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Why is Bionicle Kinda Sexist?


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Why do ALL toa/matoran of fire, ice, earth, stone, magnetism, iron, air, gravity, plasma, plantlife and sonics have to be male?

 

Why do ALL toa/matoran of Water, Lightning and Psionics have to female?

 

Matoran/toa of light are the ONLY ones that can be either gender... so why? Didn't LEGO or the Bionicle story team ever think that that might have been a bad idea? I mean Greg bothered himself to go back and make Hewkii x Macku non-canon, and  understand that they had already created a lot of matoran for each element but you know, I've always wanted to be a Toa of Water as a kid but because of that stupid rule I could never be. Plus each elemental tribe in the matoran universe comes along with its own general stereotype, most ice matoran are quite cold and not very social, air matoran for the most part are fun-loving and primitive, and some people might fit in one of those tribes than others, but because of that rule, they can't. It's especially hard on girls because they have such a limited amount of elements to choose from!  :o

 

I'm telling you if Bionicle is getting a reboot, that better be the first thing they change!

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7.- why there´s only one female Toa in every team? (except on the Toa Mangai)

7) Because we are writing a story for 8-9 year old boys, most of whom aren’t looking for loads of heroines in their stories.

 

That's also why the element restrictions exist IMO: to artificially limit the number of female Toa. 

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7.- why there´s only one female Toa in every team? (except on the Toa Mangai)

7) Because we are writing a story for 8-9 year old boys, most of whom aren’t looking for loads of heroines in their stories.

 

That's also why the element restrictions exist IMO: to artificially limit the number of female Toa. 

 

I'm sorry but that just sounds awful. Females still ought to be marketed appropriately to boys, what if they start thinking that girls can't be heroes too? This is madness!!!     D:

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It isn't BIONICLE's job to be 100% equal and teach kids to be 100% nice and fair.

Should we have black and white Bionicle's so we don't upset any different groups?

Should we have Bionicle's with brown eyes because we don't want to upset people with brown eyes?

 

The problem is true "equality" will never be achieved, but I see your point.

The reason Ga-Matoran are one gender I do not know, but it makes things a bit easier to understand. Yes, Bionicle is stereotypical, but that comes along with a toyline. It makes things easier to understand. "Oh, Gresh is a green one so that means he is an adventurous type." 

Sexism and prejudice and segregation exist everywhere if we take enough time to look at it.

 

The GBs based the Matoran on the organic beings in Spherus Magna I believe, which is also the reason why "romantic relationships" could happen. I suppose the genders work a similar way.

 

^^^Warning, 100% opinion here^^^

Edited by Jamescax
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I think the main reason is that it's a buildable action figure franchise. Traditionally, female characters tend to sell worse as action figures than male ones. And likewise, construction toys in general traditionally sold better among boys than girls. BIONICLE was aimed chiefly at boys from the beginning, and originally NONE of the main heroes were going to be female — the decision to make one out of the six heroes female came at the request of Robin Smith, the head of the legal department in the LEGO Group's North American office.

 

The decision to make ALL members of any Matoran tribe the same sex could have been a matter of convenience — since Matoran are all identical, it would make it easier for kids to tell who was male and who was female if they could use the same color-coding and other context clues that they would use to identify a Matoran's tribe and element. Or it could have been based on the personality and cultural traits that the writers chose to attribute to the different tribes, which would admittedly be a bit sexist. Or it could have been that the writers wanted to ensure that there would always be at least one female character in any team of six — though BIONICLE was able to avoid this by introducing different species that lacked the same gender rules, such as with Vezok and Tarix. Or maybe the writers just liked the idea of one of the tribes of Matoran being 100% female. It's hard to know the exact reason.

 

I do not have high hopes that the new BIONICLE sets will have better gender ratios, but I do hope that they do away with some of the arbitrary rules about certain elements belonging strictly to certain genders and vice-versa. It may be true that boys in BIONICLE's target age range traditionally prefer male characters to female characters, but society is changing and the LEGO Group should try to be a leader rather than a follower amidst that change. Plus, LEGO is a creative toy, so the stories they tell should encourage rather than discourage creative freedom. If anybody, boy or girl, wants to create a character with a particular gender and powers, the official storyline shouldn't be telling them that that's wrong.

Edited by Aanchir
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Why is anything in the world kinda sexist?

 

Because people are "kinda" sexist, with varying degrees of "kinda". And no one's more sexist than grade-school/middle-school age boys, otherwise known as BIONICLE's target audience. It's a sad fact of life, but LEGO is just another weak-willed corporation -- they've chosen a demographic and they're afraid to do anything that will upset them.

 

Of course, that's not at all to be commended. I saw someone upthread asking facetiously, "Should we have black and white BIONICLE characters as well?" That's a ridiculous question. Humans don't exist in BIONICLE's continuity, so representation of different human ethnicities is neither expected nor even possible. However, BIONICLE characters do have human-style genders, so it is LEGO's responsibility to treat that subject with the care and attention it deserves. If we want our kids to grow up without sexist prejudices, the first logical step is to break down the artificial gender barriers between toys. Let girls play with action figures, boys play with dolls, and so on and so forth. There's absolutely no reason to keep them separate.

 

The trouble is, corporations who market to kids aren't gutsy enough to choose message over money. Just look at The Legend of Korra. It's a fresh, imaginative, moderately well-written show that features a strong woman of color as its lead. Male and female characters have the same level of diversity in strength, skill, intelligence, and various other fields. It's the perfect show to introduce kids to this crazy idea that "Huh, maybe people who aren't like me are just as good as I am". And what's it getting for its troubles? Nickelodeon's been stuffing the show in terrible timeslots and doing little to no promotional work for it, and now that their efforts have paid off with lower ratings, they're moving it entirely to digital. In other words, they're trying to boot the show off their network so that they can get back to what really matters: more airtime for friggin' SpongeBob SquarePants.

 

The only way to fix this deplorable situation is to communicate our displeasure to the corporations who are perpetuating sexist, racist, and culturally insensitive prejudices and stereotypes. Politely and respectfully, but still firmly and forcibly. That's the only way anything's ever going to get done. It's not the politicians who have any power over this -- it's the corporations.

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I think one thing people often forget is that at least in the matoran species, there isn't actually any definable reason gender exists at all.  Obviously its there so the target of young children don't go "Is my toy a girl or a boy", and then get confused when its neither, but I've always felt that's the only reason there are separate genders in the matoran.  The primary difference between individual matoran is actually their element, and each element has its own personality traits.  This is perhaps even more sexist, as the genders are then attached to the elements that have the stereotypical female personalities.  And that sexism is there because of the market of younger boys.

 

The only storyline use for genders in matoran is actually writing up the story, as gender neutral pronouns tend to sound a little clumsy when used repeatedly in writing.

