Kevin Owens

I don't think the stereotype is true (a bit tautological!), but denying that they were shown in a way that fits the stereotype doesn't make you right automatically.

 

Edit: line spacing

The fact that NotS was willing to invoke a racist stereotype completely discredits any further argument that they made.  It might not make them automatically right, but it makes them automatically wrong.

 

 

Finally, the narrator for the Piraka promotional campaign was an African American male. Like it or not, this is unarguably one of the biggest stereotypes regarding modern gangster culture.

Racism is not a basis for an effective argument.  Ten points from gryffindor.  F - -.  Please see me after class.

 

 

I sincerely hope that was sarcasm, because you've given no actual reason to why aspects of a stereotype aren't allowed to be used to justify that a certain media did depict certain characters as gansters?

 

Literally a character is defined by how they are presented, and a part of that presentation might just happen to be a whole pile of aspects that fit a stereotype but you're not allowed to point out an extra detail of the ad - which the characters featured in?

 

Yep, let's go with Kevin was being sarcastic.

 

No it wasn't sarcastic.  NotS claimed the strongest argument for the Piraka being gangsters was that the narrator was an African American male.  They were being racist.

I give you a 2/10 for getting me to respond.  You're defending racism.  Stop it.

Finally, the narrator for the Piraka promotional campaign was an African American male. Like it or not, this is unarguably one of the biggest stereotypes regarding modern gangster culture.

Racism is not a basis for an effective argument.  Ten points from gryffindor.  F - -.  Please see me after class.

 

Eh... what? The Piraka chilled in a dank lounge with rap music, and their the tagline was "The Gang is on the Loose". Heck, Piraka.com took place in a police station with each character getting a mugshot. I fail to see why you fail to see people referring to them as gangsters, cause they clearly were. 

 

-NotS

 

Let me break this down for you.

• I fail to see how 'dark lounge' and 'rap music' are inherently 'gangster'
• Gang on the loose is honestly the best bet you have on proving your point considering it is inherently a reference to criminals.  However that brings me to the next point....
• RE: police station mug shots.  The Piraka were originally members of the Dark Hunters, a force of mercenaries loyal only to the highest bidder.  In 2006 they were ex-dark hunters aiming on obtaining the Ignika.  You keep using the term 'gangster', and I assume that you're using it in the modern parlance of organized street crime.  The Piraka were anything but street hooligans and or thugs.  They were war criminals.  Heck this even ties into "The Gang is on the loose" tagline meaning that the Piraka were mercenaries with no loyalty to the highest bidder but rather their own personal interests.

The strange thing is about all of this is that I feel like labelling the Piraka as war criminals rather than 'gangsters' undermines one of my initial point of 2006 not being grim dark.  Congratulations.  In my rebuttal of your poorly thought out and reasoned argument I have somehow managed to undermine my initial point.  Clever.

 

If anything 2006 was a return to the feel of 2001-2003 after the high tech shenanigans of 2004-2005.

 

I think people greatly overstate the 'high tech' aspect of the Metru Nui story. Yes, it was there (the huge chutes, video screens in the Coliseum, heavy industry in Ta-Metru) but most of the time it was just off in the background. It's not like the Toa were flying around in spaceships and blasting away with laser guns. There were also many scenes were set in dark tunnels, stone temples and desolate areas with no technology in sight.

 

Plus the way that Metru Nui was much more explored and lively with all its inhabitants, locations and secrets made it feel a lot closer to Mata Nui than Voya Nui, which was little more than a generic place for the story to happen in.

