as if she's 'wearing a metallic pink bra and knickers' along with high-heeled shoes, but it's also very apparent that what you're looking at is an armoured shell. The inner workings are visible at the hips, knees, ankles and elbows, and the car parts arranged on the back are reminscent of many of the lighter, more agile mecha sometimes seen in anime or videogames. Think C3-PO or, perhaps more appropriate, the Maschinenmensch that becomes the false Maria in Fritz Lang's 1927 movie, Metropolis... albeit with much bigger, shapelier tits. Like them, Nicee is effectively an android - one might almost go so far as to say gynoid - rather than a mere 'robot', per the typical Cybertronian, yet she has the typical Cybertronian's ability to transform.
One of the many rounds of complaints about this figure focused on the idea that TransFormers is a kids' toyline, and this level of overt sexualisation is not appropriate to such a property...
...But here's the thing: TransFormers absolutely ceased to be a kids toyline when Hasbro started constantly rebooting G1, trying to relive the glory days of the 1980s, over and over again, on an ever tighter budget, starting about 15 years ago. It became a toyline cynically pandering to 30- and 40-something Collectors, who were in the 5+ demographic back then, and many of whom - both male and female - now have a varying degree of... shall we say 'appreciation'... for the female form. Why else would Hasbro now insist on shoehorning in new Femme-Bots at every opportunity, or re-using molds which are barely considered adequate, let alone moderately successful, for as many fringe G1 Femme-Bots as possible? I'm genuinely surprised that Hasbro haven't (yet) made a Femme-Bot version of Ratchet, considering that's how Bob Budiansky originally envisaged the character (the name being derived from one of the main characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). If and when Hasbro get round to creating something new, rather than even rebooting a different continuity, TransFormers can then be considered a kids toyline again... But I'm beginning to suspect that Hasbro have, by now, invested far too much - or far too narrow-mindedly - in Bumblebee to even contemplate that.
Furthermore, Nicee was not made by Hasbro or Takara Tomy and is not an official figure with TransFormers branding. She is a Third Party figure costing anything between £75-£90 when first released, and apparently manufactured in a single, limited quantity run, so this is a figure clearly aimed squarely at the Adult Collector market, albeit more affordable than some contemporary Masterpiece figures. Horny teens may get a bit worked up about it - and it would seem that perhaps some Adult Collectors did too, considering the photo ban in the TFW2005.com forum topic - but it's definitely not a kids' toy, or something that a pre-teen would or should have any access to.
That said, take a look at many of the kids cartoons from the 80s and 90s, and try telling me that the female characters were not any more sexualised than their male counterparts. Hell, when Wonder Woman was first introduced way back in 1942, she was little more than the barely disguised BDSM fantasies of her creator, William Moulton Marston. Perhaps it wasn't apparent as a kid, perhaps there's even plausible deniability as an adult, but female characters in most cartoons from that period - Masters of the Universe/She-Ra, X-Men, G.I. JOE, even - would either be only partially clad (bare legs, for example) or wearing skin-tight clothing (Baroness, Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue) and full-on makeup. Did they - in any way - represent anything less than an idealised female form for the male gaze to feast upon?
No, they did not.
Arcee, specifically, was originally depicted as a very feminine, humaniform robot with smooth, curvy legs, backside and belly, and her transformation was discernibly and undeniably cheated in ways only a cartoon can. Pretty much the only angular part of her was her chest, where every male-coded Cybertronian tended to be angular pretty much everywhere. While she exhibited some purely functional attributes - such as her retractable visor - she was also given bold red lipstick, which serves no function beyond the purely decorative, and yet has followed the character through many subsequent iterations. As with all those other female cartoon characters from the 80s and 90s, this could be indicative of the 'Vanity Is Feminine' trope at work.
Even these days, comics still make many female
superheroes wear ridiculous swimsuit/lingerie/dominatrix costumes,
all to emphasise their slender waists, long supple legs and ample busts. Where the male costumes may be similarly tight, it's all about
emphasising their muscles. Some have even argued that the male-coded TransFormers exhibit similar
proportions, and are therefore equivalent 'Masculine Forms', but there is a significant disparity
there, and there's no denying it. Granted, the distribution of colour might be loosely equivalent to the Circus Strongman/Wrestler uniform-inspired costumes - denoting boots, vests, pants-outside-trousers, etc. - worn by male comic book heroes, but that doesn't make them the same. Muscles represent power, and are not inherently 'sexy', where the stereotypical idealised female form and the vivid makeup were primarily intended to be just that. There are surely better ways to denote power and self-confidence in women, after all, than boob windows, high heels and perpetual heavy makeup. Worse still, the situation is now so
normalised, it's frequently not even seen as 'sexualisation'
anymore... yet witness the outcry when attempts are made to rebalance female
characters - replacing superheroine g-strings or skirts with trousers or leggings, for example.
