Toys made for boys

 

From: Nathan

The Transformers are a franchise imported from Diaclone toys in Japan to be sold along with a TV show from Hasbro and comics by Marvel still remains popular among young to adult men since 1984. Most of these transformers would transform into sports cars, jets, large trucks and even dinosaurs, which were staple marketing to young male children back then and still today among other different sellers. The characters were completely dominated of male casting, having no female Transformers until a one-off episode, which had depicted them all to be romantic interests of a few of the male autoboots. Then the movie in 1986 would allow a new female autoboot character named Arcee, who since then was the quintessential female Autobot and Transformer to be showcased as the female of the group. She was the only character to also not receive a toy back then, and didn’t receive one until the 2000’s due to the idea of no one wanting the female toy.

In the picture, front and near center are the male autoboots, having Optimus Prime in the center, the most iconic and recognizable Transformer and fan favorite. He brandishes a large ion cannon and axe with a red and blue color scheme, he is a large semi-truck with a broad chest and shoulders and is the leader and leading character in the franchise. Along with him are other autoboots with large to medium stature turning into a sports car, t-rex, military vehicle and a van. They too boast large guns and swords and they take up a lot of space in the photo along with Optimus. They also stand in the ‘limelight’ having the point of light focused on them in the foreground as most of these characters are popular and are in constant action.  Alternatively, in the background is Arcee, the sole female in the photo and generally the go to when Hasbro wants to have a female character. Looking at Acree through the gap between the male autoboots, we see she doesn’t take up a lot of space, even being behind them. Her arms are by her side, she is thin with stereotypical feminine physique to really hammer down that she is supposed to be the girl Autobot. Acree is also pink, a color commonly associated with girls and femineity, while the others have these bold colors of reds, greens, and blues. She too has a blaster, although hard to see, is significantly smaller than the male Transformer’s weaponry. We see here she is the representative of The Smurfette Principle, where a sole female representative among a group of all males in media like television or movies, severely underrepresenting women and portraying them as the expectation instead of being the norm. Until the most two recent shows of transformers, starting in 2018, Arcee was the female representation of female Transformers media. Some shows did better than others for her character, but there was only one that really as a character made her feel apart of the main cast as opposed to a side character. This show, Transformers Prime, she is blue, but still extremely feminine in design, she’s the smallest of the autoboots and is the guardian of a male human teen, often acting as a mother role to him. There is another female Transformer; however, she is a Decepticon and Arcee’s rival. Whenever there are a few female Transformer characters in the media, they are still overwhelmed by the massive male cast of character which are essentially a 1:100 ratio. Generally, Transformers is a franchise made for boys, the toys prove it, the marketing of the characters prove it, the films do, even when a female character is in it, the male characters sell better, and are nearly always front and center, eclipsing the female characters. They’re depicted not as desirable as the other characters especially big names like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee or Megatron. This does really show what is generally marketed in majority of male popularized media and “the message is clear. Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys” (Pollitt). Most other medias in that era were like that, and women do find enjoyment in Transformers and adjacent media. The women characters aren’t also depicted to be as strong as the male characters as they mostly all share the same architecture of design, being thin and having hyperfeminine traits. Which also undermines the capability of women too, either being too weak by themselves and needing an accompanying male Transformer to either save them or to be a romantic interest. The franchise is really engineered around a male dominated theme too, that being war, and vehicles, so incorporating female Transformers for these stories feels almost feels like it was shoehorned in to have a girl just to have one.  The photo represents the representation of women in the media and apart of community, women aren’t marketed towards, there isn’t that many of them, the toys were made for boys.

 

Works Cited

Pollitt, Katha. “Hers; the Smurfette Principle.” The New York Times, 7 Apr. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html?pagewanted=print.