Paul Dini: Superhero Cartoon Producers don't want girl viewers
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
The ones in Beast Wars probably do.
Yeah, it's irrationally narrow-minded. "We're not appealing to the one group we want to sell products to, so we'll cancel the show." Even though they clearly were appealing to other audiences -- so why not just get new sponsors that wanted those audiences? They were succeeding, but not in the specific way they wanted, so they counted it as a failure? That makes no sense.
You must not read fan fiction...
Well, that and the other characters referring to 'him' as 'he'.
Actually all human embryos start out anatomically female, and only develop male attributes when exposed to hormonal triggers in the womb. So if anything, female is more the default state.
And male bodies get things "added" to them as well during puberty. In addition to the obvious changes in the genitalia, they gain greater height and muscle mass, a stronger jawline, extra body hair, in many cases a tendency toward more abdominal fat, etc. That's no more "neutral" than the female form. The closest thing there is to a neutral human shape would be that of a preadolescent.
And a feminine Optimus Prime would properly be Optima Prime.
And male bodies get things "added" to them as well during puberty. In addition to the obvious changes in the genitalia, they gain greater height and muscle mass, a stronger jawline, extra body hair, in many cases a tendency toward more abdominal fat, etc. That's no more "neutral" than the female form. The closest thing there is to a neutral human shape would be that of a preadolescent.
And a feminine Optimus Prime would properly be Optima Prime.
My three year old niece is obsessed with Superman and Disney Princesses.
We are trying to fix this by exposing her to Batman.
We are trying to fix this by exposing her to Batman.
I really have to wonder if some of these execs just never outgrew the "girls have cooties" phase or something. Why on Earth would you actively try to close your product off from more than half of a potential market? Aren't these f***ing guys at least supposed to be motivated by the soulless quest for cash or something?
I was going to start making lame jokes about splicing in frog genes and "nature finds a way", but I'll limit it to this:
Maybe you should introduce that point into discussions of Themyscira in the Wonder Woman thread.
Optima Princess?
^Only if Disney's marketing people got their hands on her.
Well, that's kind of related to my point about robots not having penises. I'd submit that many aren't dramatically different from preadolescents. I really don't think it matters either way. There's no reason why a robot couldn't be female. It's only weird/strange if you fetishized it, but there's no reason one has to.
It's not just cartoons and adults/girls where TV execs seem to have a problem.
Both "Boston Legal" and "Harry's Law" were cancelled despite critical acclaim, several emmy awards and good ratings, simply because the audience was "too old".
David E. Kelley had to fight to get a short fifth season for BL, where he addressed the problem in the episode "Juiced".
There, he had Betty White and David Larroquette sue TV networks for not creating programs for people over 50.
Indeed, and that's basically my point. Fictional robots aren't male because it's somehow "neutral," but because the creators of the fiction (and sometimes their creators in-story) choose to give them a gendered identity.
So it's a double standard to call it strange when a Transformer is female but normal for one to have a male identity. They're both equally strange, or equally okay; but either way, neither one is a neutral choice.
I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my mind around the way TV execs think. I know the main 18-49 demo is important for network shows, but you would think they would just be happy that people are watching their shows.
But according to Michael Bay they do have testicles.
But their thinking is that a different show in the same time slot might be better at drawing the demographic they want. For them it's not just about an individual show, it's about whether that show is contributing enough to the overall schedule, and whether they think a different show could do better.
Although it does have a lot to do with how they define the goals of the network overall. Unfortunately, the CN executives apparently believe that goal is to sell toys to young boys as efficiently as possible, rather than having broad appeal and critical acclaim. Granted, I've heard a lot of critical praise of some of their shows like Adventure Time (though I could never get into that), so there's still room for good shows, but only if they're aimed at young male viewers. Which is why CN has become such a hostile environment for shows that we older types enjoy.
But why would anyone add boobies to a robot?
In the cartoon the origin of the autobots' started as a line of manufactured consumers goods.
^Which cartoon? There have been so many Transformers continuities.
G1.
