I have no idea what everyone's talking about!

Quite honestly, I don't even think you can define it sexist; at least, not in the traditional sense. Matoran/Toa/MU Bionicles are genderless, right? Just machines?

So they're programmed to display different emotions according to what class they are.

If you have no gender, how can you discriminate against genders?

I know, this sounds like I'm grasping at straws and I'm not at all trying to justify the Great Beings -that'd be the opposite of pretty much everything I believe in-, but take a look at it. MU Bionicles are programmed according to what class they are; it just happens that this class is what we humans call gender.

Basically my point is, let's say you build a team of robots; one team is made for labor, the other for research. Is it discriminatory that you don't program the laborers with the ability to research?

Before you say, "Not the same, Bionicles are self aware and sapient", remember, that was a glitch in their programming, never meant to happen.

Quite honestly, I don't even think you can define it sexist; at least, not in the traditional sense. Matoran/Toa/MU Bionicles are genderless, right? Just machines?

 

So they're programmed to display different emotions according to what class they are.

 

If you have no gender, how can you discriminate against genders?

 

I know, this sounds like I'm grasping at straws and I'm not at all trying to justify the Great Beings -that'd be the opposite of pretty much everything I believe in-, but take a look at it. MU Bionicles are programmed according to what class they are; it just happens that this class is what we humans call gender.

 

Basically my point is, let's say you build a team of robots; one team is made for labor, the other for research. Is it discriminatory that you don't program the laborers with the ability to research?

 

Before you say, "Not the same, Bionicles are self aware and sapient", remember, that was a glitch in their programming, never meant to happen.

They're not genderless, you have boys and girls -- they lack the biological aspect of it. Mentally, they're all male or female, physically, they're all the same.

My view was pretty much put into words in Black Six's blog, and I only say that because I have a failing with words.

But I will say;

If they had done away with the societal stereotype, then there'd probably be some actually interesting characters, instead of same foundations for personality, just different ways of talking. Plus, making all the characters their own individual (and not saying "the gods made them to think one way, but they messed up"), would bring home more that societal stereotypes are ridiculous. The stereotypes will be encountered by pretty much everyone at some point, but if some people have read a story where everyone was their own individual and didn't follow that specific idea, then that person would likely think "Well, that's rather silly to say that you have to think one way based on your gender."

So by just removing the stereotyping altogether, still brings around that message Greg said he meant to send -- that sexist stereotypes are ludicrous. (The audience is 7-9 year olds, generally speaking, 7-9 year olds don't pick up on the subtle hints given when one group of characters act like it's good [ie: Great Beings], or when a group of characters conform to a stereotype [ie: Ga-Metru, Toa of Psionics -- blatantly throw in], while attempting to show that it's silly by presenting maybe one, or two exceptions to the rule).

But regardless, I am in agreement with Gato in that it is rather upsetting that so many members are agreeing with the Great Being's position on the matter.

I like the theory of a "class" system as suggested by Scientist above. Perhaps The Great Beings decided to assign different nanobots to different jobs, and to classify these different types they just made one type male and one type female. There's nothing sexist about it: one class happens to be workers, and one happens to be scientists and teachers. The only reason it seems sexist is because the nanobots developed sentience; a glitch that was never planned for.

But I also have to concede that kids in BIONICLE's target audience of 7-12 probably aren't going to understand this -or even think about it-, and they're just going to assume that females are naturally kinder and gentler than males.

The Great Beings were sexist, and they're sexist plan totally backfired didn't it? Tuyet, Roodaka, Gorast, etc.

I have no idea what everyone's talking about!

Yay for you!

Because believe me, you don't want to!

I never really saw it as a kind of 'message'. Greg just wanted to give Orde a backstory, then had Chiara handily point out he wasn't himself stereotyping.

Where there people agreeing with the GBs point of view? It wasn't something I really paid attention to