Some online discussions about Nicee and its perceived
oversexualisation of the Femme-Bot concept achieved such levels of
vitriol that some long-term fans apparently came to feel that the TransFormers
fandom was no longer a safe and welcoming space for them...
And this is just one of many reasons I steer clear of actually joining fan
communities.
That a person can express an opinion on forums or social media and be hounded, ridiculed and threatened because of it, only for erstwhile 'friends' to feign ignorance and/or remain silent, speaks not just to the simmering hostility toward dissenters within this so-called 'fan community' (beyond the usual Trukk Not Munky or RIRFIB/RIBFIR nonsense), but also to its utterly superficial sense of community.
In this specific case, it is sadly predictable that the main victims of this online shitstorm were female, and some of the attacks on them overtly misogynistic, while still others resorted to labelling dissenters with lazy, unimaginative epithets like 'SJW'. Many fandoms are far less inclusive than their most optimistic proponents believe, and tend to become less inclusive the larger they grow. This is often (though certainly not exclusively) in response to those perceived 'others' who seek inclusion, despite the overarching 'otherness' (e.g. being a TransFormers collector) that gave rise to the community in the first place. TransFormers started its life very firmly in the 'Boys Toys' category, making girls one of the most egregious 'others' imaginable. However much Hasbro might like to pretend that's no longer the case, much of their marketing says otherwise. Takara Tomy's may be far worse, on balance, but it wasn't them who created this absolute gem of a bio for the earliest movie Elita-1 toy, back in 2007:
That a person can express an opinion on forums or social media and be hounded, ridiculed and threatened because of it, only for erstwhile 'friends' to feign ignorance and/or remain silent, speaks not just to the simmering hostility toward dissenters within this so-called 'fan community' (beyond the usual Trukk Not Munky or RIRFIB/RIBFIR nonsense), but also to its utterly superficial sense of community.
In this specific case, it is sadly predictable that the main victims of this online shitstorm were female, and some of the attacks on them overtly misogynistic, while still others resorted to labelling dissenters with lazy, unimaginative epithets like 'SJW'. Many fandoms are far less inclusive than their most optimistic proponents believe, and tend to become less inclusive the larger they grow. This is often (though certainly not exclusively) in response to those perceived 'others' who seek inclusion, despite the overarching 'otherness' (e.g. being a TransFormers collector) that gave rise to the community in the first place. TransFormers started its life very firmly in the 'Boys Toys' category, making girls one of the most egregious 'others' imaginable. However much Hasbro might like to pretend that's no longer the case, much of their marketing says otherwise. Takara Tomy's may be far worse, on balance, but it wasn't them who created this absolute gem of a bio for the earliest movie Elita-1 toy, back in 2007:
"As the first of the female Transformers
robots, Elita-One gets a lot of attention, and loves every minute of it.
It isn't just her incredible handling, or her fast idle that gets the attention either. She's a cunning fighter,
and one of the best marksmen among the Autobots, able to blast Scraplets off a Decepticon at more than
four miles. At short range, she's just as effective, generating an attraction field that can cause unshielded robots to overheat almost instantly."
It isn't just her incredible handling, or her fast idle that gets the attention either. She's a cunning fighter,
and one of the best marksmen among the Autobots, able to blast Scraplets off a Decepticon at more than
four miles. At short range, she's just as effective, generating an attraction field that can cause unshielded robots to overheat almost instantly."
Additionally, as I asserted earlier, the sexualisation of female characters in popular culture has pretty much
always been rife, to the point where the mere suggestion of
adjusting to balance things out becomes offensive, like a personal affront, to
some fans.
Take Noelle Stevenson's reboot of She-Ra, for example: while the
show, once it launched, attracted a lot of praise for its stories and
themes, much of the initial discussion was complaints about the
protagonist's appearance: comparatively flat-chested,
comparatively muscular,
and not even a hint of the original's red lipstick. This,
they cried, made her look like a boy.
Let's just ignore the
approximate age of the character in the reboot (explicitly not a
full-grown adult), and the fact that she's a Captain in the Horde, so
she's had substantial military training and lived most of her life within the military. Of course she should have
big tits wedged into strapless boob armour, and her makeup should be bold and
immaculate at all times.
Seems legit to me.
