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Spark: Gendered Robots

Posted by xJane on August 21st, 2008 at 7:02 pm · 6 Comments

I haven’t yet seen WALL•E, but here is an article I found interesting discussing the genders of the two main robots. It is an interesting discussion of the perceived genders we apply to the characters based on our cultural assumptions. It is also interesting, however, how we can work beyond them.

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Tags: Art · Fantasy · Feminism · Fiction · Gay Rights and Queer Issues · Gender · Links · Media and Design · Movie Reviews · Movies/Hollywood · Musings · Pop Culture · Sexuality · Spark

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Sean // Aug 21, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    A discussion complete with indignant comments defending the two sexless robots’ gender.

    But the article is awesome!

  • 2 Dave // Aug 22, 2008 at 8:47 am

    The article is meaningless. It has no basis at all.
    People thing WALL-E is male because in the trailer they refer to him as “he”. The article is interesting, but using WALL-E as an example is a massive stretch. I’m guessing that none of this ever entered the developers minds as Disney

  • 3 xJane // Aug 22, 2008 at 10:29 am

    possibly not, but that’s the point: what is it about WALL•E that made his creators conceive of him as a he?

  • 4 Dave // Aug 22, 2008 at 10:53 am

    I think its the other way around. It was ‘He’ and ‘She’ – then they made them robots.

  • 5 wren // Aug 24, 2008 at 7:22 am

    The premise behind the post was interesting but the blogger lost me with their seeming insistence that Disney and Pixar are really trying to defy gender assumptions.

    People see and hear things through their own paradigm. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with assuming gender or applying it to one’s own paradigm.

    When I listen to Erasure or The Ditty Bops they may well be singing of gay and lesbian relationships. Nonetheless the lyrics resonate and I can apply them to my hetero relationships. The same can be said of my gay friends listening to Celine Dion or Garth Brooks. I doubt the artists care as long as people can relate and therefore buy their music. I imagine the same can be said of movie makers.

    In my paradigm, the dominant message of Wall*E was holding up a mirror to the appalling excess, greed, waste, and slothfulness of humans. For others, the environmental message was secondary, if it was on their radar at all.

    I bought a $10 ticket to see it, that’s the bottom line for Pixar.

  • 6 xJane // Aug 24, 2008 at 7:36 am

    I’m with you, wren, I don’t think they set out to make a gender-bending film. I do think that their ability to make inanimate objects seem gendered to the audience, regardless of the genders, is an interesting commentary on society in general.

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