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I've got to say that I really enjoy a few of the OP's comments, particularly the one about feeling stymied by the gender rules.  It goes to show that not all young boys liked the male-skewed gender ratio.  Perhaps LEGO wasn't completely correct.

 

It isn't BIONICLE's job to be 100% equal and teach kids to be 100% nice and fair.

 
Well, it's true that fiction doesn't have to be didactic to have value, but wouldn't you agree that teaching children to be (more) "nice and fair" is a good thing?
If BIONICLE were "90% equal," could it be improved by making it 95% equal?  Would you necessarily support this increase in equality?
What if BIONICLE were 10% equal and could become 15% equal?
Under what circumstances would BIONICLE become worse as a result of more equality?
All of the above questions also apply to teaching kids to be "nice and fair."  Would you support BIONICLE if it taught kids to be mean and cruel?  What if it had no moral message?
 
What do you define as "BIONICLE's job"?  You've said what it is not, but what is it?
 

Should we have black and white Bionicle's so we don't upset any different groups?

 

(I'll pass over the obvious comment about Onua and Kopaka.)
First of all, I'm not sure where you're getting the "don't upset any different groups" thing from.  Do you believe that female characters were only included in BIONICLE because not doing so would upset girls in real life?  (And conversely, do you believe that male characters were only included so as not to upset boys?)  If not, why do you think different genders were included in BIONICLE?
Similarly, what do you think is the purpose of having racial diversity in other stories?  Do you believe different races are only included in fiction for the sake of not upsetting people?  What about diversity in gender?  Appearance?  Personality?
Second, the very matter of including different groups or characteristics (be they gender, skin color, ethnicity, eye color, or what have you) isn't really at hand here.  BIONICLE already has both men and women.  No one is asking for females to exist in the BIONICLE canon; the topic is about the amount of female and male characters.  Have I misunderstood your point in asking this rhetorical question?
 
(Incidentally, I don't necessarily believe we can measure equality, kindness, or fairness, but really I'm just kind of riffing off your "100%" statements.)
 
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I've got to say that I really enjoy a few of the OP's comments, particularly the one about feeling stymied by the gender rules.  It goes to show that not all young boys liked the male-skewed gender ratio.  Perhaps LEGO wasn't completely correct.

 

- BioGio

 

*raises hand*

 

I got into BIONICLE when I was four years old. As soon as I discovered the basic story and learned that Gali was the only girl, I thought, "Huh, that doesn't seem fair", so I decided that Lewa and Kopaka (and by extension, Wairuha) would also be female.

 

Unfortunately, as I got more involved with the novels and comics, this headcanon became harder and harder to maintain. But it was nice while it lasted. It was a time of blissful innocence and ignorance of the wider ramifications of these ridiculously skewed gender ratios. :closedeyes:

 

(Nice rebuttal to Jim, BTW.)

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I've got to say that I really enjoy a few of the OP's comments, particularly the one about feeling stymied by the gender rules.  It goes to show that not all young boys liked the male-skewed gender ratio.  Perhaps LEGO wasn't completely correct.

 

- BioGio

 

*raises hand*

 

I got into BIONICLE when I was four years old. As soon as I discovered the basic story and learned that Gali was the only girl, I thought, "Huh, that doesn't seem fair", so I decided that Lewa and Kopaka (and by extension, Wairuha) would also be female.

 

Unfortunately, as I got more involved with the novels and comics, this headcanon became harder and harder to maintain. But it was nice while it lasted. It was a time of blissful innocence and ignorance of the wider ramifications of these ridiculously skewed gender ratios. :closedeyes:

 

(Nice rebuttal to Jim, BTW.)

 

Well, I guess the real shock here is that you can't very easily stereotype people--including young boys!  (What's the deal with that?)

 

And that was emphatically not a rebuttal.  I sincerely wanted to see what he actually thinks on the matters he/I brought up.  I will read his responses (hopefully, I'll get a response to all of my questions) and do my best to talk about them further.

 

- BioGio

 

P.S.  Just looked at your post about Korra.  Can't say I totally agree:  there are other reasons for not liking LoK (but none of them relevant to the topic here).  #ATLAForLife  there are also many many more reasons for disliking the recent seasons of Spongebob

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The marketing team at the time believed their market was primarily young boys and created an unrealistic ratio based on their idea of what would or would not sell to that market. It's more a product of its time since we know that the ratio is an aritificial element of a vicious cycle that conditions boys to believe their toys should be "boy themed", and "boy-themed" toys sell better to boys as a direct result of this.

 

I'd rather see a 3:3 gender ratio and I genuinely believe the impact on sales would be practically negligible, but I doubt the marketing and development departments are willing to be the ones to take such a progressive step. It's too bad.

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The marketing team at the time believed their market was primarily young boys and created an unrealistic ratio based on their idea of what would or would not sell to that market. It's more a product of its time since we know that the ratio is an aritificial element of a vicious cycle that conditions boys to believe their toys should be "boy themed", and "boy-themed" toys sell better to boys as a direct result of this.

 

I'd rather see a 3:3 gender ratio and I genuinely believe the impact on sales would be practically negligible, but I doubt the marketing and development departments are willing to be the ones to take such a progressive step. It's too bad.

 

3:3 would be nice, but I can't see that happening.

 

Also, it seems like it's more than just Bionicle - even on superhero teams, e.g. the Avengers or the Justice League, there's usually only a couple females. Notice how a single female was added to the new Avengers movie team, but with her came two more males (well, one's technically a robot).

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A company like Lego's primary concern is selling the most toys they can.
The safe road, traditionally is to market Boys' toys to boys and Girls' toys to girls, and while they're happy to have female fans, Bionicle is marketed as a Boys' toy. They aren't concerned with being socially progressive if it's a business risk.
Lately, companies like Hasbro, Marvel and even Disney are starting to realise that being diverse and inclusive is marketable, and they're starting to show that in their stories. Marvel is planning to have a woman take over as the lead in the main Thor comic series, Ms Marvel has taken over as Captain Marvel, and DC has been advertising their redisign of Batgirl's costume which is more practical and less sexual.
Transformers: Windblade is reintroducing female transformers to the comic continuity, and is the first Transformers comic series written and drawn both by women.
They're all finding that the business risk is worth it.
 

So while Lego has been laying it safely old-fashioned for a while, hopefully they'll soon join in the trend that diversity and inclusiveness are marketable and hopefully we'll see some more balance in the future of lego themes including, if it returns, Bionicle.

In the meantime, go read Transformers: Windblade. It's great.

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A topic no one seems to have brought up: How many of the target audience even knew the official genders of the characters? Obviously many wouldn't follow the story, and there was no other indication in sets (was there?), so wouldn't it have been, at least partly, dependent on the buyer's imagination?

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I've always wanted to be a Toa of Water as a kid but because of that stupid rule I could never be.