I'm not ashamed to admit - and, indeed, it should come as no surprise -
that I like a lot of these sexualised female characters in cartoons of the 80s and 90s -
the Baroness would have triggered much the same response in me as Michelle Pfeiffer's memorable and provocative turn
as Catwoman - but I can see that they're implausible. I mean,
OK, the Baroness is actually wearing (tight, shapely) body
armour in most G.I. JOE continuities, but many other, similar characters are
wearing spandex- or latex-equivalents which just would not work in real
life, and have bare skin on show all over the place. No tailor in the world could create practical, working versions of some comic book costumes that didn't result in nigh-constant nip-slips or horrific sweat-rash. Anything may be
possible in high heels in a cartoon but they're not exactly
sensible footwear for combat or chasing down bad guys. And would any of these characters really have
time to put on makeup, even if they were genuinely unconcerned
at the risk of it smudging and looking ridiculous in whatever adventures
they're going to be involved in? Or are we expected to think that their lips are naturally scarlet, their eyelids naturally lined and shadowed, their eyelashes naturally dark and swept up?And let us not forget that 'fan' is and abbreviation of fanatic... The last few years have taught us nothing if they haven't opened our eyes to the danger of latent fanaticism in the wider world, and it's a real shame that folks who collect toys as a hobby are just as likely to be utterly toxic and easily triggered as a religious fundamentalist when their world view is challenged.
Don't get me wrong: I have the utmost respect for the many people from many fandoms who go on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. to share their passions openly and optimistically with the world. I would not be so crass as to victim-blame them when they attract the attention of these sad, twisted individuals... but, equally, there's a good reason I mostly stay away from such sites and systems myself. I don't really see the point of them and, while there have undoubtedly been some very positive developments within Social Media, the cesspit is never very far behind.
Every iteration of Arcee is bound to be divisive because different people want different things out of them. In all honesty, I cannot recall another figure which has attracted so much notoriety among the fandom - let alone the different kinds of notoriety - as Nicee in my long history as a Collector of TransFormers toys. It's no secret that this is an interpretation of Arcee. The name is enough to give that away, before you even see the familiar colourscheme or her vehicle mode. However, despite the fact that it's obvious this interpretation is not a recreation of G1 Arcee, the makers ended up further upsetting many fans by releasing the figure without the planned - and well-publicised - overtly G1 Arcee-styled head sculpt, in the wake - and possibly as a direct result - of the raids by Chinese police on WeiJiang due to their many IP infringements. Instead, the alternate head sculpt later made it out the back door, and has become a Third Party accessory to this Third Party figure. Additionally, there's an artist I follow on DeviantArt who's created an alternate chest piece for the figure, supposedly to make it more subtle and G1 Arcee-like... yet, instead of making the new part more like Arcee's animation model, it's actually inflated the robo-boobs even further, making them a fraction more angular in the process, and added a bra hem ridge that isn't even in line with the changes in paintwork. I kind of like it, but it is in no way an improvement on Big Firebird's version.
Every iteration of Arcee is bound to be divisive because different people want different things out of them. In all honesty, I cannot recall another figure which has attracted so much notoriety among the fandom - let alone the different kinds of notoriety - as Nicee in my long history as a Collector of TransFormers toys. It's no secret that this is an interpretation of Arcee. The name is enough to give that away, before you even see the familiar colourscheme or her vehicle mode. However, despite the fact that it's obvious this interpretation is not a recreation of G1 Arcee, the makers ended up further upsetting many fans by releasing the figure without the planned - and well-publicised - overtly G1 Arcee-styled head sculpt, in the wake - and possibly as a direct result - of the raids by Chinese police on WeiJiang due to their many IP infringements. Instead, the alternate head sculpt later made it out the back door, and has become a Third Party accessory to this Third Party figure. Additionally, there's an artist I follow on DeviantArt who's created an alternate chest piece for the figure, supposedly to make it more subtle and G1 Arcee-like... yet, instead of making the new part more like Arcee's animation model, it's actually inflated the robo-boobs even further, making them a fraction more angular in the process, and added a bra hem ridge that isn't even in line with the changes in paintwork. I kind of like it, but it is in no way an improvement on Big Firebird's version.
The same artist, coincidentally, had a few things to say about Comera and SJWs taking the fun out of everything... Some of it is a little overblown, but I agree with his broader point. However, there's a whole world of difference between Comera/Echara and, say, Beast Machines Strika... or even RiD2015 Strongarm, and the idea that the five main Dinobots look like men, therefore the Dino-Femme-Bots should look like women - breasts and all - is the very definition of a false equivalence. Hasbro's own take on a Dino-Femme-Bot - PotP Slash - serves as ample proof.
