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Post by inflatabledalek on Sept 12, 2020 13:16:11 GMT
Well, before this gets completely derailed (my fault of course), I'll end by suggesting this.
Women are not a homogeneous hive mind of course, but a good majority of women interested in the comics side of fandom (including the first woman to get a regular gig writing TF comics).find Furman to be a sexist writer.
How many women saying a thing is sexist does it take before we as men have to accept that it is and suck it up rather than trying to well actually them?
Which again, doesn't mean we can't like and enjoy those things as well despite their flaws (hey, I'm the guy who likes the films. I'm never going to excuse their worst moments by going "2007 was a different time" though. Plus of course I wrote the bloody book on the Marvel comics, the eight years devoted to that did not come from a position of hate).
And maybe if those "feminist mobs" (a vile phrase. And which is it? No one knew any better or all these angry women were getting upity and above themselves over these issues?) who suggested at the time Transformers could do better had been listened to rather than Furman writing the bitchy "Women hey, you can't please 'em" Prime's Rib, things could have improved much faster.
And don't take an old white guy historians word on previous societal attitudes, that people thought differently narrative is currently being pushed hard back against by a lot of minority and oppressed groups writers.
And that's where I'm leaving this.
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 12, 2020 13:48:19 GMT
I don't know the age of the history writer I referenced. I don't know his skin colour. I only read his (in my opinion) intelligent and nuanced views. What does his age and skin colour have to do with anything?
Go away. That kind of attitude has no place here.
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 12, 2020 14:03:37 GMT
To say that the Marvel TF comics were sexist is to say that it's wrong to write mainstream comics for a particular demographic. The Marvel TF comics were written by men with young teenage boys as a target audience. Modern TF comics are not. If someone wants to take a view that all comics should have always been produced by a mix of men and women and have such balanced content carefully calibrated to appeal equally to everyone in a particular age group, and that the creators of anything produced in the past that did not conform to such a balanced approach deserve criticism, then they are free to take that route, but I think madness that way lies.
The Marvel TF comics' supporting cast was an even mix of male and female characters, and while the female characters were generally written and drawn to appeal to a male readership, they were usually strong, intelligent, capable and successful, often more so than their male counterparts. Which is a more healthy model for writing fantasy female characters for a male readership than making them weak, inferior damsels in distress.
As for Furman's writing in particular, while the women in 'Prime's Rib' were not the best examples, I am fond of the exchange at the end of 'Ladies' Night', which I think is rather witty:
"That said, you did rather well for mere-"
"Women? Is that it? Well, listen, buster - for your information we mere women did more than pretty well!"
"Actually, I was going to say 'mere humans'. I dunno, if I live to be four million I'll never understand you lot!"
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2020 14:12:52 GMT
I'm not sure if a subset of comics based fandom qualify as a jury to declare Furman sexist.
Especially when their 'majority' is more a prominence due to being coupled to defending a particular writer and pushing for and being granted a larger presence for 'female' robots.in the TF franchise.
I don't remember this being a thing in the fandom at all until a writer decided she had the hump with Furman and was given a platform to sound off against him as at the time she was writing TF comics while he wasn't.
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Post by ryanf on Sept 12, 2020 15:43:35 GMT
I'm not sure if a subset of comics based fandom qualify as a jury to declare Furman sexist. Especially when their 'majority' is more a prominence due to being coupled to defending a particular writer and pushing for and being granted a larger presence for 'female' robots.in the TF franchise. I don't remember this being a thing in the fandom at all until a writer decided she had the hump with Furman and was given a platform to sound off against him as at the time she was writing TF comics while he wasn't. Spotlight: Arcee was definitely controversial at the time it was released. But as we’ve seen, people who stick their heads above the parapet on a TF forum and make accusations of sexism are quickly shouted down or dismissed as simply having the “hump”, so it’s no real surprise that many people were unaware of all the fuss. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 12, 2020 16:15:59 GMT
I haven't read that story, which is why I've limited my comments in this discussion to the Marvel run, but I would say there's a big jump between a story being controversial and disliked by many readers for not fitting with their preferred take on TFs having or not having a natural concept of gender (displeasing many is inevitable whenever any writer chooses to tackle that question head on), and warranting accusations of outright sexism, which should not be done lightly. Except in the most clear-cut cases, people who level such accusations - rightly or wrongly - shouldn't feel aggrieved if the accused has vocal defenders, because it's quite a serious charge.
