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Why is Bionicle Kinda Sexist?


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@Banana Gunz:  Since you're back in this thread, would you mind speaking a bit more to your original experiences with gender in Bionicle?  That's what I had really thought were the most interesting parts of your original post, but also some of the most confusing.  Like bonesiii brought up, you could have ignored the canon story had you wanted to, and as you said, you know that you can pretend to be whomever.  So how exactly did the canon story impact your view of gender (particularly but not necessarily in regards to Bionicle)?

 

After all, Bionicle was always for children and consumed mainly by children, so it's pretty important to hear about how children viewed the line and its gender ratios.  I think Lady Kopaka and a few other posters also brought up their childhood experiences.  (Not to say that that's the only perspective that matters, but it's a pretty important one.)

 

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It may be worth quoting Dictionary.com on just what "sexism" means:
 

noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.

 

Keep in mind everybody discussing this here needs to remain calm. I'm seeing a much better job of it so far than before, so that's great. :)

 

There can be other definitions of this too. Like somebody said, it depends on which definition you use, and some of you arguing about is it or isn't it may be missing that people are using different definitions. I think the point being made by everybody is in agreement -- the one-gender-per-element thing was the big problem. We may say it in different ways, but it seems we do all agree on that.

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Does it really matter how the gender ratio is? Is it really teaching kinds something wrong when you state that in a fictional universe only 1/6 is female?

 

I'd say what matters more is how the females are represented: And well, some of the strongest and most memorable characters were females: Roodaka, Tuyet, Macku....

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In some ways it can matter, yeah -- like the ones brought up already by many in the topic. :)

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The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

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Does it really matter how the gender ratio is? Is it really teaching kinds something wrong when you state that in a fictional universe only 1/6 is female?

 

I'd say what matters more is how the females are represented: And well, some of the strongest and most memorable characters were females: Roodaka, Tuyet, Macku....

Well no, it's not teaching anything wrong to its fans, and I do somewhat agree with you on a quality over quantity approach to having female characters. However, the majority of Bionicle's major female characters all fit into the same one or two archetypes. Pretty much every toa of water that we've gotten as a set has played the "we need to be united!" role. The only one I can think of off the top of my head who broke this mold was Kiina, but once again the only chick represented the water element.

 

Anyways, correct me if what I say next is wrong in any shape or form. I'm new-ish to this whole argument. I think the whole gender ratio problem has to do with being able to relate to the characters. Adding more female characters gives a lot more room for varied personalities among them. We all know that girls can be petty, hot-headed, determined, shy, lazy, smart, etc. By having a more even gender ratio you can give these different roles to females. So while Bionicle isn't purposefully toxic in terms of sexism, the story can certainly benefit from giving more exposure to the many, many character traits which do in fact exist in women. I can imagine there would be some sense of gratification for a girl fan of Bionicle to see more female characters with that kind of depth.

 

The whole element restriction thing could be removed to help with this as well. I find it ironic that Lego decided all water/blue characters would be female, when the color blue is one of the most popular among boys. Wasn't their reasoning that boys wouldn't buy as many toys of female characters? I remember wanting a blue set that was a dude when I was younger. I'm sure any girl fans of Bionicle would've loved female sets in their favorite colors too. 

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@Banana Gunz:  Since you're back in this thread, would you mind speaking a bit more to your original experiences with gender in Bionicle?  That's what I had really thought were the most interesting parts of your original post, but also some of the most confusing.  Like bonesiii brought up, you could have ignored the canon story had you wanted to, and as you said, you know that you can pretend to be whomever.  So how exactly did the canon story impact your view of gender (particularly but not necessarily in regards to Bionicle)?

 

After all, Bionicle was always for children and consumed mainly by children, so it's pretty important to hear about how children viewed the line and its gender ratios.  I think Lady Kopaka and a few other posters also brought up their childhood experiences.  (Not to say that that's the only perspective that matters, but it's a pretty important one.)

 

- BioGio

 

I'd be glad to talk about my experience!

 

I've always liked water, and I've always seen it as the "perfect substance". It could either raise civilizations with its life giving power, or cause tidal waves large enough the bring them down. So as I got interested in Bionicle, I thought being a toa of Water would be the coolest thing in the world and controlling water just felt like it would be an awesome power. Being a Skorpio (I don't really believe in that stuff but I find it a real coincidence) my element is considered to be water too! In general it matches my personality and interests and I loved the MNOG2 even though I never got to leave Ga-Koro, but the village always seemed really cool! When I played MNOG1 as a kid, Gali was my favourite toa, and I actually thought she was a man! She just looked so ###### *edit, bad butt, BZP doesn't seem to like the a-word for it* fighting the Tarakava and her mask was so mysterious (no I'm not righting a bionicle love fanfic! xD).

 

But as I got more and more into Bionicle, I eventually came across in the wiki (I actually surfed through the Bionicle wiki when I was younger, the Bionicle universe just interested me so much!) and read about Gali and the Ga-Matoran. I was kinda shocked that Ga-Matoran (and some other elements) could be only be female! Some might say this isn't a problem but I had always been a male and thought that I should have a choice in whether or not I was a man or a woman in the Bionicle universe (because I always wanted to imagine what I would be like if I were a character in the Bionicle universe).

 

But I was never the kid who liked to break the rules (as a person nowadays I tend to respect the rules and will follow through with them as long as they work and make sense, when a rule doesn't work, I step up and am willing to break it, but as a kid I didn't yet have a developed philosophy and believed the rules were in place all the time because they had to make sense, so it was best to have faith in them being right) and so I upsettingly gave up the fantasy of being a toa of water. I really couldn't imagine myself as any other toa though, and the funnest part of bionicle for me was making myself a part of it, or how else would I identify myself with it? I wanted to be more than just a fan, I wanted to be a part of it. I didn't want to create a male toa of water similar to Orde either, because then I would be different from the rest of all my people, and at the time in life I went to a school where I had no friends and was considered an outcast, and I had no desire to further that into my own fantasies.

 

Because I couldn't identify myself with being a toa of water mixed with the ending of bionicle, I eventually went through a separation from Bionicle, where I instead focused on LEGO Space (but in general wasn't as into LEGO as I once was, a little bit of the spirit withered away...). I soon recovered from that but from then on my interest in LEGO floated between LEGO Space and Bionicle, bouncing back and forth because neither was being cared for anymore, so after I'd obsess over one for a while and all the glory it once was until I'd get bored and move to the other, later getting bored of that one and rediscovering the other, creating an awful cycle. This cycle, I believe has recently been broken, because after joining this website, I now for the first time in the history of my entire life have someone else to talk to and about my passion, and we can all talk about it and build our interests together (which is the true magic of BZP), combined with Bionicle coming back, I'm pretty much hooked for sure!

 

To me as a kid, canon was always really important, because if you didn't follow the rules of the universe, then everything would be completely messed up, logic wouldn't flow anymore if there was a male toa of water living among all females with no explanation! And if you decided to CHANGE the rules of the universe so Ga-Matoran could be male AND female, then you'd have your own little world, but no one would agree with you because they would still be going by the original rules held in place. 

 

How has this rule affected me today? Well as a kid I hated that rule and because of it I am more open and supportive of woman's rights and such. But you can't count on that for everyone. Some people as kids could be fine with this rule, and would take it as an example instead, to segregate women or look at them as less important. Depending on who you are it is possible it won't affect you much at all but many people could become affected by this (especially younger kids) and it can have a lasting effect on them, for the better or (very possibly) for worse.

 

Nowadays that I'm older, my philosophy has changed and as I said I only follow the rules if they make sense, and I've learned that in the fan community many people here seem to think similar in that the gender problems in Bionicle were unfair. So although I follow canon and I follow by it when necessary (such as talking with others), but all other times, to me all matoran can be male and female because changing that fact in my mind makes the Bionicle universe so much better.

 

As well as that, I plan on joining the BZRPG sometime soon! I am working on a MOC of the toa I will be playing as, and this time, it is a male toa of water, because that is who I want to be, should be, and have a right to be (BTW, anyone know if that's allowed in the BZRPG? If not, I'll petition it to be, it only seems fair that you can play how you want to, after all, that is what LEGO built their company off of when they started only manufacturing bricks.)

Edited by Banana Gunz
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Discrimination against that group is sexist/racist. Prejudice against that group is sexist/racist.

 

And making a universe with canon genders be overwhelmingly male just stinks of discrimination and prejudice to me.

 

The only way to avoid this is to have every tribe have both females and males (not cannon). It always boils down to this doesn't it?

 

Well, kinda, considering because of that the universe was canonically packed to the brim with males with a few females scattered in between. There's also a few stereotypes used in handling their personalities that ooze lazy writing.