Huh. I kinda thought there were other difficulties with us becoming Toa. :P

 

Kidding... but really, canon facts are not magical tyrant-land rules that somehow affect your own imagination. Just headcanon it differently. LEGO never intended "how it is in canon" to be "how you MUST imagine it." But no, they didn't think it through very well. Most fanfics, except those that are trying to stay closely canon-fit, tend to abandon it, or just turn it into tendencies. That's what I did in my Paracosmos fanfics and so far no magical LEGO rule enforcers have shown up. :P

 

Greg bothered himself to go back and make Hewkii x Macku non-canon

Like I said in the other topic, this is not quite right. Really, romance was never canon, and the web team did that on their own without checking. It's just that they never bothered to make it canon for the MU beings. It's basically meant to go along with their being artificial lifeforms, so they work differently than us. And Greg had little influence on major decisions like that early on, I don't think this one came from him. It was a story team decision since before it even launched, and he was just the comics writer at the time. The bulk of the concept of Bionicle was from Christian Faber and Bob Thompson, apparently. And it probably came out of the lack of any other easy way to tell genders apart except by color, since the original sets really didn't have any noticeable shape differences.

 

Anyways, hope this helps (and everybody, please remember our rules as you reply -- let's not have this go like the last one, yeah? -- that means be respectful!).

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It was done because business decisions. Why set a new standard when you can not take the risk and stick to the comfortable "make it mostly males 'cause it's considered to be a boys' line". I watched an interview with the current head of LEGO and he was talking about the LEGO Friend's line, and the gist of it was that, before, LEGO as a company was not really aware that girls actually enjoyed building LEGOs, which is why the gender ratios in earlier lines like Bionicle were so horrid and why the girls' toys that LEGO produced had little to no construction involved. It basically boils down to "older white dudes run a company, are out of touch with modern ideals" and "children are raised for the most part to believe that there are "boy things" and "girl things" and that it's shameful to cross the border in either direction and actively discouraged by some parents". It's nothing new, neither of those. Hopefully, in the future, that's gonna change. These issues are starting to come into public awareness more and more frequently.

As for the whole Caucasian/Folks of Color Bionicles thing, while it's true that you can't apply human race and skin tone to Bionicle characters, but voice acting is a good place to start ;) We already had the great Michael Dorn voice only the most important character in the Bionicle mythos; if there are future Bionicle media that require characters to be voice, expanding to non-white voice actors would be a good step in the race thing. Representation isn't always something you can see. Also, character culture and dialogue and stuff could be based loosely on more diverse places in the world; Bionicle was already based on New Zealand's Maori tribes somewhat, so it already has a good history of having a foot in the right door. I think one of the reasons a lot of people didn't like 2004 and Metru Nui was because Bionicle was originally in this environment that was new to most consumers-- a tropical island based on a culture they're not familiar with? That's new and engaging. Moving to the sprawling metropolis? Give it all the liquid chute transportation and evil spiders you want, they're still essentially the metro and rodent infestations;  whether folks realize it or not, that's probably why it felt less interesting to 'em.

More diversity in both the gender and race departments are not gonna hurt anyone, but the current lack of diversity will. That's what it boils down to. I honestly can't think of any reasons to disagree with that statement that aren't fundamentally sexist/racist or value sales figures over people :/

EDIT: Also! I get that "genders have no reason to exist in Bionicle because etc etc" but why are you blaming the fictional world? It didn't write itself, people did, and they set it up so that for one reason or another it "makes sense" for gender to be irrelevant. They just as easily could've made it relevant, and then there would be a whole consumer demographic that suddenly had way more characters that they could relate to. It's like being mad at a fictional character for killing someone if you think it was a stupid reason, instead of the writer who wrote the stupid death. Gotta remember to get some perspective ;)

Also I am not saying Bionicle was terrible 'cause of any of this or that it would be sooooo much better as a story or whatever if it were different. I REALLY LOVED IT, especially as a kid, and I still love it, it was great. But it has issues that need to be addressed and I understand 500% how these issues may have made the story and the line in general waaaayy less enjoyable for others. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few [or the one]." Try not be selfish about how you think your beloved toys should be made.

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I've always wanted to be a Toa of Water as a kid but because of that stupid rule I could never be.

Huh. I kinda thought there were other difficulties with us becoming Toa. :P

 

Kidding... but really, canon facts are not magical tyrant-land rules that somehow affect your own imagination. Just headcanon it differently. LEGO never intended "how it is in canon" to be "how you MUST imagine it." But no, they didn't think it through very well. Most fanfics, except those that are trying to stay closely canon-fit, tend to abandon it, or just turn it into tendencies. That's what I did in my Paracosmos fanfics and so far no magical LEGO rule enforcers have shown up. :P

 

Going off of Banana Gunz's profile (which states he's currently 15), he must have been at the oldest 11 when he became a fan of Bionicle and wanted to be a Toa of Water.  (Bionicle was cancelled in 2010, right?)  Since Bionicle is aimed towards children as young as 7 (and is enjoyed by even smaller kids), he could easily have been much younger.  It doesn't really do much to tell a 15-year-old to imagine Matoran's gender differently; his problem is in the past.  In other words, the advice here is useless, because it's years too late and directed at the wrong person.

 

And it's not really the TFOLs and AFOLs who are affected by these "magical tyrant-land rules."  Certainly now you and I know better than to take all of Bionicle canon literally, but plenty of children will do so nonetheless.  LEGO's intent (which of course isn't really the matter at hand when discussing the success of a work of fiction--link semi-facetious) has little bearing over this, as kids aren't always going to know that intent and may easily misinterpret it. Some kids take the rules of fantasy-land very seriously, and it really doesn't make much sense to say that they're somehow wrong for doing so.  I know when I was little, I'd get mad at my playmates when they "broke the rules."  As far as I was concerned, we couldn't play superheroes if they were going to make-believe that Superman had random new powers, or if they changed something about Spider-Man's backstory.  That's how some kids play, and I'd think a well-established company like LEGO would know that much.  Some kids will want to follow the "rules" LEGO sets out, even if they dislike them.  OP wasn't somehow wrong or misguided (or, based on the tone of your "magical LEGO rule enforcers" comment, somewhat paranoid) for playing a certain way.

 

Anyway, I think that the most important line from the original post wasn't about Banana's wanting to be a Toa of Water.  It's where he says "It's especially hard on girls because they have such a limited amount of elements to choose from!"  Children see Bionicle as saying that girls can be Matoran of Water, and that's it.  (Later years, of course, added Av-Matoran and Ce-Matoran, as well as a few minor characters like Roodaka, but 2001 Bionicle still restricted females to only the Water element.)  Girls only had Nokama, Gali, and a few villagers to identify with (and, by extension, to role-play as).  I think that's also the thrust of Pomegranate's excellent use of the Spock quote.