I see that TFWiki says:
It sounds to me like a misunderstanding between a writer who sees female Transformers as women and all other TFs as equating to men, and another writer who sees the majority of TFs as genderless (albeit referred to in English with male pronouns) and any TF with an obvious gender identity as an anomaly that needs a unique origin to explain their existence.
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2020 18:42:15 GMT
Yep. That's pretty much it. And it was at a time when gendered robots became a distinct thing in the comic running at the time and it all became embroiled together.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2020 18:43:47 GMT
I'm not sure if a subset of comics based fandom qualify as a jury to declare Furman sexist. Especially when their 'majority' is more a prominence due to being coupled to defending a particular writer and pushing for and being granted a larger presence for 'female' robots.in the TF franchise. I don't remember this being a thing in the fandom at all until a writer decided she had the hump with Furman and was given a platform to sound off against him as at the time she was writing TF comics while he wasn't. Spotlight: Arcee was definitely controversial at the time it was released. But as we’ve seen, people who stick their heads above the parapet on a TF forum and make accusations of sexism are quickly shouted down or dismissed as simply having the “hump”, so it’s no real surprise that many people were unaware of all the fuss. Most people here were very aware of the fuss created over this issue. But it was certainly not at the time of the issue's release and came much later, tied up to other concerns and interests. Nobody here has been shouted down for expressing their view. Some of us have just disagreed with that view. And then been told how wrong we obviously are. *shrugs* |
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Sept 12, 2020 19:27:29 GMT
Nobody was shouted down, Gavin, but Ralph did tell somebody to go away thereby effectively saying that his views are not welcome. Inflatable Dalek has been posting here for years and is, I believe, a white guy. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a white guy to say that white guys need to be aware of their privilege. In fact , I think it’s okay for any minority group in this country to tell us white guys the same. It’s in the nature of our privilege that being reminded of it might be uncomfortable but it does us no material harm.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2020 19:51:43 GMT
People here were specifically accused of shouting down others for disagreeing with them. I can't comment on Ralph telling anyone to go away or not, but wanted to point out that nobody shouted anyone down. There is a disagreement on this topic.
Yes, we should all be aware of our privilege but that doesn't automatically give an accusation of sexism a free agreement, especially as Martin's quote points out this particular accusation has been birthed well after the events it claims to have been born in and connected with a particular individual who decided to grind an axe against another person.
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2020 19:52:51 GMT
Additionally I think Ralph's annoyance is less the content of the accusation of sexism (where yes, we can disagree) and more the manner it is delivered in.
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Rich
Protoform
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Post by Rich on Sept 12, 2020 20:47:32 GMT
I completely agree that the people have a right to contest the charge of sexism.
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Post by ryanf on Sept 12, 2020 23:38:30 GMT
There is, also, the possibility that Furman is just blissfully unaware of the fact that his scripts can be read in such a way that people can perceive them as sexist. I’ll concede the point that ‘Ladies Night’ absolutely rocked, and was a fantastic showcase for three female characters.
But when you take into consideration ‘Prime’s Rib’ (in its portrayal of women’s rights activists as militant harpies), ‘Space Pirates’ (in which Arcee is the wettest of wet fish, and is so besotted by Hot Rod that her actions result in the invasion of Autobot City), and Spotlight: Arcee, I hope you can see why some people would see a pattern.
Maighread Scott pointed out that one could read Spotlight: Arcee as an anti-trans script, and I don’t think that reading is unmerited. Arcee switches from male-coded to outright female, and is portrayed as, well, crazed as a result. Now, I don’t think Furman intended for his work to be read that way - he was just trying to write a kick-ass action story - his failures were simply that a) he wrote the script without fully considering how it could be perceived by others, and b) when faced with criticism, he went on the offensive, rather than conceding the point and apologising for any (clearly inadvertent) offence.
