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