 

Bionicle in and of itself teaches that you should NOT discriminate.

 

You keep saying this, but I'd like to see some sources on this. For starters, saying any fictional story where you're told the entirety of a fictional race is evil doesn't sound like sound grounds for anti-discrimination messages.

 

I am content with how Bionicle is.

 

Bully for you. That doesn't mean everyone else needs to be.

 

Also why would you agree with someone who is a. patently wrong with the existence of both white and black tribes of matoran and b. comparing resolving issues with gender that already exists in the universe to hamfisting race issues into it?

 

If you have such a problem with the genders then why do you like Bionicle? They're Lego cyborgs. What do you mean that the majority of the MU is evil? Most are just Tohunga. They're are like 100 Makuta and like 3000 good characters. Bionicle is not some philosophy. Name one Bionicle character that discriminated based on gender alone. (that might take you awhile...) FYI it was an example of the whole equality thing. He didn't actually mean to have two black and white tribes. !!!This is my opinion :3!!!

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If you have such a problem with the genders then why do you like Bionicle?

Prism, please refrain from suggesting that people can't be fans while having disagreements with part of Bionicle. Absolutely they can. Even serious disagreements. We can recognize missed potential, and so forth.

 

What do you mean that the majority of the MU is evil?

He actually said:

For starters, saying any fictional story where you're told the entirety of a fictional race is evil

There are several examples, actually, where so far as we were told, they were all "bad" (if not outright evil).

 

I personally don't think a story with a majority of inhabitants in general being evil is a problem -- that can add suspense and trouble to a story -- but that wasn't what he said. Also, this is getting rather off-topic. (BTW, this has been brought up before about Makuta and it was actually brought up that there is a temptation to evil that is inherent to the species. Personally I do have a problem with that, although it's possible for artificial lifeforms. :shrugs:)

 

Name one Bionicle character that discriminated based on gender alone. (that might take you awhile...)

Actually, it's often thought that Orde meant to say that the Great Beings did. That is brought up often in these topics. Of course, that was Orde's opinion and he had reason to resent them and possibly misrepresent them, but still, people took issue with that part. Maybe sometimes overblown, but it happened.

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The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

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I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

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In the time before time, the Great Spirit descended from the heavens, carrying with him the ones called the Matoran, to this island paradise. We were separate and without purpose, so the great spirit blessed us with the Three Virtues: Unity, Duty and Destiny. We embraced these gifts and in gratitude named our home Mata Nui, after the great spirit himself.

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I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

Um... well, we're all fans of this toy line, and some of us would like to see it be as good as it could possibly be! I mean will it make or break Bionicle's story and sets for me? Not really. I don't even think Lego would change the ratio that much if they ever would. Maybe 2 female characters per 6 heroes? It could still make for more interesting characters though, and that's always good.

 

 

But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

 

Literature and various forms of media have been saturated with various, well-developed male characters. How many significant male characters of anything can you name from Odysseus to Harry Potter? LOL I hope I haven't made any long-dead literary critic turn in their grave by comparing those two. Women have played similar roles in the vast majority of these works, such as healers and mother figures. That's why recently people have made a bigger deal about this and why it's all over this site now. Just because something is a non-issue for you doesn't mean that it is one for everyone else.

Edited by Narglepuff the Protector
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But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

 

That's a pretty inaccurate statement. While I think that such a fuss over a LEGO toy line is kind of pointless (in the grand scheme of things, it's just a toy, and it's probably not doing any more harm than any other toy lines), the discussion of gender equality is pretty important. It's okay to focus on the set quality and ignore the lackluster gender ratio, but other people don't appreciate the fact that only a couple solid female characters were written into the Bionicle story line. 

 

I am okay with a semi-unbalanced gender ratio, because each author is free to integrate whichever characters he wants to. Not to mention a male author is more inclined to integrate male characters into his story. In some stories you'll see 3:1, males:females, which is fine. In other, 3:1, females:males, also fine. However, Bionicle is 6:1+, if you could even give it that. Save the Ga-Matoran and water elemental Toa, nearly every other character is male. There's an issue there, no matter how you look at it.

 

But, as others have said, LEGO has a target audience, and that's how they write their stories. It all comes down to money, which is a sad reason to exclude female characters, but it's why they do it how they do.

 

-Rez

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But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

 

That's a pretty inaccurate statement. While I think that such a fuss over a LEGO toy line is kind of pointless (in the grand scheme of things, it's just a toy, and it's probably not doing any more harm than any other toy lines), the discussion of gender equality is pretty important. It's okay to focus on the set quality and ignore the lackluster gender ratio, but other people don't appreciate the fact that only a couple solid female characters were written into the Bionicle story line. 

 

I am okay with a semi-unbalanced gender ratio, because each author is free to integrate whichever characters he wants to. Not to mention a male author is more inclined to integrate male characters into his story. In some stories you'll see 3:1, males:females, which is fine. In other, 3:1, females:males, also fine. However, Bionicle is 6:1+, if you could even give it that. Save the Ga-Matoran and water elemental Toa, nearly every other character is male. There's an issue there, no matter how you look at it.

 

But, as others have said, LEGO has a target audience, and that's how they write their stories. It all comes down to money, which is a sad reason to exclude female characters, but it's why they do it how they do.

 

-Rez

 

How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

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How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

 

Isn't that an opinion too, that opinions can't be right or wrong? Besides, opinions can at least be good or bad depending on how justified they are. If it's ok to ask, why do you hold the opinion that the gender issue isn't important with regards to either Bionicle or in general?

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How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

 

Isn't that an opinion too, that opinions can't be right or wrong? Besides, opinions can at least be good or bad depending on how justified they are. If it's ok to ask, why do you hold the opinion that the gender issue isn't important with regards to either Bionicle or in general?
Its a fact. Opinions and facts are two different things. Opinions can be politically incorrect but not flat out wrong.
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How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

Isn't that an opinion too, that opinions can't be right or wrong? Besides, opinions can at least be good or bad depending on how justified they are. If it's ok to ask, why do you hold the opinion that the gender issue isn't important with regards to either Bionicle or in general?
Its a fact. Opinions and facts are two different things. Opinions can be politically incorrect but not flat out wrong.

 

But opinions that are supported by facts can create a stronger argument. 

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Opinions can't be right or wrong.

Again that's a matter of definition. I often point out why only personal preference type "opinions" can't be wrong -- but things that purport to make a truth claim about the world beyond personal likes and dislikes actually can be (if they are not based on sound reasoning), and that normally is what opinion means. Also, even tastes can change if you learn new information or the like. :)

 

(And this is getting off-topic again...)

Edited by bonesiii
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I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

Because when we were 8 years old and playing with those toys and reading those comics and books and playing those games, we were shown that there was only one girl for every five dudes, and this was never mentioned to be unnatural. Kids are very impressionable. When you spend your whole childhood following this story, you don't realize there's something fundamentally wrong with something like the gender ratio until later in life, and you have to think, "wow, why did I never really think about what means beyond 'that's just how it is'? Why did I never notice that this was a problem?" and then you realize that maybe your perspective needs some adjusting and consider in what other ways you've been sexist without even knowing it. While you were not really paying attention to it, there were girls who were, and all around them were boys who didn't even think for a second that maybe this was unfair, and were discouraged by this lack of ladies in Bionicle and then even they may have only realized when they were much older that this influenced them in one way or another. Gender isn't just something that describes robots with superpowers, it's one of the most important things in our society. People care about gender representation in a childrens' toy line because it's influencing little kids to believe that this skewed ratio is normal and doesn't need fixing, and the very few ladies present in the story give them very few different examples of how girls are supposedly like, and even those characterizations are not even close to perfect, and I'll touch on that in the next quote. People care because they realized that it affected the way they grew up seeing the world and are now finding out just how wrong it was, and they don't want it to happen to the next generation of youngsters.

 

Does it really matter how the gender ratio is? Is it really teaching kinds something wrong when you state that in a fictional universe only 1/6 is female?

 

I'd say what matters more is how the females are represented: And well, some of the strongest and most memorable characters were females: Roodaka, Tuyet, Macku....

 

Like I explained above, it really really is teaching kids something wrong, it's teaching them that men are more important than women and that one girl for every handful of guys should be considered a normal quota that satisfies everyone. When there are so few females compared to males, it makes them stand out, and not in a good way, 'cause when you have a ratio that is SO PERFECTLY rigid, it does become a quota, and the ladies aren't characters, they're the token females there only for "equal representation". The girls have to suck it up and take it as being the norm. It is very, very wrong. 