And yes, Transformers were indeed male-coded from the off. Despite Furman’s protestations that the Transformers were genderless, they all used he/him pronouns and had male voice actors.
Another last point about Arcee in her Spotlight comic – she’s been changed into a female, but it’s unclear what exactly makes her female. Her fellow Transformers use female pronouns to describe her, she has a feminine body-shape, but what else? Her ‘fundamental CNA’ has been ‘tampered with’, but that’s pretty much all the story gives us. Would it not be possible to rebuild Arcee with a more masculine body type if she so chose? Even the genetic-manupulation explanation doesn't really cut it, as there are plenty of humans who associate with genders other than the ones their chromosomes have dictated. Other than a biological change and a ‘maddening maelstrom’ of sensory input, is she so fundamentally different to her fellow Transformers? If so, how? What does it mean to be a female Transformer, and how does it relate to the human concept of “female”? Frustratingly, the nature of Arcee’s change (and therefore the core point of the entire issue) is left annoyingly vague. I can see why people get mixed messages upon reading it.
Also, I find it weird that in both ‘Prime’s Rib’ and ‘Spotlight: Arcee’, Furman makes it a point to justify the presence of female Transformers, as if they couldn’t just exist as naturally as the male-coded ones. I mean, we didn’t need the Poddington Peas, the Shoe People, or Thomas the Tank Engine to explain to us how peas/shoes/trains developed binary genders. Indeed, the Sunbow cartoon show just gave us female Transformers with no explanation. Furman’s need to justify the existence of females is rough enough in itself.
As I say, though, I don’t think any of this is at all intentional, but sometimes if we’re not careful, the stuff we write can be interpreted in such a way that accusations may follow.
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Sept 13, 2020 4:28:25 GMT
Well now that the rants are hopefully over, would anyone mind posting pics of the "Revisiting" synopsis?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 13, 2020 6:45:50 GMT
And yes, Transformers were indeed male-coded from the off. Despite Furman’s protestations that the Transformers were genderless, they all used he/him pronouns and had male voice actors. I think Furman has more authority to speak on this point than any of us fans, as he wrote half the original comic run. The gender of the voice actors in the cartoon when speaking or dubbed for our convenience into the human language has no bearing in the comics, nor do many of the other rules of the cartoon universe. (It said as much repeatedly in the editorials / letters pages.) And as most of the G1 cartoons were never aired at the time in the UK, it wouldn't surprise me if Simon Furman never saw 'The Search for Alpha Trion'. He was just using Bob Budiansky's US comic run - and the Movie - as his source material to build the rest of the Marvel TF comic universe. Or indeed sentience, etc.  I get the point you're making, but while TFs is not adult science-fiction it is intended to be aimed at an older audience than those franchises, and be more believable / less unbelievable than them. The TF target demographic in the 1980s could reasonably be expected to give some thought to the implications of sentient alien robots who are unfamiliar with carbon-based life, and question any human concepts added to their nature without any rational explanation attached. Me, I get annoyed by the fact that TFs are portrayed with human faces before encountering the human species on Earth, never mind that they speak English and have names like Jazz and Bumblebee! (Though Jazz does reveal in one of the earliest comics that his real name is unpronouncible by humans.) There's no reason to believe they had such things as male pronouns on Cybertron or spoke with voices that a human would recognise as male (or even as voices, for that matter). English has no universally recohnised gender-neutral animate pronoun, the TFs woke up on Earth in a somewhat male-dominated human society and the first humans they met in both comic and cartoon were male. Applying male pronouns to them all was the least worst option. Randomly applying a mix of male and female pronouns or using inanimate 'it' would be more misleading than picking one animate pronoun and sticking to it. Of course they did end up with TF gender in season 2 of the cartoon, and that difference between the rules of the G1 comic and G1 cartoon has made things ambiguous for later continuities that can pick and choose elements from both. But that ambiguity doesn't extend to the G1 comics themselves, which were pretty clear* on the matter. The only TF whose existence suggested binary gender was from 20 years in the future. (*Except I suppose when it comes to 'Auntie', whose different nature and use of a different English pronoun were never explained. Whole 'nother thread's worth of speculation and debate there. No doubt 'Raiders of the Last Ark' would receive criticism from some quarters if written today.) Martin |
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Post by Danlevan on Sept 13, 2020 9:49:59 GMT
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Post by blueshift on Sept 13, 2020 15:11:48 GMT
Good lord that's a dreadful story!!!!