 

• re: Metru-Nui not being 'high tech' I want you to go rewatch the first Bionicle movie and then the second one.  I then want you to reason out this point further about how the high-tech atmosphere of Metru-Nui.  Then after you have done this I want you to go back, reread my last point, and actually address the bulk of the matter (you can't quantify how Bionicle 'feels') rather than a minor quip.
• The only reason why Metru-Nui was more explored was because it had an entire extra year dedicated to it.  If 2007 had been based around Voya-Nui and its characters as opposed to Mahri-Nui and its new cast of matoran, villains, and titans then it would be in the same league.  It's like comparing a minor league sports team to a major league one.  In a vacuum 2006 is on the same tier as '01 and '04.  Further more I merely noted that Metru-Nui was more advanced that Mata-nui.  You are turning me into a strawman and putting words in my mouth.  At no one point did I claim that there were space ships or laser beams.  You're probably thinking of '08-'11, which is two years past '06. It's also worth noting that by the time '06 rolled around the entire show was pretty much being run by Greg rather than the collection of writers that were used to hammer out '01-'03

 

Ways 2015 is unlike 2006 for the better:

• no pretensions of gritty grimdarkness
• the island actually feels like an island instead of a farcical land of death
• no characters defined by how many people they've killed and how much disrespect for life they can casually throw into conversation
• villains aren't generic gangsters made specifically for appeal to edgy teens
• better promotional material in every way, shape, and form
• no forced cross-promotions with bands
• no hamfisting of pop songs when original songs are better
• actually feels like Bionicle

 

• 2006 was not neccessarily any more grim dark than any prior year of bionicle
• I'm sorry but are we trying to imply that earlier years of bionicle were not set on equally dangerous islands?  Because if so I'm afraid to inform you that you're wrong
• Rhetoric of that type was already widely sprinkled throughout bionicle in the previous years.  There was a minor escalation of this I will admit, but it was minor.
• The Piraka were not gangsters.  They were rogue mercanaries.  I fail to see why people always refer to the Piraka as gangsters when they clearly weren't
• Cool opinion.  There was a ton of sweet online content for 2006 that it puts 2004-2005 to shame.
• Free The Band was an attempt to garner a larger audience and more eyes on the product using a band that was popular at the time.  They were trying to build and expand the Bionicle brand, and that's not a bad thing.
• I hate AAR as much as anything but come on man.  You salty.
• What does this even mean?  What does Bionicle 'feel' like?  If anything 2006 was a return to the feel of 2001-2003 after the high tech shenanigans of 2004-2005.

2006 gets a lot of hate and it absolutely astounds me given that it's easily the best year of Bionicle this side of maybe 2003.  Maybe 2001 depending on how high you rate that year.

Let's go back to the tip of the Gen 1 story. According to Greg Farshtey, Takanuva's destiny was intended to be to play a major role in a civil war between two groups of Great Beings: a group led by Velika that wanted to lead SM directly, and a group who wanted to avoid interfering with the new societies at all.

I want you to read what you just wrote there.  Then I would like to ask you why you would ever want to connect Gen2 to the massive mess of continuity and stupidity that is Gen1.

Yo GSR I see you lurking here.  I don't know what forums you're under but is there anything you can do about Seltz's bait?

Do I really need to explain why a female character should be played by a female actor?

 

Was it 'bigotry' that Gali, Hahli, Nokama and Roodaka were all played by female actors?

 

Yes you do considering that there have been numerous instances of VAs playing roles of the opposite gender.

At no point did I claim it was bigotry when female voice actors play female characters.  Nor did I say that male VAs playing male caracters was bigotry.  All I've said is that complaining that Gali was voiced by a male narrator was silly, and demanding that VAs play their respective genders and sex is silly and bigoted.

About the "assuming a character is cis is by default is hurtful and marginalizing" thing.

 

"Cis" people are the default. Less than 1% of the world's population is transgender.

 

It's just not something that occurs to most people when creating characters, and you can't blame someone for forgetting to include gender-variant characters. Statistics back it up.

Why is people headcanon Gali as trans so offensive to you that you have to speak up against it?

Also lol cis is default and terrible wording and language.

I still don't get why people are all up in a twist about the male voice actor for a female character since it's not like we're breaking any serious ground either in terms of social progression or any sort of new ground you want to conjure up.