 

How the token ladies are represented matter very much, you're right, and like many many many before me have explained, they were represented so so poorly. One good example is the fact that those three characters are basically the only ones that anyone every brings up, sometimes switching Macku for Hahli or Helryx for Tuyet, and they are only "some of the most memorable" rather than really being up there. Of course SOME of the most memorable are gonna be ladies, there's one for every five memorable male characters! 'Cause all you're remembering is the fact that they were even there. Someone else is gonna have to break it down for you 'cause I don't really have to write up a big thing about archetypes and cookie cutter molds for every matoran species of water character and femme fatales and blah blah blah. An evil tyrant, an evil tyrant, and standard cute buttkicing Ga-Matoran, the first one being roughly 10 times more important to the plot than the other two. Amazing. One of them was also murderous and insane, and the other just murderous and smug about it. Lovely, love role models. Guess you gotta literally use strength to be a "strong" female character? Also, notice that you didn't think to mention any of the main character ladies in Bionicle (Nokama, Gali, Kiina, etc) among being strong and memorable characters- did you just think they're no-brainers and don't need to be mentioned, or is it possible that villainous ladies and really minor side characters (and there's an overlap there, in the case of Tuyet) are more interesting than the main ladies? Meanwhile, when asked for strong and memorable male characters main dudes like Makuta! and Vezon! and Tahu! and Jaller! all pop up at least once. Why? Cause so many more dudes are main characters and thus more effort is put into them on the whole, and more end up being interesting characters than the ladies. What a shock, right?

 

But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

It may not be important to you, but it's very important to others. You're a guy, to you this topic is more like "was it really that bad that Bionicle was 5/6th characters I could related to". And if you mostly just care about set quality, I've got news for ya, this is S&T; there's a reason we're focusing on the story side of things right now :P

 

 

How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

Firstly, it's "just a toy" that had ten years of story across dozens and dozens of comics, a couple dozen books, three movies, tons of web serials, games, etc. It's almost like these toys had a story, eh? One that was so important in their success. A story that, as you can see, has riled a lot of people up because they actually care about it.

 

Secondly, there's a big difference between having an opinion and being misinformed. There's also a difference between stating what you believe, and stating that you believe something is a fact. "The whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" maybe be your opinion, but your opinion is very wrong. It's the same saying, "having one female for every five dudes is basically the same as having one lady for every one dude" -- it's just wrong, it's an inaccuracy, whether it's an opinion or not. It's an opinion that was formed by not understanding how things work, and being misinformed, and by stating your opinion that "the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" is you telling the people who actually care about it that they are wrong and and wasting their time, confident that you know what you're talking about. It's very harmful to the march of progress and you voicing your opinion may not seem like a lot to you, but it's one wrong opinion that adds to the rising tide of wrong opinions, and the people who share those wrong opinions think they are right, because, "look! More people agree with me, that means I must have the more popular and thus more correct view of things!". Then other people start to agree with you, not 'cause they believe you, but because they haven't formed an opinion of their own yet and think, "gee I better join the bigger team since bigger means they'll win and must be right" and on and on it goes while everyone else is starting to drown in the swiftly growing tide and their gasps for air are getting harder to hear in the roar of the wrong opinions and suddenly your opinion doesn't seem so innocent anymore, does it? 'Cause it's not just about "opinions" it's about how people are being treated because of those opinions (in this case, women).

 

If multiple people tell you your "opinion" is false, it means that maybe you need to slow down and think it over and see if maybe they have a point, instead of stubbornly carrying on and dismissing the plight of those eight year olds mentioned above who grow up in a world that insists that men are more important than women, but it's "not important".

 

Also I think I'm coming cross a little mean, I swear I'm not trying to antagonize you or claim you're a stubborn butt or a terrible person, I'm just explaining how both your statements mean so much more than you think they do, and that they have the potential to be really harmful if you stick with your beliefs in the future, and don't consider how others hear you. This applies to all opinions that people think are "just opinions" but are actually just plain ignorance and prejudice and a lack of caring about those that aren't like you, and contribute to big problems in society. Sometime, you have to learn about it and make the decision whether you're gonna have an open mind and learn about what you're doing wrong, or just ignore it and keep on doing harm to others without any consideration.

 

Again, not a personal attack (on any o y'all). Just making it clear what's what, 'cause apparently a lot of people just aren't aware of these things. If I sounded a little sharp or used too much sarcasm, sorry about that; I'm just amazed that this topic comes up every other week, and every time it's the same stuff over and over, and none of it is a valid reason to think Bionicle wasn't sexist or that it doesn't matter that it was. 

 

Also if this is somehow "off topic" Ill just have to explain outright that this is basically the reason Bionicle was "kinda sexist": these exact attitudes expressed in the quotes. I guarantee you this is the line of thought that was used by the people who contributed to the ratio and the people who were involved in writing the story and how characters were portrayed. Uninformed, ignorant, just grew up that way. It's a cycle. That's the whole point. Bionicle was sexist because "it's just a toy."

Edited by Pomegranate
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Non-representation, which Bionicle certainly exhibits, is sexism in itself, regardless of portrayals of individual characters. Gali is a great character, but still the token female. Kiina, from a world where there are supposed to be as many females as males, is even more of a token female.

 

On the other hand, there are good reasons for the "evil" species. The Zyglak were just bitter until Orde psychically messed them all up. Teridax executed or subtly brought about the death of any Makuta who didn't approve of him. The Skakdi were doing fine until Spiriah wrecked their society, which is now ruled by the cruelest Skakdi. And the Skrall were corrupted by their superior power and superior attitudes. There's a lesson there, and it definitely isn't to discriminate.

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I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

Because when we were 8 years old and playing with those toys and reading those comics and books and playing those games, we were shown that there was only one girl for every five dudes, and this was never mentioned to be unnatural. Kids are very impressionable. When you spend your whole childhood following this story, you don't realize there's something fundamentally wrong with something like the gender ratio until later in life, and you have to think, "wow, why did I never really think about what means beyond 'that's just how it is'? Why did I never notice that this was a problem?" and then you realize that maybe your perspective needs some adjusting and consider in what other ways you've been sexist without even knowing it. While you were not really paying attention to it, there were girls who were, and all around them were boys who didn't even think for a second that maybe this was unfair, and were discouraged by this lack of ladies in Bionicle and then even they may have only realized when they were much older that this influenced them in one way or another. Gender isn't just something that describes robots with superpowers, it's one of the most important things in our society. People care about gender representation in a childrens' toy line because it's influencing little kids to believe that this skewed ratio is normal and doesn't need fixing, and the very few ladies present in the story give them very few different examples of how girls are supposedly like, and even those characterizations are not even close to perfect, and I'll touch on that in the next quote. People care because they realized that it affected the way they grew up seeing the world and are now finding out just how wrong it was, and they don't want it to happen to the next generation of youngsters.

Does it really matter how the gender ratio is? Is it really teaching kinds something wrong when you state that in a fictional universe only 1/6 is female?

 

I'd say what matters more is how the females are represented: And well, some of the strongest and most memorable characters were females: Roodaka, Tuyet, Macku....

Like I explained above, it really really is teaching kids something wrong, it's teaching them that men are more important than women and that one girl for every handful of guys should be considered a normal quota that satisfies everyone. When there are so few females compared to males, it makes them stand out, and not in a good way, 'cause when you have a ratio that is SO PERFECTLY rigid, it does become a quota, and the ladies aren't characters, they're the token females there only for "equal representation". The girls have to suck it up and take it as being the norm. It is very, very wrong.

 

How the token ladies are represented matter very much, you're right, and like many many many before me have explained, they were represented so so poorly. One good example is the fact that those three characters are basically the only ones that anyone every brings up, sometimes switching Macku for Hahli or Helryx for Tuyet, and they are only "some of the most memorable" rather than really being up there. Of course SOME of the most memorable are gonna be ladies, there's one for every five memorable male characters! 'Cause all you're remembering is the fact that they were even there. Someone else is gonna have to break it down for you 'cause I don't really have to write up a big thing about archetypes and cookie cutter molds for every matoran species of water character and femme fatales and blah blah blah. An evil tyrant, an evil tyrant, and standard cute buttkicing Ga-Matoran, the first one being roughly 10 times more important to the plot than the other two. Amazing. One of them was also murderous and insane, and the other just murderous and smug about it. Lovely, love role models. Guess you gotta literally use strength to be a "strong" female character? Also, notice that you didn't think to mention any of the main character ladies in Bionicle (Nokama, Gali, Kiina, etc) among being strong and memorable characters- did you just think they're no-brainers and don't need to be mentioned, or is it possible that villainous ladies and really minor side characters (and there's an overlap there, in the case of Tuyet) are more interesting than the main ladies? Meanwhile, when asked for strong and memorable male characters main dudes like Makuta! and Vezon! and Tahu! and Jaller! all pop up at least once. Why? Cause so many more dudes are main characters and thus more effort is put into them on the whole, and more end up being interesting characters than the ladies. What a shock, right?