 

EDIT:  I nearly forget to ask you what you meant by "they didn't think it through very well."  I'm not sure what you were referring to here.  There were several unintended consequences that came from the gender ratios (e.g., kids taking them too literally, the story imparting some "kind sexist" messages as a result, etc.).

 

Anyways, hope this helps (and everybody, please remember our rules as you reply -- let's not have this go like the last one, yeah? -- that means be respectful!).

 I'm not sure exactly what you meant by this parenthetical comment.  What "last one" are you referring to?  (I may have just not been around for that thread; I took a break from BZP for some time.  Do you mean the brief discussion in the thread about Bionicle's rumored return?)  Why exactly did you bring up the "last one"?  Got some clarification.

Why was it necessary to remind people of the rules?  I assume that there have been no posts that clearly violate the rules thus far, or else they would have been deleted.  Have there been posts bordering on rule-violations (including any potentially or somewhat disrespectful comments) in the thread already?  (If the thread hasn't yet descended into near-rule-breaking, was this comment a matter of prudence based on how the "last one" turned out?)

 

- BioGio

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As female Bionicle characters rarely act any differently to male ones, I'd ask why they bothered to have the concept of sex at all. I imagine that's because it would be difficult to find the correct pronoun without calling every character 'it'. Then the characters would seem like robots and the story would be far less compelling.

But yes, it's a matter of marketing. I imagine marketing folks think kids are more likely to be interested in characters of their own gender as they can relate to them. As Bionicle was marketed primarily at boys, the characters are mainly boys. A less progressive company would have made them all male. If you don't like this, then your problem is with gender-specific 'pink vs blue' marketing and not Bionicle alone.

Random brain-dump: The 6 primary characters in the opposite epitome of gender specific toylines, My Little Pony, are all female. Yet, nobody calls this sexist, rather it is celebrated. Not saying either position is 'correct', just pointing out the double standard in the interest of perspective.
 

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As female Bionicle characters rarely act any differently to male ones, I'd ask why they bothered to have the concept of sex at all. I imagine that's because it would be difficult to find the correct pronoun without calling every character 'it'. Then the characters would seem like robots and the story would be far less compelling.

 

But yes, it's a matter of marketing. I imagine marketing folks think kids are more likely to be interested in characters of their own gender as they can relate to them. As Bionicle was marketed primarily at boys, the characters are mainly boys. A less progressive company would have made them all male. If you don't like this, then your problem is with gender-specific 'pink vs blue' marketing and not Bionicle alone.

 

Random brain-dump: The 6 primary characters in the opposite epitome of gender specific toylines, My Little Pony, are all female. Yet, nobody calls this sexist, rather it is celebrated. Not saying either position is 'correct', just pointing out the double standard in the interest of perspective.

 

 

The female characters actually tend to fall into a small range of female character archetypes, a majority of them being focused on being gentler than male characters.

 

bionicle is hardly gender specific. it's marketed towards boys, yes, but that's only because people assume anything that isn't covered in pastel colors is meant for boys, hence people assuming LEGO in general is a boy's toy. things are marketed to boys so often, in fact, that the effect of something like MLP with an all female cast is negligible, because there is still such a disproportionate amount of things that have few female characters, if they bother having them at all. considering women are the oppressed group in this scenario, i find it odd that you immediately target one of the few things that has a primarily female cast in a world of primarily male casts to call it sexist.

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It's something that has always irked me. Even as a child before I really took equality as important as I do now, I still often wondered why there were so little females. Obviously the reason, as others have pointed out, is because the toyline is supposed to be geared toward boys, and if you're a boy you obviously must prefer your own gender and being 'manly' and 'tough', etc. etc. (insert sarcasm). Anything with girls is deemed weak by boys, because that's what our culture has made them believe.

 

I'm glad the female characters in Bionicle are, at least, strong leads and have had important roles, though.

 

Part of me doesn't really care, because I am more concerned with character rather than ones gender--but obviously at the same time, gender is important to many and how it defines them. Bionicle is diverse with elements, characters, so forth--so it's a shame LEGO never took the chance.

 

I'm getting to the point of possibly doing gender swaps with some characters in my fanon world, honestly.

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considering women are the oppressed group in this scenario, i find it odd that you immediately target one of the few things that has a primarily female cast in a world of primarily male casts to call it sexist.

I think his point was more along the lines of: if we're concerned about equality, why are shows like MLP not seen as guilty of being sexist against males, since none of the leads are male characters? Instead, a whole cast of good female characters (good in the qualitative sense not the alignment sense) is celebrated while a whole cast of male characters would be denigrated. Sexism against males is a real thing, something we spent a lot of time on in a class I took called Psych of Women and cross-listed as a Women and Gender Studies course. The point that would have been brought up by the prof in that class would have been this: "Why can't boys be taught about love and friendship and have a boy character in MLP? Why is the cast all girls in the pretty, cutesy rainbows world? In fact, why does the supposedly 'girly show' have to be cutesy and pretty?"

 

That last bit gets well off topic since it is not about Bionicle, but I think the hypothetical line of thinking shows us where Airoski may have been going with that. Don't get me wrong, I think shows focusing on a primarily female cast are a good thing and I think he point isn't quite hitting the mark being aimed for, but MLP is kinda sexist in multiple ways. Why ponies? Why all females? Are girls supposed to like ponies? Are boys supposed to not like them? You can turn these same kind of questions on Bionicle -- why robots, why mostly males, are boys supposed to like robots while girls aren't supposed to? -- but the whys keep coming back to the perception that they needed to base their marketing on these stereotypes. Though, as far as that point goes, look at how many "bronies" there are, and look at the women on this very site. Obviously assuming that you have to market to boys for a robot story or girls for a pony story is incorrect, but that's what happened. I think it is more important to take the knowledge that it did happen, look at what happened in spite of it, and say "what can we do about this? How can we become more progressive and more in line with our actual customers?"

 

Personally I'd love for the story to pick up with the same rules having been in place, but have the GB's tweak the Matoran Creation process so that new Matoran can be of either gender, and maybe have a gimmick like the EM's Element Key so that someone of existing elements can change around. True, it wouldn't help the "current generation" of Matoran/Toa/Turaga, but it would let there be a bit more flexibility if one wanted to write closer to canon rules and still have a female Toa of Fire, and I think would be a step in the right direction.

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why are shows like MLP not seen as guilty of being sexist against males, since none of the leads are male characters?

 

Spike. The character you're thinking of is Spike. Not to mention the most visible part of the MLP fandom at the moment is men in there teens/twenties and they consistently have their desires catered to, while Bionicle is still overwhelmingly seen as a Boy's Thing, so much so that some people DON'T know there are female fans.