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Sept 13, 2020 22:27:40 GMT
Well now that the rants are hopefully over, would anyone mind posting pics of the "Revisiting" synopsis? Here you go: (images deleted) Thank you. That is a bit convoluted. Somehow the timeline of the first two miniseries, AND the cartoon are erased by the Vok? I can see why IDW passed. Not sure why he didn't pick up after The Ascending. It was ripe for him to explain how BW Megatron subjugated Cybertron. Maybe Hasbro/IDW didn't want anyone telling that tale yet, who knows. But I don't think this was the way to go. Also, are we to assume that Liege Maximo was behind this plot due to the events of G2? Would I have purchased it? Maybe, depending on the artist. I was very anti- Beast Wars until I bought the IDW comics, so I have Don and Simon to thank for making me a fan. |
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Sept 22, 2020 19:35:09 GMT
Anyone get vol 97 early?
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Post by Danlevan on Sept 23, 2020 17:48:06 GMT
Not early, but it's literally just been handed to me! Very little in the way of extras, just Furman's intro and a few covers. The printing on the cover of mine is the most off center I've had and it's got quite a wide white bit on the spine, but I don't know if I can be bothered trying to get them to replace it really. |
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Sept 23, 2020 20:58:32 GMT
Not early, but it's literally just been handed to me! Very little in the way of extras, just Furman's intro and a few covers. The printing on the cover of mine is the most off center I've had and it's got quite a wide white bit on the spine, but I don't know if I can be bothered trying to get them to replace it really. Thanks. Well I guess we're in the final run, with just the IDW 2019 continuity remaining. Sorta ends on a whimper, rather than a bang. |
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Post by Danlevan on Sept 23, 2020 21:56:38 GMT
Kind of don't want to buy the next 3 at all really, I'd much rather just get the hardbacks IDW are putting out that I'll be able to get the whole series in. It's particularly annyoing, because Constructicons Rising is half of the second collection, but the issues of the ongoing that are in the same book won't be here. Meh.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 4, 2020 18:05:44 GMT
Balls! The TF THE MOVIE book is out of stock! If you still need one I snagged a spare shrink-wrapped copy from FP Cardiff today. Martin |
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Oct 7, 2020 18:25:33 GMT
Anyone bother getting today's issue?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 7, 2020 18:40:33 GMT
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Post by Jaymz on Oct 7, 2020 19:21:14 GMT
Diamond UK had a break in at their warehouse over the weekend, which may affect deliveries to comic shops.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 7, 2020 19:45:02 GMT
The swine. I wonder what they were after.
Martin
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Post by Jaymz on Oct 7, 2020 20:00:05 GMT
Apparently the majority was Hasbro product. I don't think the comics/books were hit, but they were essentially closed on Monday while investigations were happening which led to delays in stock going to shops.
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tomwe
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Post by tomwe on Oct 8, 2020 11:49:56 GMT
Anyone bother getting today's issue? Got my subscription copies. 98 Contains 1-7. Furman intro, covers plus four page interview with Ruckley. |
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Post by detectivenightbeat on Oct 9, 2020 22:07:12 GMT
Anyone bother getting today's issue? Got my subscription copies. 98 Contains 1-7. Furman intro, covers plus four page interview with Ruckley. 1-7? They really include the first issue to a new plot arc? That seems absurd. |
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I get the point you're making, but while TFs is not adult science-fiction it is intended to be aimed at an older audience than those franchises, and be more believable / less unbelievable than them. The TF target demographic in the 1980s could reasonably be expected to give some thought to the implications of sentient alien robots who are unfamiliar with carbon-based life, and question any human concepts added to their nature without any rational explanation attached. Me, I get annoyed by the fact that TFs are portrayed with human faces before encountering the human species on Earth, never mind that they speak English and have names like Jazz and Bumblebee! (Though Jazz does reveal in one of the earliest comics that his real name is unpronouncible by humans.)