But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

It may not be important to you, but it's very important to others. You're a guy, to you this topic is more like "was it really that bad that Bionicle was 5/6th characters I could related to". And if you mostly just care about set quality, I've got news for ya, this is S&T; there's a reason we're focusing on the story side of things right now :P

 

How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

Firstly, it's "just a toy" that had ten years of story across dozens and dozens of comics, a couple dozen books, three movies, tons of web serials, games, etc. It's almost like these toys had a story, eh? One that was so important in their success. A story that, as you can see, has riled a lot of people up because they actually care about it.

 

Secondly, there's a big difference between having an opinion and being misinformed. There's also a difference between stating what you believe, and stating that you believe something is a fact. "The whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" maybe be your opinion, but your opinion is very wrong. It's the same saying, "having one female for every five dudes is basically the same as having one lady for every one dude" -- it's just wrong, it's an inaccuracy, whether it's an opinion or not. It's an opinion that was formed by not understanding how things work, and being misinformed, and by stating your opinion that "the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" is you telling the people who actually care about it that they are wrong and and wasting their time, confident that you know what you're talking about. It's very harmful to the march of progress and you voicing your opinion may not seem like a lot to you, but it's one wrong opinion that adds to the rising tide of wrong opinions, and the people who share those wrong opinions think they are right, because, "look! More people agree with me, that means I must have the more popular and thus more correct view of things!". Then other people start to agree with you, not 'cause they believe you, but because they haven't formed an opinion of their own yet and think, "gee I better join the bigger team since bigger means they'll win and must be right" and on and on it goes while everyone else is starting to drown in the swiftly growing tide and their gasps for air are getting harder to hear in the roar of the wrong opinions and suddenly your opinion doesn't seem so innocent anymore, does it? 'Cause it's not just about "opinions" it's about how people are being treated because of those opinions (in this case, women).

 

If multiple people tell you your "opinion" is false, it means that maybe you need to slow down and think it over and see if maybe they have a point, instead of stubbornly carrying on and dismissing the plight of those eight year olds mentioned above who grow up in a world that insists that men are more important than women, but it's "not important".

 

Also I think I'm coming cross a little mean, I swear I'm not trying to antagonize you or claim you're a stubborn butt or a terrible person, I'm just explaining how both your statements mean so much more than you think they do, and that they have the potential to be really harmful if you stick with your beliefs in the future, and don't consider how others hear you. This applies to all opinions that people think are "just opinions" but are actually just plain ignorance and prejudice and a lack of caring about those that aren't like you, and contribute to big problems in society. Sometime, you have to learn about it and make the decision whether you're gonna have an open mind and learn about what you're doing wrong, or just ignore it and keep on doing harm to others without any consideration.

 

Again, not a personal attack (on any o y'all). Just making it clear what's what, 'cause apparently a lot of people just aren't aware of these things. If I sounded a little sharp or used too much sarcasm, sorry about that; I'm just amazed that this topic comes up every other week, and every time it's the same stuff over and over, and none of it is a valid reason to think Bionicle wasn't sexist or that it doesn't matter that it was.

 

Also if this is somehow "off topic" Ill just have to explain outright that this is basically the reason Bionicle was "kinda sexist": these exact attitudes expressed in the quotes. I guarantee you this is the line of thought that was used by the people who contributed to the ratio and the people who were involved in writing the story and how characters were portrayed. Uninformed, ignorant, just grew up that way. It's a cycle. That's the whole point. Bionicle was sexist because "it's just a toy."

 

I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

 

Because when we were 8 years old and playing with those toys and reading those comics and books and playing those games, we were shown that there was only one girl for every five dudes, and this was never mentioned to be unnatural. Kids are very impressionable. When you spend your whole childhood following this story, you don't realize there's something fundamentally wrong with something like the gender ratio until later in life, and you have to think, "wow, why did I never really think about what means beyond 'that's just how it is'? Why did I never notice that this was a problem?" and then you realize that maybe your perspective needs some adjusting and consider in what other ways you've been sexist without even knowing it. While you were not really paying attention to it, there were girls who were, and all around them were boys who didn't even think for a second that maybe this was unfair, and were discouraged by this lack of ladies in Bionicle and then even they may have only realized when they were much older that this influenced them in one way or another. Gender isn't just something that describes robots with superpowers, it's one of the most important things in our society. People care about gender representation in a childrens' toy line because it's influencing little kids to believe that this skewed ratio is normal and doesn't need fixing, and the very few ladies present in the story give them very few different examples of how girls are supposedly like, and even those characterizations are not even close to perfect, and I'll touch on that in the next quote. People care because they realized that it affected the way they grew up seeing the world and are now finding out just how wrong it was, and they don't want it to happen to the next generation of youngsters.

 

Does it really matter how the gender ratio is? Is it really teaching kinds something wrong when you state that in a fictional universe only 1/6 is female?

 

I'd say what matters more is how the females are represented: And well, some of the strongest and most memorable characters were females: Roodaka, Tuyet, Macku....

 

Like I explained above, it really really is teaching kids something wrong, it's teaching them that men are more important than women and that one girl for every handful of guys should be considered a normal quota that satisfies everyone. When there are so few females compared to males, it makes them stand out, and not in a good way, 'cause when you have a ratio that is SO PERFECTLY rigid, it does become a quota, and the ladies aren't characters, they're the token females there only for "equal representation". The girls have to suck it up and take it as being the norm. It is very, very wrong.

 

How the token ladies are represented matter very much, you're right, and like many many many before me have explained, they were represented so so poorly. One good example is the fact that those three characters are basically the only ones that anyone every brings up, sometimes switching Macku for Hahli or Helryx for Tuyet, and they are only "some of the most memorable" rather than really being up there. Of course SOME of the most memorable are gonna be ladies, there's one for every five memorable male characters! 'Cause all you're remembering is the fact that they were even there. Someone else is gonna have to break it down for you 'cause I don't really have to write up a big thing about archetypes and cookie cutter molds for every matoran species of water character and femme fatales and blah blah blah. An evil tyrant, an evil tyrant, and standard cute buttkicing Ga-Matoran, the first one being roughly 10 times more important to the plot than the other two. Amazing. One of them was also murderous and insane, and the other just murderous and smug about it. Lovely, love role models. Guess you gotta literally use strength to be a "strong" female character? Also, notice that you didn't think to mention any of the main character ladies in Bionicle (Nokama, Gali, Kiina, etc) among being strong and memorable characters- did you just think they're no-brainers and don't need to be mentioned, or is it possible that villainous ladies and really minor side characters (and there's an overlap there, in the case of Tuyet) are more interesting than the main ladies? Meanwhile, when asked for strong and memorable male characters main dudes like Makuta! and Vezon! and Tahu! and Jaller! all pop up at least once. Why? Cause so many more dudes are main characters and thus more effort is put into them on the whole, and more end up being interesting characters than the ladies. What a shock, right?

 

But in all seriousness, I find that the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to set quality.

 

It may not be important to you, but it's very important to others. You're a guy, to you this topic is more like "was it really that bad that Bionicle was 5/6th characters I could related to". And if you mostly just care about set quality, I've got news for ya, this is S&T; there's a reason we're focusing on the story side of things right now :P

 

 

How is it inaccurate? It's my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. I'm fine with your opinion even though I don't agree because, really, it's just a toy.

 

Firstly, it's "just a toy" that had ten years of story across dozens and dozens of comics, a couple dozen books, three movies, tons of web serials, games, etc. It's almost like these toys had a story, eh? One that was so important in their success. A story that, as you can see, has riled a lot of people up because they actually care about it.

Secondly, there's a big difference between having an opinion and being misinformed. There's also a difference between stating what you believe, and stating that you believe something is a fact. "The whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" maybe be your opinion, but your opinion is very wrong. It's the same saying, "having one female for every five dudes is basically the same as having one lady for every one dude" -- it's just wrong, it's an inaccuracy, whether it's an opinion or not. It's an opinion that was formed by not understanding how things work, and being misinformed, and by stating your opinion that "the whole gender thing isn't as important as every makes it out to be" is you telling the people who actually care about it that they are wrong and and wasting their time, confident that you know what you're talking about. It's very harmful to the march of progress and you voicing your opinion may not seem like a lot to you, but it's one wrong opinion that adds to the rising tide of wrong opinions, and the people who share those wrong opinions think they are right, because, "look! More people agree with me, that means I must have the more popular and thus more correct view of things!". Then other people start to agree with you, not 'cause they believe you, but because they haven't formed an opinion of their own yet and think, "gee I better join the bigger team since bigger means they'll win and must be right" and on and on it goes while everyone else is starting to drown in the swiftly growing tide and their gasps for air are getting harder to hear in the roar of the wrong opinions and suddenly your opinion doesn't seem so innocent anymore, does it? 'Cause it's not just about "opinions" it's about how people are being treated because of those opinions (in this case, women).

