Last weekend I brought some guy friends with me to the Wired office when I stopped by to pick something up. Upon reviewing my desk toys (pictured) one of them exclaimed “Whoa, where did you get all these Transformers?” “My parents’ house; they’re mine from when I was a kid,” I explained. “Really?” he replied, as if the fact that we’d just come from Live Free or Die Hard wasn’t proof enough I appreciated the occasional [emphasis on the air quotes] “guy thing.” Now, I know my friend didn’t mean anything by what he said, but it flashed me right back to 5-years-old and being picked on for playing with “boys” toys and hoping my savior Optimus Prime would come. (Sad is the life of the budding geek.) So, I was a little worried when I walked into the theater to see Michael Bay’s new opus, which kind of officially opens today although it’s been in theaters since 8 p.m. Monday and has already made an ungodly $36 million-plus. Would this be another time I got that “No Girls Allowed” feeling?
To my relief, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the CG animation and other effects rock, its female protagonist Mikaela (played by Megan Fox) is actually much more of a jock than her male counter part Sam (Shia LaBeouf). She hot-wires cars, puts people in their place and goes into battle with Bumblebee - doing some ass-kicking of her own. She does it in a mid-riff shirt, mind you, but at least she doesn’t just stand around and scream. And, without giving too much away, the computer nerd who cracks the 'bots’ code is also a member of the double-X chromosome posse. Again, she’s blonde and cute but she also manages to outsmart most of the Department of Defense. Of course, none of this satisfied my lifelong dream of at least one woman-identified Transformer (femme 'bots anyone?) in a live-action movie, and it doesn’t make up for an entire generation of marketing directed almost strictly at dudes. But at least it wasn’t like my childhood of always watching the boys have all the fun.
Since Wired’s story on Transformers went online there have been a lot of comments from female readers proclaiming their crushes on Optimus McDreamy (no? ’Bottie McHottie?) and expressing melancholy over feeling excluded by the story. I’ll let the editor of the piece speak to the thinking behind it (stay tuned), but I will say that I think the story was addressing who the toys and cartoon series were aimed at. Unfortunately, it was boys. But just like there are some lads who play with Barbie, there were girls, like me, who played with Transformers and, again if you were me, left the only Barbie they ever got to rot in the bottom of the toy chest. While I would love to write an entire thesis on how media, and in this case toy makers, reinforce binary gender construction in young children through creating “boys” and “girls” toys, I’ll spare you all the snooze-fest. Basically, it boils down to this: In the Reagan-era ’80s what was supposed to be of interest to boys and girls was much more regimented. In the years since, things have changed. Bay has commented in recent interviews that he was conscious of his female audience when making Transformers. That could be lip-service, but I think he meant it and hopefully the glimmers of strong women in his film will attract even more female Transfans and toy collectors (are you listening Hasbro?). And maybe some day, one of those Autobots will use their awesome powers of transubstantiation to become a woman.
UPDATE: Thanks to the eagle-eyed readers who caught my glaring omission in failing to mention Arcee and some of the other females in this post. To be honest (because I couldn't lie to you, you're smarter than me) I had completely forgotten about them (my mental circuits have rusted with age). To be clear though, when I was talking about wanting to see a woman-identified Transformer, I was thinking in terms of the current film incarnation (see clarification above). Re-reading my post now I see how that was unclear. Apologies. Now that you've refreshed my memory I've done a little searching and found this interview with *Transformers *writer Roberto Orci where he claims that Arcee was considered for inclusion in Bay's film but didn't make it (sigh), but could resurface in a possible sequel (joy!). Maybe my dreams will come true!