 

Yes. ideally, there would be no shows with monogender casts, or casts heavily skewed in one direction. However, a show that tells young girls they can have any number of personality traits, and teaches them important lessons in friendship and in life, is far more progressive than yet another "boy's toy" that shoves female characters under the bus in a way only Transformers has managed to outperform.

 

Depending on how you define sexism, it's impossible to be sexist against boys, because women do not have the societal power against men to systematically oppress them. However, even barring that definition, the very fact that everyone pulls the same exact toyline when thinking of a primarily female cast when I can list several with primarily male casts off the top of my heads makes me wonder what the point of bringing it up is at all.

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What Really annoys me is the fact that Even when we have female characters they don`t really look female  ( Roodaka Excluded for obvious reasons ) Toa wise I think Nokama metru looked the most female compared to the other toa in her team due to her mask it was smooth and feminine looking(well as much as it could being a kanohi mask ) but figures like gali mystika good grief at first i though it was a male toa of some other element because it dose not look like a female at all .

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Anyways, hope this helps (and everybody, please remember our rules as you reply -- let's not have this go like the last one, yeah? -- that means be respectful!).

 

I'm not sure exactly what you meant by this parenthetical comment.  What "last one" are you referring to?  (I may have just not been around for that thread; I took a break from BZP for some time.  Do you mean the brief discussion in the thread about Bionicle's rumored return?)  Why exactly did you bring up the "last one"?

 

Why was it necessary to remind people of the rules?  I assume that there have been no posts that clearly violate the rules thus far, or else they would have been deleted.  Have there been posts bordering on rule-violations (including any potentially or somewhat disrespectful comments) in the thread already?  (If the thread hasn't yet descended into near-rule-breaking, was this comment a matter of prudence based on how the "last one" turned out?)

 

- BioGio

 

The last topic on this subject was so egregiously rule breaking that the entire thread was hidden from public view and most people who posted in it were sent harsh PMs telling them to behave. 

 

Random brain-dump: The 6 primary characters in the opposite epitome of gender specific toylines, My Little Pony, are all female. Yet, nobody calls this sexist, rather it is celebrated. Not saying either position is 'correct', just pointing out the double standard in the interest of perspective.

I notice this a good deal. Why can't the guys have their story, you know?

 

Although the classic argument against this is that there are more male-majority stories than female-majority stories, that the guys have had their story 100 times over and that the girls deserve a chance. My answer: why does it have to be this story? Why must you try to change an existing one? Why can't you write or find a new one? Bionicle is not a psychological prison. 

 

Further, I would say that there a lot more female-majority stories than people think...but anyway. Point being, this story was written for boys by a man, and frankly that's why it is like it is. Plenty of stories have been written by women for girls, but Bionicle isn't one of those. 

However, even barring that definition, the very fact that everyone pulls the same exact toyline when thinking of a primarily female cast when I can list several with primarily male casts off the top of my heads makes me wonder what the point of bringing it up is at all.
I think MLP is just what people know. People here yonderabouts don't exactly follow American Girl, Barbie, Bratz, or Lego Friends. (And yes, I know the controversy surrounding the middle two. Best not to go there.)
 
It's probably just me, but aside from Bionicle, Ninjago, Hero Factory, and Transformers, most boy toy franchises don't have stories attached to them. But what I know isn't a scientific study on yonder subject, so take it with grains of salt.
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In other words, the advice here is useless, because it's years too late and directed at the wrong person.

True, lol, but people have been advising that on here for as long as I can remember, and a lot of kids heard it. Plus, this is when the topic was posted, so it's when the replies come. :P

 

 

Some kids take the rules of fantasy-land very seriously, and it really doesn't make much sense to say that they're somehow wrong for doing so

Sure... mostly. :P (Some have seemed to take Bionicle a bit too seriously, but that's mostly not relevant here, heh.) Mistakes will be made, but the fact remains people have options, and some of those options can actually help inform LEGO that a change may be for the best -- if the feedback they often hear is "but we changed this in our version!" LEGO might realize there's a market for changing it in the canon. :)

 

That's what a lot of people did, and it seems given recent comments and changes that LEGO has been listening. Unfortunately too late for Bionicle... but to be fair, mistakes were probably bound to be made on their first real foray into roleplaying, heavily story-based lines.

 

(Also, my own experience at least was usually that if one kid wanted to change something, the others would either agree or not. If they all agreed, it would be changed. :) If not, it wouldn't. But who knows what the statistical likelihood of that actually is. In any event, it's an option. And the topic starter didn't seem to be talking about this specifically, per se.)

 

Anyways, I could have gone into all this in my original post, but didn't want it to be too long, and figured somebody else could mention it. :)

 

OP wasn't somehow wrong or misguided (or, based on the tone of your "magical LEGO rule enforcers" comment, somewhat paranoid)

(I've replied to some parts of this post by PM which were misinterpreting.) Suffice to say, the tone of that is meant to point out that indeed, LEGO doesn't have magical powers to force kids to play things the exact way they happened to imagine it. That was to the "can't" in the firstpost. :) You actually can (change things), and a lot of kids do!

 

The rest of your post that was directed at me I think we covered by PM. :) For the record, if a staff member sees the need to direct a discussion according to rules, there is no need to reply about that (although asking for clarification if you're unclear by PM can often be a good idea). Posts actually in the topic should try to stay on-topic. :)

 

Although the classic argument against this is that there are more male-majority stories than female-majority stories, that the guys have had their story 100 times over and that the girls deserve a chance. My answer: why does it have to be this story? Why must you try to change an existing one? Why can't you write or find a new one? Bionicle is not a psychological prison.

I personally wouldn't have a problem with a male-majority story per se, the part that I didn't like was the one-element-one-gender thing. I think that's what most people react to (through the years, not just recently), because that is different.

 

I understand why LEGO did it, I think -- somebody thought they should have a way to tell who was female, and there was no other way to tell than color, so somebody picked that, but they didn't realize the huge limitations it would place on future story or roleplaying. We do also have to keep in mind that they actually entered the roleplaying genre accidentally -- they said that at first they thought the audience would be more older TECHNIC fans, builders, but it didn't end up that way at all. But understanding how a mistake happened and keeping that mistake through all time are two very different things.

 

And along those lines:

 

Personally I'd love for the story to pick up with the same rules having been in place, but have the GB's tweak the Matoran Creation process so that new Matoran can be of either gender, and maybe have a gimmick like the EM's Element Key so that someone of existing elements can change around. True, it wouldn't help the "current generation" of Matoran/Toa/Turaga, but it would let there be a bit more flexibility if one wanted to write closer to canon rules and still have a female Toa of Fire, and I think would be a step in the right direction.