 

It's no particularly great deal to me, but I do think a character's actor should at least reflect what gender they are.

 

Why does it matter?

Edit because this is truly the crux of the matter and the source of your bigotry.

re:Bionicle saved Lego: Most of these factors indicate that Bionicle was really only making dat bank roll during 2001-2006, which I would actually look into the hard numbers before coming to any sort of definitive conclusion about just how successful it really was and how much it helped.  At any rate it specifically mentions 2003-2004 as the crisis, which means that Bionicle was only truly floating the entire Lego boat for two years, or one fifth of its active shelf life.  Not exactly a good ratio.

And at any rate this is just one big bunny trail and the point is get your panties out of a twist about Lego choosing to save some money and not hiring a specific female voice actress for a teaser trailer.  Y'all are just being silly.

There's this thing called being trans. 

 

If Gali was a transgender character, then a case could be made for a voice that was not explicitly female. But what has there been so far to indicate that she is transgender?

 

To be honest?  Nothing has been shown in canon to suggest that Gali is trans.  I still don't get why people are all up in a twist about the male voice actor for a female character since it's not like we're breaking any serious ground either in terms of social progression or any sort of new ground you want to conjure up.  If people want to headcanon Gali as trans because of this, I don't see why they can't do that.

I fail to see why a teaser trailer is getting so many people worked up on both sides of the camp.  It's a teaser trailer and not a true representation of the final product.  Stop being silly.

 

They are not going to spend more money than neccessary on a hype video for a what is still technically a Technic brand and one of the more unpopular ones at that.  Also >implying Bionicle is important and/or a major brand.

 

Bionicle almost single-handedly saved Lego from bankruptcy, lasted continuously for ten years and had four movies made. How is that not important?

 

Maybe this version won't be as colossal as the last, but that's not a reason to cut corners.

 

Bionicle might have lasted ten years, but after the first five it was a massive, bloated husk of its former self that had so many continuity snarls that it should have been put out of its misery years before it finally ended.

Also [citation needed] on Bionicle saving Lego from bankruptcy because that sounds like a load of crock.

Yeah really.  I figured that your bigoted statement didn't deserve a real response.

 

Please explain the bigotry in saying that a female character should have a female-sounding voice.

 

There's this thing called being trans.  A quick google search should be able to tell you the rest.  Otherwise you could read back over pretty much every other comment in the thread.

 

At first you used movie trailers.  Now you're saying trailers in general.  Which one is it?  Do you think that LEGO really has the budge that most hollywood studios spend on AAA movies?

 

I still meant movie trailers, though given that Lego are one of the richest toy companies in the world, spending a bit to advertise an important upcoming line is hardly beyond them.

 

They are not going to spend more money than neccessary on a hype video for a what is still technically a Technic brand and one of the more unpopular ones at that.  Also >implying Bionicle is important and/or a major brand.

 

 

 

Really.

 

Yeah really.  I figured that your bigoted statement didn't deserve a real response.

 

How many move trailers are produced by big budget hollywood studios?  How many movie trailers actually show on TV and in theaters that represent a completely finalized product that has completely gone through post and are ready to be released?

 

Most trailers are at least 90% of what will be in the finished product.

 

At first you used movie trailers.  Now you're saying trailers in general.  Which one is it?  Do you think that LEGO really has the budge that most hollywood studios spend on AAA movies?

If Gali sounds male?  Sweet.  Why not?

 

Because she's meant to be female.

 

 

 

 

I would like to refer to you to my earlier post where I brought up Bart Simpson having a female voice actor.  Sometimes voice actors are cast for the opposite gender.  Doesn't happen too frequently but it occasionally crops up.

 

That actor was able to affect a convincingly male voice. From what I've heard, the actor Lego have used wasn't able to affect a convincingly female voice.

