Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 118

114 _Po£u|ar_CuUu^^ and games preserve aspects of traditional culture and cultural identity {ibid., 27). Aliens, Evil, and Warfare: The Decade of the 80's Beginning in the mid-1980's, we observed and participated in the play of boys aged 7 to 12 in a variety of contexts. These children became inunersed in the TV series Transformers. Most boys purchased Transformer action figures and carried them around, establishing a playfield anywhere--in a supermarket, at church, or in a doctor's waiting room. Transformers involved shiny, machine-like figures originally developed in Japan. These had more than one mode. A humanoid robot could, with dextrous manipulation, change into a powerful machine, such as a jet. Some were "triple-changers." Transformers appealed to boys for a number of reasons: their futuristic appearance and technological sophistication; the expertise required to transform them-which boys learned fast, but adults rarely acquired; and their power compared to ordinary humans. Good and evil never overlapped in the Transformer world. Each figure had its counterpart in a parallel world. Battles involved extensive firepower and destruction. The outcome of each combat episode was predetermined, based on the unalterable collective power of the capacities of members of each robot team. Transformers reinforced stereotypical gender roles. Physical power was masculine. Three light-colored female Transformers eventually appeared for sale. Nurturing but with little power, they never caught on with either boys or girls and were sometimes offered free with the purchase of a male figure. Humans were essentially powerless in the face a continual battle between good and evil, featured on the television show as small figures running and screaming before the great battling machines approaching earth. Only one boy, a computer "geek," was ever able to influence a battle. At first. Transformers were primarily egalitarian—similar in size and price, except for the large, expensive leader, Megatron. An elaborate gradation in size was introduced. Children who could afford the bigger, more powerful Transformers automatically won engagements with nK>re indigent opponents.