 

That would be nice, yeah. Greg also did recently allow for the possibility there might actually be exceptions to the rule. They could use a bit of both of that in future story. I could accept that as plausible since prior to that, they were just meant to be artificial lifeforms (and I'm not sure if Velika would have had a motive to change it -- the guy's a murderer after all, and his motives seem to be more about predicting what people will do based on expected parameters from the original design), but now (esp. with Angonce involved) they could actually change it, as they're finding out that normal beings aren't like that.

Edited by bonesiii
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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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Most likely because it was a toy line aimed at young boys and conventional wisdom at the time dictated that young boys didn't like girls.

 

Honestly I'm hoping that if there's a reboot like the recent rumors suggest, that they do away with the single gender per element rule. Even as a kid I though it was weird and arbitrary.

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Last time I got into this I was deemed "sexist" so I'm going to keep this short: Bionicle is not sexist. It teaches that you should not discriminate based on intelligence or gender. Many female characters have saved the males. I don't know why this subject has been so popular as far back as 2001.

What Really annoys me is the fact that Even when we have female characters they don`t really look female ( Roodaka Excluded for obvious reasons ) Toa wise I think Nokama metru looked the most female compared to the other toa in her team due to her mask it was smooth and feminine looking(well as much as it could being a kanohi mask ) but figures like gali mystika good grief at first i though it was a male toa of some other element because it dose not look like a female at all .

They're cyborgs -_-
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Bionicle is not sexist.

 

subjective opinion, though in the face of the evidence provided it's hard to uphold

 

It teaches that you should not discriminate based on intelligence or gender.

 

In regards to gender: rarely, often ham-fistedly, and falls flat with a universe that is canonically a sausage fest.

 

Many female characters have saved the males.

 

Many characters have saved each other in general. i'd be willing to bet, statistically, a majority of saving has been male characters saving male characters, simply because the universe is full of them and they get the most screen time.

 

I don't know why this subject has been so popular as far back as 2001.

 

Probably because people have had the same concerns since then.

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Depending on how you define sexism, it's impossible to be sexist against boys, because women do not have the societal power against men to systematically oppress them.

Not entirely true, but still quite accurate at this point in time. And that is only if you are very narrowly defining sexism as being a systematic prejudice. One should still account for the more personal levels of these things, in which it is very possible to be sexist against both men and women. Even on a cultural level it is possible: as sexist views do not only crop up in systemic oppression of the opposite gender, but also in more benevolent forms (yes, benevolent sexism is a thing: think about all the ways we are told "a gentleman should treat a lady"), and even in men (and women) coercing other men to conform to their views about how men should act (generally coming out of the "macho man" mentality from my experience). There are many aspects to the personal and cultural levels of sexism, which is why it is so very complicated and why it regularly brings out the fire in people's arguments (note: I'm feeling happy right now about the discussion I've seen =D ).

 

However, even barring that definition, the very fact that everyone pulls the same exact toyline when thinking of a primarily female cast when I can list several with primarily male casts off the top of my heads makes me wonder what the point of bringing it up is at all.

Because it is one of the most visible of such things, and is the least likely to drag into a whole other kind of controversy (see Fishers comment about Barbie and Bratz).
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In today's society, where the mention of words "sex" or "race" are grounds for automatically being deemed "sexist" or "racist", people tend to forget what the words really mean. Discrimination against that group is sexist/racist. Prejudice against that group is sexist/racist. The magic word is always "sex" or "race". And really, what do you expect? 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? Bionicle in and of itself teaches that you should NOT discriminate. I am content with how Bionicle is. This is a very trickey subject to get into without getting into politics, society, ect. Saying that Bionicle is not sexist doesn't make me sexist. My point is stereotype: not sexist. Discriminating based on that stereotype: sexist.

It isn't BIONICLE's job to be 100% equal and teach kids to be 100% nice and fair.

Should we have black and white Bionicle's so we don't upset any different groups?

Should we have Bionicle's with brown eyes because we don't want to upset people with brown eyes?

 

The problem is true "equality" will never be achieved, but I see your point.

The reason Ga-Matoran are one gender I do not know, but it makes things a bit easier to understand. Yes, Bionicle is stereotypical, but that comes along with a toyline. It makes things easier to understand. "Oh, Gresh is a green one so that means he is an adventurous type." 

Sexism and prejudice and segregation exist everywhere if we take enough time to look at it.

 

The GBs based the Matoran on the organic beings in Spherus Magna I believe, which is also the reason why "romantic relationships" could happen. I suppose the genders work a similar way.

 

^^^Warning, 100% opinion here^^^

For real. With anything you are bound to have someone pull the sex or race card.
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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?

Edited by Octodad
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As female Bionicle characters rarely act any differently to male ones, I'd ask why they bothered to have the concept of sex at all. I imagine that's because it would be difficult to find the correct pronoun without calling every character 'it'. Then the characters would seem like robots and the story would be far less compelling.

 

But yes, it's a matter of marketing. I imagine marketing folks think kids are more likely to be interested in characters of their own gender as they can relate to them. As Bionicle was marketed primarily at boys, the characters are mainly boys. A less progressive company would have made them all male. If you don't like this, then your problem is with gender-specific 'pink vs blue' marketing and not Bionicle alone.

 

Random brain-dump: The 6 primary characters in the opposite epitome of gender specific toylines, My Little Pony, are all female. Yet, nobody calls this sexist, rather it is celebrated. Not saying either position is 'correct', just pointing out the double standard in the interest of perspective.

 

 

The female characters actually tend to fall into a small range of female character archetypes, a majority of them being focused on being gentler than male characters.

 

bionicle is hardly gender specific. it's marketed towards boys, yes, but that's only because people assume anything that isn't covered in pastel colors is meant for boys, hence people assuming LEGO in general is a boy's toy. things are marketed to boys so often, in fact, that the effect of something like MLP with an all female cast is negligible, because there is still such a disproportionate amount of things that have few female characters, if they bother having them at all. considering women are the oppressed group in this scenario, i find it odd that you immediately target one of the few things that has a primarily female cast in a world of primarily male casts to call it sexist.

 

 

I'd say MLP is far more sexist than Bionicle. The females in Bionicle, while admittedly fewer in number, were shown to be just as capable as the male characters. In Ga-Metru the Ga-Matoran were primarily scientists or lab workers and had a scholarly culture, so arguably one could reason that they were superior in intellect to their male counterparts. In contrast, the very few males in MLP are shown to be dumb land workers, or else love interests with no proper character. Don't get me started on Spike's recent abuse! I'm not saying there aren't exceptions (Shining Armour), but to go into more detail would be to go further off-topic!

 

Depending on how you define sexism, it's impossible to be sexist against boys, because women do not have the societal power against men to systematically oppress them. However, even barring that definition, the very fact that everyone pulls the same exact toyline when thinking of a primarily female cast when I can list several with primarily male casts off the top of my heads makes me wonder what the point of bringing it up is at all.