 

Perhaps this was because that this was a trailer, does not reflect the final product and is just a way to hype people into saying "MY BODY IS READY" and "TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT BRIGHT LIGHTS HYPE CROWDS EVERYBODY GET DOWN!", and they didn't want to drop the money on a different VA specifically to read off a few lines for a teaser trailer?

 

Also >implying that all females sound girly

 

 

How many movie trailers use different actors to the ones in the full movie?

 

Regarding your last comment, are you saying you don't want one of relatively few female characters to sound female?

 

How many move trailers are produced by big budget hollywood studios?  How many movie trailers actually show on TV and in theaters that represent a completely finalized product that has completely gone through post and are ready to be released?

Me?  Honestly?  I don't give two bits about this at all.  I just think people are being dumb all around on both sides of the camp.  If Gali sounds female?  Sweet.  Sounds good.  If Gali sounds male?  Sweet.  Why not? 

Well regardless of gender we can certainly say she's not interested in anybody (no canon love hehe)

I fail to see what a terrible story retcon that Greg pulled has any relevence to the current discussion.

 

I would like to refer to you to my earlier post where I brought up Bart Simpson having a female voice actor.  Sometimes voice actors are cast for the opposite gender.  Doesn't happen too frequently but it occasionally crops up.

 

That actor was able to affect a convincingly male voice. From what I've heard, the actor Lego have used wasn't able to affect a convincingly female voice.

 

Perhaps this was because that this was a trailer, does not reflect the final product and is just a way to hype people into saying "MY BODY IS READY" and "TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT BRIGHT LIGHTS HYPE CROWDS EVERYBODY GET DOWN!", and they didn't want to drop the money on a different VA specifically to read off a few lines for a teaser trailer?

Also >implying that all females sound girly

I don't think children think about these concepts as much or in the same way as we do. We have to be mindful this is a children's play theme, and they can't please everybody. So far I think that the Lego Group is doing a great job of catering to the target audience with the return of this theme.

We are entering a new generation that is more in touch with these issues more than ever.  If they want to headcanon Gali as trans, I don't see what's so wrong.

Bart Simpson and Gali are two completely different characters. How a male can sound female is beyond me but if they can pull it off then kudos to them.

 

I didn't watch TLC but you're crazy if you think the main roster can't put on a show as good as NXT. Let all of those kids on NXT do what they did on RAW and Smackdown then we'll talk about them being good.  

I dunno how can Bart's VA sound male?  Some people can do different things with their voices.

Also let me get this straight.  You say you didn't watch TLC, but you're saying these things.  At no point did I say that the main roster couldn't put on a show that wasn't as good as NXT, but rather that [R] Evolution blew TLC out of the water.  Do you even watch NXT?  Do you tune in every Monday for RAW?  Raw has been so consistently terrible both in booking and match quality that I've completely stopped watching.  If you want to see another Brock match wasted on Cena then be my guest, but that doesn't mean that the booking has been objectively terrible and that Cena hasn't had a good match since Bryan/Cena way back during Summerslam 2013.

I know that. But why would they do that when they could just find some random girl and have her do it?

 

Also, Didn't I throw you through like three tables at TLC?

I dunno why don't they have a random dude play Bart Simpson?  Why did they need to get a random girl for an early trailer?  Why are you asking these questions?

Technically Cena put Seth through two tables.  There were an additional two tables that Cena and Seth went through together.  Either was that match was an overbooked cluster that wished it was as good as Harper/Ziggler, let alone ANY of the matches from NXT [R] Evolution.

I'm not saying we can't have headcanons. I'm just saying that Gali should have a female voice actor because, you know, she's a woman? Just like the website and video and actual owners of her say she is? Just like she was in the first generation? 

 

I'm just saying: Gali is a female Toa and she should have a woman actor.

I would like to refer to you to my earlier post where I brought up Bart Simpson having a female voice actor.  Sometimes voice actors are cast for the opposite gender.  Doesn't happen too frequently but it occasionally crops up.  If the shoe fits, wear it IMO.

Also it tickles me pink that your avatar is a Cena one. 