If multiple people tell you your "opinion" is false, it means that maybe you need to slow down and think it over and see if maybe they have a point, instead of stubbornly carrying on and dismissing the plight of those eight year olds mentioned above who grow up in a world that insists that men are more important than women, but it's "not important".

Also I think I'm coming cross a little mean, I swear I'm not trying to antagonize you or claim you're a stubborn butt or a terrible person, I'm just explaining how both your statements mean so much more than you think they do, and that they have the potential to be really harmful if you stick with your beliefs in the future, and don't consider how others hear you. This applies to all opinions that people think are "just opinions" but are actually just plain ignorance and prejudice and a lack of caring about those that aren't like you, and contribute to big problems in society. Sometime, you have to learn about it and make the decision whether you're gonna have an open mind and learn about what you're doing wrong, or just ignore it and keep on doing harm to others without any consideration.

Again, not a personal attack (on any o y'all). Just making it clear what's what, 'cause apparently a lot of people just aren't aware of these things. If I sounded a little sharp or used too much sarcasm, sorry about that; I'm just amazed that this topic comes up every other week, and every time it's the same stuff over and over, and none of it is a valid reason to think Bionicle wasn't sexist or that it doesn't matter that it was.

Also if this is somehow "off topic" Ill just have to explain outright that this is basically the reason Bionicle was "kinda sexist": these exact attitudes expressed in the quotes. I guarantee you this is the line of thought that was used by the people who contributed to the ratio and the people who were involved in writing the story and how characters were portrayed. Uninformed, ignorant, just grew up that way. It's a cycle. That's the whole point. Bionicle was sexist because "it's just a toy."

So, if I don't agree with you, I must be wrong? If you think that Bionicle is a sexist story about men oppressing women then that's fine by me. I am not sexist simply for believing that Bionicle is not sexist as for disagreeing with you. I think that Bionicle is fine and people should focus on the story rather then the genders of those in the story. How can people turn Bionicle into a feminist argument? Edited by PrismWind
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Bro, you're wrong because he proved that you were wrong. And how can people turn Bionicle into a feminist argument? If you want to see how, this is what I, and many others, have been doing all along. Except if you're asking, "why is there feminisms in my bonkles", then all I can say is deal with it. People aren't going to ignore what they see as problems with anything, and I am inclined to agree with them because of their logic and reasoning. 

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So, if I don't agree with you, I must be wrong? If you think that Bionicle is a sexist story about men oppressing women then that's fine by me. I am not sexist simply for believing that Bionicle is not sexist as for disagreeing with you. I think that Bionicle is fine and people should focus on the story rather then the genders of those in the story. How can people turn Bionicle into a feminist argument?

Read that post, it essentially details precisely why you are incorrect and why your "opinion" isn't an opinion in the same way preferring one color over another is an "opinion." As, regardless of what you think, opinions can have affects on the world and there are opinions that cause unnecessary harm, discrimination and perpetuate harmful beliefs that belittle others -- those types of opinions are wrong to have, if you want to have a better society for everyone.

 

By the way, Gender is in the story: it's how the viewers, the readers, the kids who are interested in the story, identify and insert themselves and pick out role models and characters they can compare themselves to, or even aspire to be like. It's important, it's incredibly important, but of course you miss that because this lack of representation didn't affect you and you refuse to empathize with those who it did affect (granted how many times you try to shut them down, say their opinions aren't important, that their feelings are irrelevant, that this is just some overreaction).

 

Also, I don't really care what you personally believe, but if you constantly feel the need to say "hey, I'm not sexist BUT... " you need to re-evaluate what you are saying and think a bit more critically about your own rhetoric.

 

And I'm sorry if I come off a little sharp here, but it really rubs me the wrong way whenever someone barges into a discussion people would like to have and then proceed to try and invalidate the discussion by pushing off these members' opinions as unimportant and of little value. Again, whether you choose to believe it or not, it is a fact that poor representation in media bothered a lot of fans and they have just as much validation to discuss this aspect of the story as anyone has any validation to talk about any other aspect of the story (otherwise we'd just remove this entire forum, because in the end it would be entirely pointless, right? I mean, it's only a toyline.).

 

 

But again -- Bionicle having an entire tribe dedicated to only females (out of six) is a show of discriminatory actions towards female characters. Having only one female character per wave of sets (sometimes not at all and in a set of seven [Piraka] there isn't one) is detrimental and maligns female fans who would like to have a variety of characters to identify with, to enjoy and read about and aspire with and even roleplay with -- male fans get 5 for every 1 female character, that's 5 different characters with different personalities whereas the 1 female character is all there is and retains one personality (And let's say they were all unique, we have Macku/Hahli/Gali and Nokama year 1. Um, how many differnt males did we get again? At least 20 [Hewkii, Jaller, Takua, Tahu, Lewa, Kopaka, Onua, Pohatu, Onewa, Kopeke, Matoro, Onepu, Nuparu, Matau, Vakama, Whenua, Nuju, Kapura, Hafu, Kongu]).

 

 

The ratios are terrible, the representation is terrible, and it's a completely valid thing to critique since there are female fans and they are not less important than male fans. They deserve representation, they deserve characters they can identify with, they deserve characters who have interesting and unique personality that has some depth. And the kicker? It wouldn't "ruin" Bionicle, it wouldn't hurt the line, it wouldn't do anything negative to the line itself -- so what's the argument here? Is the argument just people not wanting the term "sexist" related to Bionicle? Well, what the writers as a whole did with the female characters it can definitely apply, granted female characters were treated drastically different than male characters (Sidorak was never leering into Vakama's ear and seductively whispering that he could become his king, now was he?) and there's even an internal issue where the Great Beings were written as sexist -- they made females nicer and gentler canonically, they did that, a writer wrote that, someone in the real world wrote that facet into the story that only ended up creating an even larger line between the female and male differences that already existed. (Oh yeah, and there were some deviations, but usually shown with extreme violence... where's the level headed female leader? Where's the up front and center female leader who gets a set? Is that fair? Is that treating female characters and male characters the same?)

 

Realizing that there is an issue doesn't mean it's a terrible series. Everything has flaws, and this is one major flaw Bionicle had with its treatment of characters and with how the story was written -- it alienated and ignored a significant portion of fans. Whether they meant to or not doesn't matter anymore, what matters is what happened: it happened. It's a thing that happened. You can't deny it occurred. Like, to do so would be akin to saying stars are made of marshmallows (Spoiler; they're not :c). What do we do about unintended sexism? We critique it, call it out, and hopefully get it fixed. We don't kick it under the rug as unimportant: that does absolutely no one a service. 

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So, if I don't agree with you, I must be wrong? If you think that Bionicle is a sexist story about men oppressing women then that's fine by me. I am not sexist simply for believing that Bionicle is not sexist as for disagreeing with you. I think that Bionicle is fine and people should focus on the story rather then the genders of those in the story. How can people turn Bionicle into a feminist argument?

 

You're not wrong because you don't agree with Pomegranate. I can't even evaluate whether you're wrong or not in general. It comes down to who has the most sound evidence and proves their point the best. I couldn't be bothered to read Pomegranates' post (TL;DR), so I don't really know who was wrong or right. :P And even then, I don't determine what's wrong and what's right in an argument. In truth, no one person can really determine such a thing.

 

Also, no one ever called you sexist. And this isn't really a feminist argument. It's about gender ratio, and had the creators excluded male characters from Bionicle (meaning 6:1+ females:males), we very well could have been discussing the flip side (few strongly represented male characters). Look above somewhere for an argument about MLP related to what I'm saying.

 

-Rez

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Can I just say that there have been so wonderfully written arguments and rebuttals in this topic that it leaves me slightly disheartened knowing that nobody's opinion has ever been changed by an internet debate.

 

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love reading these thoughtful posts, but sometimes it may be more enjoyable to focus the discussion towards those who are of a more like mind, to discuss past errors, future possibilities and what advantages and disadvantages this may hold for LEGO with people who are genuinely engaged in the topic. I've gotten myself bogged in the past trying to persuade a few specific people when I might as well have been talking to a rock. 