When I self-identify as a 'Femme-Bot Fanatic', that's not just within the context of TransFormers. I have long been a fan of the stunning paintings of Hajime Sorayama (website), which I first encountered - as a pre-adolescent - in the pages of computer magazines in the 1980s. I'm also a huge fan of Walter Schulze-Mittendorff's awesome Maschinenmensch design from Metropolis, which served as the inspiration for Ralph McQuarrie's original C3-PO concept art. I like the Fei-Yen variants from Sega's Virtual On games, RAcaseal from PSO, KOS-MOS and T-ELOS from Xenosaga, Aegis and Metis from Persona - most of which I have only limited exposure to, since the only one of these games I've actually played myself is the original Virtual On in arcades and on Saturn. I like the Nobel Gundam, and old rocket-tits herself, Minerva-X from Mazinger, even though I've seen little more than action figures, model kits and screenshots of either anime. And who could forget Duchess Drossel von Flügel from Fireball/Fireball Charming - a wonderfully designed Femme-Bot who I've only seen in a handful of YouTube clips and screenshots.
I like the idea of a machine that is beautiful, and Femme-Bots are ideally tailored to achieving that end because they are modelled after the (human) female form. To me, the concept of that being in any way 'wrong' speaks to the weird taboos that surrounds the (human) female form, many of which do more harm than good because they end up being repressive of women, sometimes even at the hands of other women. It's not necessary for a transforming robot action figure like Nicee to have tits, they serve no purpose... but it is an artistic choice on the part of her designer, and I tend to find myself supporting that choice rather than believing there's anything degenerate or dangerous about it. Hell, look at some of the classic (1950s) Cadillacs: those 'missiles' on the front were genuinely intended to represent a woman's breasts, so cars with tits ain't without precedent in the real world.
When I self-identify as a 'Femme-Bot Fanatic', that's not just within the context of TransFormers. I have long been a fan of the stunning paintings of Hajime Sorayama (website), which I first encountered - as a pre-adolescent - in the pages of computer magazines in the 1980s. I'm also a huge fan of Walter Schulze-Mittendorff's awesome Maschinenmensch design from Metropolis, which served as the inspiration for Ralph McQuarrie's original C3-PO concept art. I like the Fei-Yen variants from Sega's Virtual On games, RAcaseal from PSO, KOS-MOS and T-ELOS from Xenosaga, Aegis and Metis from Persona - most of which I have only limited exposure to, since the only one of these games I've actually played myself is the original Virtual On in arcades and on Saturn. I like the Nobel Gundam, and old rocket-tits herself, Minerva-X from Mazinger, even though I've seen little more than action figures, model kits and screenshots of either anime. And who could forget Duchess Drossel von Flügel from Fireball/Fireball Charming - a wonderfully designed Femme-Bot who I've only seen in a handful of YouTube clips and screenshots.
I like the idea of a machine that is beautiful, and Femme-Bots are ideally tailored to achieving that end because they are modelled after the (human) female form. To me, the concept of that being in any way 'wrong' speaks to the weird taboos that surrounds the (human) female form, many of which do more harm than good because they end up being repressive of women, sometimes even at the hands of other women. It's not necessary for a transforming robot action figure like Nicee to have tits, they serve no purpose... but it is an artistic choice on the part of her designer, and I tend to find myself supporting that choice rather than believing there's anything degenerate or dangerous about it. Hell, look at some of the classic (1950s) Cadillacs: those 'missiles' on the front were genuinely intended to represent a woman's breasts, so cars with tits ain't without precedent in the real world.
There is a broader, societal problem in the way women are represented or treated, and I sympathise and empathise with any and all outrage about that... but getting upset about a Third Party figure like this one - whether it's because you think it's overly sexualised or because you feel that the SJWs are yet again deliberately trying to antagonise you with their complaints about sexualisation - feels like a case of the straw that broke the donkey's back. I don't feel Nicee - or any version of Arcee, either animated or in toy form - is truly representative of women in the same way that I don't feel that a classic Cadillac is representative of women. Both are works of art, of one kind or another... And the thing about art is that what you take away from it is entirely on you, not the artist, not any other consumer.
Ultimately, though, if you really want someone to blame for the way Femme-Bots are designed within the TransFormers franchise now, and how people react to them, look to whoever created Arcee's animation model for setting an unachievable precedent, or the earliest toy prototypes, for setting a low-effort precedent. The real failing, though, was the anthropomorphism of these alien robots in the first place. And, honestly, that's on all of us.
Because we're all human. And I don't think any of us deserve to be attacked for our opinions without first taking the time to understand them, and what life experience has informed them.
In the meantime, let me take this opportunity to make a trifling attempt to redress the balance a little:
...You're welcome.
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