Also why hasn't this topic been locked yet.  It's silly.  You're all silly.  I'm silly.  This is silly.

 

 

This is very obviously a Thomas the Tank Engine kind of scenario here, but while we're on the subject ...

 

However you want to take this, it's very clear that Gali is not male. Whether or not the character is transgender is up to the headcanons of the members who hold them, and I—nor anyone else—is in any position to tell them to stop. Media representation is a nasty issue once you're aware of how many issues it has; harmful stereotypes and flat-out erasure abound. It's so normal that I was completely unaware of how bad the situation had gotten until I really began exploring the issue online.

 

Whether or not Gali is transgender has no basis on her canon gender; she's female either way. Demeaning a headcanon is inherently rude, especially when contextualized by the fact that those who headcanon her that way are doing so because of a huge lack of canon representation throughout our media.

 

Anyone who dislikes the practice of insisting that headcanons are canon is missing the point of a headcanon, since a headcanon is something that's as good as canon to that person. 

 

Agree with you so far, ^{_{([{the only area that I see as likely to be disputed is a non-issue because it would be a headcanon!}])}}

...but:

 

While stating something not officially canon as canon could conceivably confuse a new member, the chances of that actually happening would be close to impossible even if the practice became far more common than it is now.

 

Depending on how convoluted a series gets...?

 

Maybe, in future, we try & say "headcanon" instead of "canon", or otherwise have lot's of strongly suggestive that it's personal view or (not what it was in this case! but generally speaking about other potential situations:) a joke. Someone somewhere is gonna not pick up on some hings otherwise which might create a lot of confusion in other situations...

 

[snip]

 

For the record: I thought it was very clear in this situation that people were referring to their headcanons but... an extra word would have helped avert the "people making this confusing"... *shrugs*

 

Again, the practice is not widespread enough for that to even crop up. I acknowledged that it could be an issue, but I was also saying that trying to police such activity now is pointless.

 

tl;dr Could they? Yes. Will they? I'll eat a hat if it does.

 

Guys quick be sure to specify between canon and headcanon from now on and demand that we see Sumiki eat his hat live on camera for all of us to watch,

Probably because the primary audience for Bionicle no longer read comics.  I mean even most 'comic book fans' don't even read comic books.  How many rabid Captain America/Thor/Iron Man fans are out there that have only seen the movies and not even once picked up the actual comic books.

Borox I think the word you're looking for is post production, and I would be genuinely shocked if LEGO didn't do any sort of post work on the audio for the trailer.  I mean technically you're asking them to do stuff they're already doing.

Also I want you to know that I am not quoting your post just because your font color is that much of an eye sore.

 

You know what they should have done

 

 

They should have hired ~me~ to be the narrator

Sounds excellent

 

That way, this topic could be flipped upside down and everyone will be wondering why the other 5 Toa are female.

 

Son I don't think you realize what neighborhood you're in.  I don't mean this as a slam, but the usual suspects would be praising Bionicle for being progressive enough to have a predominantly female team.  The other usual supects would spew sexist dialoge until they went so far over the line that staff would have no choice but to finally lay down a fiercely stern verbal warning to knock it off.  They might even give a proto drop if things truly got truly dastardly.  It'd be the same song and dance except you'd be changing a few words around.  Literally nothing would change.

And oh yeah we'd still be having the trans headcanons.

I wouldn't mind if Gali still had that male voice even later on down the story, but would be possible to 'autotune' it to seem more feminine? It would cancled-out the need for more narrators.

I am not sure which invalidates the proposal more.  The fact that you're actually suggesting autotuning the voices to be more feminine or the fact that the color you're using is so bright I had to highlight the text to read it.

I will concede that this might actually work if we do Bionicle: The Musical and get Yeezy to be the producer and have T-Pain do ALL the vocals.

ADDENDUM: If we were to Bionicle:The Musical they would have to also model Gali's mask to have the Hahli handlebar mustache.