 

And let's face it, there are many people that just don't care about gender representation, and never will. Fair enough. We can't all know and care about every single issue plaguing the world- we'd burn ourselves out if we all cared that much. Those people who are not fussed about this will hopefully have their own things that they believe in. That's okay, too, as long as people don't go assuming that because something isn't important to them, it shouldn't be important to anyone else. One of the rudest ways to insult someone is to say that the things that they stand for don't matter.

 

That said, I'd like to raise a point that Greg used to always throw back at me whenever I brought this stuff up: The idea that young boys would not like a series (or more importantly, would not buy the toys from a series) that had a large number of female characters, and that trying to market something like Bionicle to both genders would fail. How much truth is in that, do you think?

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Can I just say that there have been so wonderfully written arguments and rebuttals in this topic that it leaves me slightly disheartened knowing that nobody's opinion has ever been changed by an internet debate.

In the end, no one will probably change their opinion, but it's never a bad thing to discuss serious subjects. Not only does it get different view points out there (this gives any viewers a broad spectrum of ideas surrounding the subject), but it also helps members learn to discuss their own views in a debate setting.

 

That said, I'd like to raise a point that Greg used to always throw back at me whenever I brought this stuff up: The idea that young boys would not like a series (or more importantly, would not buy the toys from a series) that had a large number of female characters, and that trying to market something like Bionicle to both genders would fail. How much truth is in that, do you think?

 

Honestly, I doubt that the 8-9 year old male target audience would even care or notice any difference if there were more female characters in the story line. Previously in this topic, someone mentioned that a majority of Bionicle fans probably never even attributed a gender to any of the characters anyway. I find it hard to believe that a "few" more female characters would hurt LEGO's sales, especially since there are plenty of female fans out there.

 

-Rez

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Can I just say that there have been so wonderfully written arguments and rebuttals in this topic that it leaves me slightly disheartened knowing that nobody's opinion has ever been changed by an internet debate.

In the end, no one will probably change their opinion, but it's never a bad thing to discuss serious subjects. Not only does it get different view points out there (this gives any viewers a broad spectrum of ideas surrounding the subject), but it also helps members learn to discuss their own views in a debate setting.

 

That said, I'd like to raise a point that Greg used to always throw back at me whenever I brought this stuff up: The idea that young boys would not like a series (or more importantly, would not buy the toys from a series) that had a large number of female characters, and that trying to market something like Bionicle to both genders would fail. How much truth is in that, do you think?

 

Honestly, I doubt that the 8-9 year old male target audience would even care or notice any difference if there were more female characters in the story line. Previously in this topic, someone mentioned that a majority of Bionicle fans probably never even attributed a gender to any of the characters anyway. I find it hard to believe that a "few" more female characters would hurt LEGO's sales, especially since there are plenty of female fans out there.

 

-Rez

 

 

I know I was pretty well under the target age upon getting into Bionicle, at the time none of that really bugged me. Honestly the Blue characters fascinated me just for being different than the others. But now I don't get why they even dug themselves in that hole to begin with, they could have made the villages have both genders in all of them and change almost nothing. That still wouldn't fix the main issue but it's heading in the right direction.

 

So while I didn't care at the time, I did notice it. So at least in my experience that's not true.

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Can I just say that there have been so wonderfully written arguments and rebuttals in this topic that it leaves me slightly disheartened knowing that nobody's opinion has ever been changed by an internet debate.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I have to say that my opinion has been changed at least slightly by the arguments made in this topic. Starting out, as bad as I feel admitting it, I honestly never saw a problem with the gender ratios in Bionicle or the fact that a gender-element connection existed. Now, I'm starting to understand more and more where the other side is coming from, and starting to change my opinion.

 

Especially the post that Kitania made about not having opportunities to identify with female characters in Bionicle due to their lack of, well...existence? True, there are many diverse and strong females in Bionicle in my opinion, but I'm starting to see that, as many as there are, there weren't enough for the legitimate number of female fans that became a part of the fandom.

 

I can't say that my thoughts are completely changed, but you all HAVE made me at least question what I thought about this part of Bionicle. So, thank you I suppose. =]

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Hmm. I was about to agree with the whole "young boys may not buy toys from a series with many female characters." Reznas does bring up a good point about fans not attributing gender to the characters. I do remember having friends who had tons of sets but ignored the story, for the most part. Even if it was true, that female characters/sets wouldn't appeal to boys as much, there has to be another way to appeal to the target audience while keeping diversity. I guess this is where the set designers earn their money? A kid probably isn't going to care what gender the character is if the set looks cool. 

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That said, I'd like to raise a point that Greg used to always throw back at me whenever I brought this stuff up: The idea that young boys would not like a series (or more importantly, would not buy the toys from a series) that had a large number of female characters, and that trying to market something like Bionicle to both genders would fail. How much truth is in that, do you think?

There seem to be two questions here. If you market Bionicle to its target audience of 8-10 year old boys, they would want to feel like the stars of the story, and having too many girls in there would ruin that. 

 

But as for whether a toyline can be marketed to both girls and boys, I think so. A story can be marketed to both girls and boys - that's a fait accompli. It's already been done - witness Star Wars and Star Trek, for example. And with Lego Friends as an example that building toys can be marketed to girls, I don't see why not. It's a slight risk, and it would be a new thing, but it's not inventing the wheel. It is possible. It can be done. They just didn't do it.  

 

(And it's not like they had the data from Friends in 2001 either...still, something for the future.)

Edited by fishers64
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How the token ladies are represented matter very much, you're right, and like many many many before me have explained, they were represented so so poorly. One good example is the fact that those three characters are basically the only ones that anyone every brings up, sometimes switching Macku for Hahli or Helryx for Tuyet, and they are only "some of the most memorable" rather than really being up there. Of course SOME of the most memorable are gonna be ladies, there's one for every five memorable male characters! 'Cause all you're remembering is the fact that they were even there. Someone else is gonna have to break it down for you 'cause I don't really have to write up a big thing about archetypes and cookie cutter molds for every matoran species of water character and femme fatales and blah blah blah. An evil tyrant, an evil tyrant, and standard cute buttkicing Ga-Matoran, the first one being roughly 10 times more important to the plot than the other two. Amazing. One of them was also murderous and insane, and the other just murderous and smug about it. Lovely, love role models. Guess you gotta literally use strength to be a "strong" female character? Also, notice that you didn't think to mention any of the main character ladies in Bionicle (Nokama, Gali, Kiina, etc) among being strong and memorable characters- did you just think they're no-brainers and don't need to be mentioned, or is it possible that villainous ladies and really minor side characters (and there's an overlap there, in the case of Tuyet) are more interesting than the main ladies? Meanwhile, when asked for strong and memorable male characters main dudes like Makuta! and Vezon! and Tahu! and Jaller! all pop up at least once. Why? Cause so many more dudes are main characters and thus more effort is put into them on the whole, and more end up being interesting characters than the ladies. What a shock, right?

You're making a lot of assumptions here. So if some people found Tuyet or Macku memorable, it's because they are just remembering that they existed? Because I'll tell you right now that I honestly found Kiina to be one of the best Glatorian characters in 2009 purely based on her characterization. She was genuinely interesting. Just because you personally weren't pleased with the characterization of such characters doesn't mean said characterization is objectively bad. It's easy to simplify the personalities of the above characters; I can do the same with every male character in BIONICLE, sum them up in a few words and ignore the subtler aspects that made them interesting. To elaborate:

 

Tuyet was a Toa that felt that her and her teammates held back too much in their duties, that Toa can be more effective at their jobs if they removed the limits they had shackled themselves with. Her interpretation of a Toa's job was that it was their job to enforce peace in any way possible. Tuyet genuinely believed this: the bits of dialogue we've seen and thoughts show that she regarded people like Lhikan and Nidhiki as idiotic pacifists who were forever holding back a Toa's potential.  Her intentions were not focused on seizing power, they were on protecting the Matoran. The fascinating thing about Tuyet's argument was that it made sense in theory: we'd seen over and over throughout the story that the Toa's no-kill rule made more problems for them then solved, and that it was the reason the Toa were nearing extinction as a species. Of course, eventually we had the wonderful Dark Mirror, which showed us the kind of world Tuyet would have created had she succeeded in her mission, a world where Toa are as lethal as they could be. It explored a really interesting side to the Toa debate; they had the power to rule the universe, and yet they were always on the losing end, because they didn't take advantage of what they could do. Tuyet's world was one without morals, though, and showed that the cost of her philosophy was too much. And we saw in her final confrontation with Takanuva that she genuinely believed that she had brought peace to the Matoran. A very interesting character with a great story (barring her random revival in the serials, I get Greg liked her but I wish he hadn't done that.)