 

I don’t understand your point. Whether or not one sex ‘oppresses’ another in the real world doesn’t change how sexist a fictional story may or may not be. If a work of fiction portrayed females as being superior to males, that story could be regarded as having a degree of sexism towards men, and vice-versa towards women. Regardless of what goes on in the real world, that would be the attitude of the story. Perhaps I’m adamant about this because I prefer to take an approach more akin to ‘death of the author’ when deconstructing media, where context outside of the text is ignored. If you want to analyse Bionicle’s impact on the real world, that may be a different matter.

 

Most likely because it was a toy line aimed at young boys and conventional wisdom at the time dictated that young boys didn't like girls.

 

Honestly I'm hoping that if there's a reboot like the recent rumors suggest, that they do away with the single gender per element rule. Even as a kid I though it was weird and arbitrary.

 

Yeah, I always thought it was weird. I went to a school where most students were female (it used to be a girls school and had just began accepting boys as I joined), so my kid-brain found it very strange that in Bionicle, most of the characters were male. I'd be interested to see the results of a 'boys' toyline that started having more female characters, and see what effect it would really have on sales. A reboot of Bionicle would provide a good opportunity for this, but alas, I can't see it happening.

 

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.

 

Sure, there were a few stereotypes amongst the female characters, but if you are going to convince me this stems from an underlying sexism you will have to show that they didn’t treat many male characters like this too. The 5 male types of Matoran were mainly stereotypes (we are strong Po-Matoran who can kick ROCKS! The cold logical Ko-Matoran archetype may also fall under this category).

 

If anything, the female characters were handled more carefully, leading to some stories to hardly differentiate their behaviour from males at all. This isn’t how I’d write them, as it fails to appreciate all the things that makes the female sex awesome, but I think it shows that the writers were somewhat fearful of including any stereotypes and took steps to try and prevent this from happening.

 

In today's society, where the mention of words "sex" or "race" are grounds for automatically being deemed "sexist" or "racist", people tend to forget what the words really mean. Discrimination against that group is sexist/racist. Prejudice against that group is sexist/racist. The magic word is always "sex" or "race". And really, what do you expect? 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? Bionicle in and of itself teaches that you should NOT discriminate. I am content with how Bionicle is. This is a very trickey subject to get into without getting into politics, society, ect. Saying that Bionicle is not sexist doesn't make me sexist. My point is stereotype: not sexist. Discriminating based on that stereotype: sexist.

 

No, stereotyping can be sexist regardless of its effect on a society. If, say, all female characters were portrayed in a story to be weak, vain and obsessed with men, I would regard that as a sexist story regardless of whether they were discriminated against, or if people after reading the story discriminated against females. The fact is that story shows a prejudice against females, so could be argued to be sexist. I simply argue that Bionicle doesn’t do this all too much.

Edited by Airoski
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Sure, there were a few stereotypes amongst the female characters, but if you are going to convince me this stems from an underlying sexism you will have to show that they didn’t treat many male characters like this too. The 5 male types of Matoran were mainly stereotypes (we are strong Po-Matoran who can kick ROCKS! The cold logical Ko-Matoran archetype may also fall under this category).

 

Sure, I can prove it: in year one we saw five different types of male characters, and one type of female character. You can argue this was a result of the draconian gender ratios (which were in and of themselves highly suspect) but the point is we had as much as six (including Takua) character archetypes for male characters, but ONE for female characters.

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Let's all remember to calm down guys, we are simply discussing a topic, and should all respect each other and their views. It hasn't gotten so far yet but I'm a little worried it will.

 

Now lemme put something out here: You're only sexist if you mean to be. You can say something that can be seen by some as sexist but unless you truly believe and feel some sort of prejudice or act against the other gender group, you're not sexist.

 

Let's not start calling each other sexist here because some of our views might be different from someone else's.

 

 

The way I see it, this gender-per-element distribution is being oppressive to boys and girls (boys can't be certain elements, girls can't be certain elements), so Bionicle isn't completely sexist in my opinion, the part that should be considered sexist is that females in Bionicle have been given a smaller population and count than males. The sexist portion is partly a result of the first part, though the females could have been given more elements to solve this, but this sexist problem wouldn't have existed in the first place if all matoran of any element could be either gender. These rules/canonical elements have simply put up restrictions that are very silly and frustrating to many, and it would really just make things a lot easier if it were changed, and it wouldn't affect the story much at all.

 

Females in Bionicle have not been portrayed in a sexist view though. Anything else deemed sexist towards females in Bionicle is because of their smaller poluation. The female characters in Bionicle have been portrayed as strong individuals. If you fix the gender-per-element problem, you fix almost everything, and any problems left will simply because LEGO would be unwilling to put more females in a toa team or make one the leader of a team.

 

If you fix the gender-per-element idiocy, you basically would solve almost all problems that could make some view Bionicle as 'sexist'.

 

 

It really makes the individual happy (DONT CRUSH MAH DREEMS OF A BEIN A TOA OF WATER BONESII  :D *just kidding* ) because they can 'be' any toa they want to be (when I say 'be', remember, most people like to role play or pretend to be a character, the case with me being a male toa of water) and it makes those concerned with Bionicle being sexist happy (or at least satisfied). Fixing the gender-per-element idiocy solves a lot of problems, isn't really difficult and just makes everything better, so why not?

 

TIDAL WAVE POWERZ ACTIVATEZ!!!!!! FWWOOOOOOOOOSH!!!  :smilegalinu:  :evilbiggrin: (sorry I just learned how many emoticons there really are!)

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Now lemme put something out here: You're only sexist if you mean to be. 

 

 

I don't really have the time right now to get into everything else (and not entirely well enough), but I would like to say that this statement isn't true. Anyone can be sexist, on purpose or not, if they do something that is sexist (like discriminating against women, for example ascribing an often stereotyped personality to women as a whole -- regardless of intent, is sexist). One doesn't have to create intended harm to create that harm regardless and will likely be called harmful for causing that harm, again if it's intended or not

 

And Bionicle has a lot of unintended sexism, but it's still there since it's treating female characters differently than how male characters are treated (like, confined to one village at the start, only 1 out of 6 in teams released, most female characters share same/similar personalities, etc... Like, I doubt whoever came up with those ideas was all "let's malign female fans" but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, or change the nature of those decisions). 

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

 

I don't think anyone here is saying that you need to be? I think that the people who are posting here regarding their opinion that the canon system of gender isn't necessarily hugely sexist are doing so to explain why they believe that. Obviously, because they are presenting facts, they are forming an argument. And by the nature of arguments, it is meant to persuade you that their opinion is correct or valid, but I don't think that anyone here is saying that you must agree with them?

 

If anyone here has given off the attitude that you NEED to think that Bionicle was never sexist, I believe they would be more than willing to apologize, since as far as I can tell that isn't what they are aiming to do...