 

Helryx is essentially a Toa that has the same mentality as Tuyet but emerged as a totally different person. She was almost always level-headed, and was completely dedicated to protecting Mata Nui. Her sense of loyalty and duty, interestingly, is what motivated her to abandon the Toa Code, killing when she felt she had to. The irony of her being the leader of the Order of Mata Nui was that no Toa were allowed because the Order dabbled in assassination quite often. She carried the fate of the world on her shoulders and was always prepared to do whatever it took to complete her mission, including almost destroying the Matoran Universe. The morality of her actions can be debated, but it was always for a good cause...just like what Tuyet aimed to be. The contrast between them is interesting, to say the least.

 

I really liked Kiina because she was the character that brought an interesting idea to the front of the story: that the Glatorian weren't heroes to the Agori just because they fought for resources. She was fiercely protective of her fellow Glatorian because she felt that they were on their own, and was severe on anyone flippant with their lives- see her attitude towards Raanu after he needlessly let two Glatorian trainees get killed. Kiina was a pessimist, and a person who harbored an intense hatred for where she lived, because she wasn't native to Bara Magna. That's why Mata Nui became such a valuable person to her in the end, because he allowed her to leave Bara Magna behind, by bringing Spherus Magna to her. Etc, etc.

 

My point is, for me personally I really enjoyed the female characters because they were great characters in their own right. Yes, there are more memorable male characters than female characters, just like there are more unmemorable male characters than female characters. We've already established that gender ratios are a problem; I think almost everyone is in agreement there. No need to go and bash on the very good female characters BIONICLE had as well. As I said before, people seem to have a habit of simplifying all of the female characters to either gentle or crazy murderous. We can do without that. And I don't really blame BIONICLE's story team for the bad gender ratios, as it was a ill-advised marketing decision by LEGO. The story team made attempts to fix the problem. Their success can be debated, but the point is they tried. 

 

LEGO's reasoning is similar to that of other big companies who think that all young boys are immature kids that can't stand the other gender, something which is pretty blatantly untrue. Disney too has become obsessed with this idea that they need to adjust their movies so that boys can like them more, by making the, more 'action-oriented' and 'exciting;, which is pretty sexist actually. Just see the whole deal with Tangled's name change.

 

Also, can we not assume that all children are brainless drones who lack the capacity of thinking for themselves. When I was younger I was into a lot of stuff targeted to young boys that had very poor gender representation, and yet I never grew up thinking that females are lesser than boys or that boys are better people. Then again, I grew up with a lot of sisters, so that may have had an impact. Take it as you may. 

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Credit goes to Linus Van Pelt (Formerly known as Cherixon) and Spectral Avohkii Enterprises

My Memoirs of the Dead entry, Reflectons:

http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=7351

 

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The problem that often happens in these debates is that people who are disagreeing are passionate (which itself is not the problem), but that passion can sometimes lead to wordings that look like exaggeration. (Okay, worse problems often happen but thankfully it's going better this time!)

 

When somebody says for example that Kiina is only memorable as the female, I sort of "translate" that to the feeling I had. And that was, the canon gender ratio had just been officially fixed for the population as a whole... so it is baffling and bizarre that there's then just one female (if memory serves here) in the entire 2009 set line. It's such a missed opportunity! So, it's hard to think about Kiina and not be reminded of that precisely because she was so alone. Had there been more examples -- and not necessarily 50/50 but closer than the MU -- that would not have felt as problematic.

 

At the same time, yes, Kiina had memorable traits as a person unrelated to gender. The interest in aliens I always thought was cool. That's what I primarily remember about her. And that can't be fit to other females in Bionicle (or really anybody that I can think of [Edit: Well, okay, other than Mata Nui, apparently, to an extent])... but on the other hand, I can't help but go back to the fact that she was so alone as far as set and story-center representation.

 

So you can validly describe it in both ways, but both are a bit of exaggeration. Don't miss the important points behind the exaggeration from passion, is what I'm saying. Really listen to the motivation behind the passion -- it isn't just to antagonize, though it might feel that way. And some of the people who I largely agree with, I think are taking it a step too far even on the logic -- but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater and say it doesn't matter at all. Does that make any sense?

Edited by bonesiii
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At the same time, yes, Kiina had memorable traits as a person unrelated to gender. The interest in aliens I always thought was cool. That's what I primarily remember about her. And that can't be fit to other females in Bionicle (or really anybody that I can think of [Edit: Well, okay, other than Mata Nui, apparently, to an extent])... but on the other hand, I can't help but go back to the fact that she was so alone as far as set and story-center representation.

She had a host of other interesting character aspects as well, such as her general pessimism towards life, her disgust with Bara Magna that was so severe that the cavern under Tajun was a sort of consolation place for her which is why she was angered when Berix invaded it, her romantic feelings for Mata Nui, and her relationship with Gresh, which consisted of her trying to get him to lighten up a bit, ironically. 

 

On the other hand, yes, it's kind of unbelievable she was the only female character set released in 2009. It goes back again to the gender ratio issue, which seems to be what this always comes back to.

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Credit goes to Linus Van Pelt (Formerly known as Cherixon) and Spectral Avohkii Enterprises

My Memoirs of the Dead entry, Reflectons:

http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=7351

 

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I may have expressed my problem with the memorable female characters wrong, I concede y'all make some good points about that. I was mainly focusing on the main story, stuff that kids would know without having to be hardcore fans who read the web serials with every new release, or would know despite entering the story only a few years late. If you were too young to know about/like Bionicle back in 2001-2002 or just joined the party late, and reread all the stuff you missed but didn't play the MNOG just 'cause you didnt know about it or just didnt have time to play it, Macku shows up once in MoL and gets name dropped maybe a few times until she appears in a serial towards the very very end of Bionicle. She's memorable to long time fans, but then she's just gone for the rest of the story. There goes one of the best characters, I guess, great representation that just isnt represented again. It needs to be constant to have a meaningful impact, you know? If macku leaves the spotlight, another strong and memorable character needs to take her place. Roodaka doesn't show up till 2005, and just for 2005, that's like 2 years with an empty chair, and then Tuyet's show doesn't get going till another couple years after that. We definitely had characters that took their role as the one or two token females, but can you really say they were all excellently written and handled well and are up there with the others? The point wasn't that there weren't characters, it was that there were so few that even if a few of that already small group are so good they're among the best int he whole story, it doesn't somehow justify everything else. It's not a real victory, it's more like a consolation prize. 
 

So, if I don't agree with you, I must be wrong? If you think that Bionicle is a sexist story about men oppressing women then that's fine by me. I am not sexist simply for believing that Bionicle is not sexist as for disagreeing with you. I think that Bionicle is fine and people should focus on the story rather then the genders of those in the story. How can people turn Bionicle into a feminist argument?

It's not that you're wrong 'cause you disagreed with a person, you were wrong 'cause what you were disagreeing with a fact. Bionicle isn't a sexist story about oppression, it's a story that reflects sexism in its makers by placing the value of male characters above that of female characters because of outdated sexist attitudes and business decisions that came about because unfortunately, those sexist attitudes permeate a majority of Western culture (I explained it very well in my first post, here -- don't worry, it's much shorter :P)

Nobody called you sexist, or maybe they did I didn't read everyone else's stuff completely, but I certainly didn't. I was pointing out that your opinion laid in being ignorant of the sexist nature of what you said and how it contributes to continuing sexism. You don't believe there's anything wrong with the messed up gender ratio, which means you don't believe there's anything wrong with having too little women with too little variety in stories, which probably doesn't bother you because, after all, you are a dude so you just don't understand what it's like. Arguments like "but My Little Pony doesn't have many guys!!! That's sexist" are completely irrelevant, because you have all this other media around you that for the most part has waaayyyy more dudes than women that you can pick and choose from. The problem isn't "the genders aren't equal in general," the problem is "the genders aren't equal because of a lack of women." Why is that second one sexist while the first one isn't? Because men already have it way better, and then they exercise their power to either deliberately make things worse for the ladies or just do it 'cause they don't know that things are out of balance at all, 'cause thing have always been this way, because sexism. It's not like it's always malicious, it's not like someone is calling you a terrible person, they're just using a word that describes you having a worldview where women are lesser than men in one way or another and not seeing something wrong with that, or knowing it's wrong but taking advantage of it anyways. It's not your fault, but once you know about it, it becomes your responsibility to either admit that something is wrong or insist that there's no problem and the world is meant to be this way. Not caring is sexist, because it means you're okay with there being a problem, it's just not your problem so you're just gonna let it happen. It is wrong, it hurts people, and it's sexist. Also, using "feminism" as something that's vicious doesn't really help you out much :P

A lot of folks who participate in these threads make it clear that they still enjoy Bionicle even though it has its flaws, so that counters your think about "people should focus on the story rather than the genders." I focused on the story! The story was great fun for me, I loved it; but the gender ratio is off and that's indeed a different issue, but that doesn't mean they're completely separate. Everything is intertwined, you can't just pick and choose what you like and what you'll ignore for convenience.

Bionicle isn't just the story, it's also the sets and the art and the games and the individual characters and the themes and the genders, the whole package. Don't freak out and get defensive 'cause people try to explain that you're wrong about some contents of that package not being important. Maybe they don't matter to you, but you're not the only one who received the package. By not sending back the genders you got in the package for being defective, 'cause you think they're fine being all smushed and lopsided 'cause you were just gonna use it as a paperweight or something, you're ruining the chances of a refund or a formal apology or whatever for the other people who are trying to send the item back with the complaint that it was crushed in transit and cut their fingers when they got it, 'cause not enough people are sending back the universally defective item because they didn't get cut 'cause they were born with thick gloves on their hands, and the sexist advertising department marketed it to people who were born wearing gloves but didn't realize it 'cause people with birthgloves don't notice that anyone is wearing gloves until someone explains to them that those are in fact gloves and not their real hands, which usually doesn't even work 'cause being called a "glovist" doesn't do much for them because they are convinced their gloves are their real hands and they think that "glovist" is an offensive term when really the people with exposed hands are just desperately trying to open their eyes to a truth they are blind to so that one day the big Marketing Agency stops sending out products that always manage to be defective and leave little cuts on some peoples' hands that never quite heal and accumulate damage over time until it just seems normal and those people just accept that it's apparently normal and then sometimes those people have so many cuts from such a young age that one day they put on a pair of gloves without realizing it and start also making packages that contain unsafe items, and only very rarely do the not gloved people get packages without sharp edges or pointy bits because they were carefully built by people whose fingers are more accurate and careful because they're not wearing big bulky gloves that they can't see. Bionicle is a package that seems perfectly fine to people born with gloves 'cause of this one super cool thing in the package, and the people without gloves are trying to appreciate the super cool thing but it's very difficult when they're distracted by the cuts they got on their hands from touching the really broken object attached to the cool thing. And then they can't do anything about it or even complain about it, 'cause people with gloves insist they're overreacting and that since every package for this product is identical, and their package was good, they must all be good. "Are you sure you're not just glovist?" "HOW DARE YOU WHAT DID I EVEN DO GOSH I swear I'm not glovist but your hands cant possibly hurt that much so stop whining there's nothing wrong with this thing stop attacking me!" "But the thing has sharp pointy bits on it." "So? They don't bother me. They just don't matter as much as people say they do. Focus on the shiny part over here that's the important one."

There, that's my ridiculously elaborate metaphor for sexism that just sort of happened and evolved on the spot but works pretty well. Recognize the hand you've been dealt in life, and try not to hurt others with it :) (Oh wow that was not supposed to work perfectly with my metaphor I think I made the best accidental pun in my life)

EDIT: Oh god it happened again. I'm really sorry, I tried to not write a lot; it's kind of hard to explain this stuff concisely, 'cause unless you already know all about it and understand it, it's not something that can be explained thoroughly in a few sentences. Easier to dispel multiple misunderstandings before they happen, I guess.

Edited by Pomegranate

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Nobody called you sexist, or maybe they did I didn't read everyone else's stuff completely, but I certainly didn't. I was pointing out that your opinion laid in being ignorant of the sexist nature of what you said and how it contributes to continuing sexism. You don't believe there's anything wrong with the messed up gender ratio, which means you don't believe there's anything wrong with having too little women with too little variety in stories, which probably doesn't bother you because, after all, you are a dude so you just don't understand what it's like. Arguments like "but My Little Pony doesn't have many guys!!! That's sexist" are completely irrelevant, because you have all this other media around you that for the most part has waaayyyy more dudes than women that you can pick and choose from. The problem isn't "the genders aren't equal in general," the problem is "the genders aren't equal because of a lack of women." Why is that second one sexist while the first one isn't? Because men already have it way better, and then they exercise their power to either deliberately make things worse for the ladies or just do it 'cause they don't know that things are out of balance at all, 'cause thing have always been this way, because sexism. It's not like it's always malicious, it's not like someone is calling you a terrible person, they're just using a word that describes you having a worldview where women are lesser than men in one way or another and not seeing something wrong with that, or knowing it's wrong but taking advantage of it anyways. It's not your fault, but once you know about it, it becomes your responsibility to either admit that something is wrong or insist that there's no problem and the world is meant to be this way. Not caring is sexist, because it means you're okay with there being a problem, it's just not your problem so you're just gonna let it happen. It is wrong, it hurts people, and it's sexist. Also, using "feminism" as something that's vicious doesn't really help you out much :P

 

You have to agree that making women superior to men in a story with an obviously unbalanced ratio (meaning way more women than men) is still sexist though, right? I mean, sure, in the media men are often spotlighted over women, but that's not to say that sexism doesn't go both ways. I know you're not saying that sexism only applies to women, but that's what it sounds like you're saying. 

 

Disclaimer: MLP has no relevance to this post. The above example is purely a hyperbole in order to prove a point.

 

-Rez

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I will never understand why anyone could care so much about gender in a toy line for 8 year olds.

-snip-

 

 

Are you, as of this moment, an 8 year old? 

I'm curious actually. Is anyone on these forums 8 years old and can testify that they believe that Bionicle is sexist, or if they care about the gender of their plastic toy?

In the time before time, the Great Spirit descended from the heavens, carrying with him the ones called the Matoran, to this island paradise. We were separate and without purpose, so the great spirit blessed us with the Three Virtues: Unity, Duty and Destiny. We embraced these gifts and in gratitude named our home Mata Nui, after the great spirit himself.

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Are you, as of this moment, an 8 year old? 

I'm curious actually. Is anyone on these forums 8 years old and can testify that they believe that Bionicle is sexist, or if they care about the gender of their plastic toy?

 

That's not even the point. First of all, while it's targeted towards 8-year-old children, it's not limited to them. There were plenty of older children/adults following the toy line. Not to mention plenty of girls that would probably have liked to see a few more female characters, you know? And while young children probably don't care, that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss these issues. Because they are issues.

 

-Rez

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I was originally just going to pop in here to say "Bionicle is kind of sexist because the whole setting was designed by people, primarily men, who didn't know any better about the importance of gender representation in young children" but looking over the debate that's kicked off has inspired me. Hoo hoo hoo

 

Some thoughts of my own:

  • Context is important when discussing sexism. You say "kids don't care about what gender their toys are". I agree. But that's not the whole picture. Kids might not care whether the toys they play with are boys are girls, but the ratio of boys to girls in the toys they play with sets an important precedent in their development. Make 5/6 of the characters in your story boys, you're sending the message that "boys are the default heroes" and "it's harder for girls to be heroes". Give all the heroes equal importance in the story? That just means that the girls get 1/6 of the story importance. At this point, it's just tokenism. 
  • Those messages aren't conscious thoughts, either. They're subconscious. It took me until 1 or 2 years ago to realize how many of my original characters were male, and I had to make a conscious effort to make women more prominent in my stories. Then I had to make a conscious effort to make those women stop conforming to the archetypes of female characters everywhere (nonphysical/long-range fighter/emotionally sensitive/etc) Not that those archetypes are bad by themselves, but make the majority of female characters conform to those archetypes and that sends an equally potent message to young children.
  • Most fictional heroes these days are boys anyways. Look at any team of heroic, gunslinging/swordfighting vigilantes in the toys section of your local grocery store. Heck, look at any team of heroic, gunslinging/swordfighting vigilantes in popular media everywhere today. How many of them are men? How many of them are women? I bet 9/10 of those teams are a majority of men, if not entirely men in the first place. 
  • Do those teams have a reasonable number of women in them? Now ask: Are any of those women the leader? Do they take the leading position in all the group shots?
  • A mostly-women team of action heroes can't particularly be considered sexist. Remember context. We've had so many mostly-men teams of action heroes-- more than I could possibly count. A mostly-women team is just a way to balance the scales.
  • If the thought of a mostly-women team of action heroes offends you, why do you react that way? (Boys won't have role models? Either 1. that's not marketed towards boys or 2. they could look everywhere else for role models.)
  • There were some really cool female characters in the fiction who were important to the plot: Tuyet, for example, who became the evil empress of an entire universe. But the thing is she didn't get a toy, and was thus outside the attention of most kids playing with the toys.
  • (Tuyet being an evil empress of the universe is A-OK in my book. A lot of kids think the bad guys are cooler than the good ones. Me when I was a kid, for example. Make a woman into an awesomely powerful supervillain=making her prominent in the eyes of little kids)
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