 

 

I'd say MLP is far more sexist than Bionicle. The females in Bionicle, while admittedly fewer in number, were shown to be just as capable as the male characters. In Ga-Metru the Ga-Matoran were primarily scientists or lab workers and had a scholarly culture, so arguably one could reason that they were superior in intellect to their male counterparts. In contrast, the very few males in MLP are shown to be dumb land workers, or else love interests with no proper character. Don't get me started on Spike's recent abuse! I'm not saying there aren't exceptions (Shining Armour), but to go into more detail would be to go further off-topic.

 

As a fan of MLP, I have to agree with you on this one.

 

Bionicle did a great job later on in its writing to make their female characters much more dynamic than many male characters that have appeared in "Girl-Shows". Even compared to many female characters in "Boys-Shows", the women of Bionicle are fairly diverse despite not being as prevalent as the male characters.

 

 

Octodad, on 29 Jul 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

"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."

 

Which race are you referring to? I would assume the Makuta, but we have seen that not only are some Makuta "good-guys", but also that there is a legitimate reason why the "bad ones" are bad.

 

Teridax convinced them to betray Mata-Nui, they weren't all created as traitors and murderers, and not everyone in the Brotherhood even agreed with Teridax's plan. There were both loyal and "good" Makuta just as their were "bad" Makuta who chose to be so. I don't think they were written as "an evil race". We were given reasons for their evil, and examples of goodness within their race even after they chose to betray Mata-Nui (Krika).

 

If you meant the Skakdi, I suppose that would be getting closer, but even then it has been stated that the Skakdi were relatively peaceful and normal until they were given incredible power and became more and more violent.

 

In that case I would say that if "absolute power corrupts absolutely", then great power suddenly thrust upon an entire race of people can corrupt greatly.

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Sure, there were a few stereotypes amongst the female characters, but if you are going to convince me this stems from an underlying sexism you will have to show that they didn’t treat many male characters like this too. The 5 male types of Matoran were mainly stereotypes (we are strong Po-Matoran who can kick ROCKS! The cold logical Ko-Matoran archetype may also fall under this category).

 

Sure, I can prove it: in year one we saw five different types of male characters, and one type of female character. You can argue this was a result of the draconian gender ratios (which were in and of themselves highly suspect) but the point is we had as much as six (including Takua) character archetypes for male characters, but ONE for female characters.

 

Right, there was just one female 'type', the Ga-Matoran. Whether or not this unequal represenation is 'sexist' is debatable, and I can understand how it could be regarded as such.

 

But there wasn't just one archetype. It seems like you're saying that all the Ga-Matoran/Turaga/Toa were all essentially the same character, a stereotype. This just isn't true. Just talking about character and not appearance, could you tell apart Gahli, Nokama, Hahli and Macku? Of course you could, that's what makes the story good.

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Now lemme put something out here: You're only sexist if you mean to be. 

 

 

I don't really have the time right now to get into everything else (and not entirely well enough), but I would like to say that this statement isn't true. Anyone can be sexist, on purpose or not, if they do something that is sexist (like discriminating against women, for example ascribing an often stereotyped personality to women as a whole -- regardless of intent, is sexist). One doesn't have to create intended harm to create that harm regardless and will likely be called harmful for causing that harm, again if it's intended or not

 

And Bionicle has a lot of unintended sexism, but it's still there since it's treating female characters differently than how male characters are treated (like, confined to one village at the start, only 1 out of 6 in teams released, most female characters share same/similar personalities, etc... Like, I doubt whoever came up with those ideas was all "let's malign female fans" but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, or change the nature of those decisions). 

 

To your first paragraph: You can take a picture with a camera but that doesn't mean you're a photographer. If you intend to act racist or sexist, you are (in my book). If you say something that can controversial or simply seen as racist or sexist, it doesn't necessarily mean you are sexist or racist.

 

There are not pleasant things about every culture or either gender, saying or pointing it out doesn't make you sexist or racist, pointing it out specifically to portray them negatively or in a bad way does.

 

 

And I also thought I would use the Glatorian era as an example of how fixing the broken gender-per-element distribution would be extremely positive. During the Glatorian era, agori from the same tribe could be any gender, and no one complained about them being sexist. The only part that one can consider sexist is the fact that LEGO chose to make one female glatorian in the entire era. They could've easily chosen to make more but that was a decision that they made and could've been prevented. If they had added more female glatorian into the bunch, there would've been absolutely no complaints from me involving sexism.

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A lot of people criticize BIONICLE as having only two types of female characters: nice, gentle ones and malicious, powerful ones, a blatantly untrue claim, and also one that creates a false dichotomy and implies that the two have to be mutually exclusive, and also one that misses the nuance of the characterization of many characters.

 

A lot of characters in BIONICLE's first years were based on tropes, specifically the Toa Mata. And here's the thing: apparently it's sexist that a female was chosen for the Water element, one that was gentle and the peacemaker of the group. What, is it sexist to have a gentle female character? Not to mention that that ignores the fact that Onua and Kopaka were both far calmer than Gali. If Gali had been a gentle Toa of Earth, would that still be sexist? Within the story, Gali was never trated differently from the other Toa, Heck, she's the only Toa in story to do a Nova blast. 

 

I think people took the archetypes too literally anyways. In the first years, the only ones who fit their elements to a tee were the Toa. For example, just look at Ko-Matoran. Ehyre, Matoro, Kopeke, none of them really were the typical "cold, aloof" type of character. Similarly. female Matoran of the "Water" element didn't really fit it to a tee either; Vhisola, Idris, Hahli, etc.

 

Anyways, it was made clear in the story later on that being from the Water element has no bearing on your personality. In Ga-Metru and Ga-Koro it was a cultural thing that the females were taught to be gentle, and that didn't suddenly makes them all clones of each other. Gali is not Nokama, who isn't Hahli, etc. More so, we got characters like Dalu and Helryx to show that it wasn't a universal thing. Dalu had the same values as someone like Hahi, but certainly wasn't like her, and she even confronted her about this directly in Power Play. I don't know, I find it kind of sexist that people lock onto something like this while ignoring the male side of the equation. In truth, there really wasn't much difference between the genders in-story by the end, as others pointed out. Not the best solution, but in the end no special treatment was given to either gender. If anything, BIONICLE deserves credit for breaking away from having a stereotypical male lead. Matoro, the lead for two whole years, was an insecure, introverted, gentle guy who was never much of a fighter, etc. 

 

In the end, it all comes down to the gender ratios, and that was a foolish decision LEGO made, and there were visible attempts by the story team and Greg to counteract that, using characters that didn't have sets. Maybe if BIONICLE came back it could be fixed, since it's one of the few legitimate criticisms on this subject. 

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toakopaka.png
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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