[Media Literacy Moment in ResetEra] "Astro – A GOTY Winning Non-Binary Icon" Or Using Facts and Science to prove that robots aren't s*x-less and gender-less, but rather my specific deviant sexuality

OP's POOOOOST

Upfront, let's get one thing out of the way quickly. Yes, I am aware that Astro is referred to using masculine pronouns in official materials. Someone or something can be an icon to a group whether or not they're part of it. You're probably well aware that Judy Garland was an icon to gay men and you're also probably well aware that Judy Garland wasn't a gay man.

Now, if you were coming into this thread to tell me 'well actually on the press release it says…' or if the suggestion that Astro is non-binary made you feel any discomfort or annoyance, I want you to keep that reaction in mind as we explore further, because I think there's something important to unpick there.

There's a popular way of analyzing art broadly referred to as 'the artist is dead'. You're likely familiar with it, but incase you aren't I will briefly explain it. Art should be able to be appreciated by itself. As such we shouldn't need to know what the artist intended their art to convey. Pretend that the artist died before they could talk about the work, and approach it from that perspective.

It was the intent when making Alien, that eggs were made from captured victims. There was a scene in the script where Dallas is found half turned into an egg, so they were designed with this in mind. That scene was filmed. Now, it didn't make the final cut… and when a different creative team came in to make Aliens, they completely changed the life cycle of the aliens from what was intended by the people who made Alien and who designed the creatures. The alien queen wouldn't exist if the creators of Aliens hadn't approached Alien from a perspective that 'the artist is dead'. Personally I think culture would be worse off without the fight between the alien queen and Ripley in the power loader and…

Astro Bot. This is about Astro Bot. Sorry.

Lets put aside everything other than what we know about Astro from within the fiction. Put aside things outside the fiction like tutorials, menus, credits, product descriptions, press releases etc.

Ignore your instinctual revulsion that his fictional character, a robot, is referred to with masculine pronouns, and remember that that the best media criticism is that which completely ignores anything to come to the conclusion I like . So we'll begin with ignoring all the fictional references to the character and the non-fictional representations of the fictional character... A healthy place for grounded media analysis.

Astro. Astro is a robot. There's no reason to presume that Astro's people reproduce sexually. Certainly no reason to presume that you need a boy robot and a girl robot to do some electric love in order to make baby robots, and that all of those baby robots should be a boy one or a girl one.

When we look at Astro, there aren't any obvious human gender characteristics. While some of Astros friends dress in male or female costumes, (and we'll get to that!) their bodies are uniform.

See?

So what do we have in Astro's case. Well Astro has some blue highlights the other bots don't. Blue=boy! I mean, it doesn't obviously. You could argue that it suggests that, but doesn't it seem like a bit of a stretch? If you aren't looking for reasons to put a robot into a gender binary would you find that compelling?

Given how little evidence we have that Astro has any physical characteristics suggesting male or female, the next thing we generally reach for would be to see whether or not Astro has any expression of gender. And… well Astro wears a cape and its blue!. Blue=BOYx2 QED!.

Again… that's it. Astro's expressions of identity demonstrate aren't stereotypically male or female, instead showing compassion and bravery and joy at belonging to a community. And what a community!

Astro's friends seem about evenly split between those that express a sense of gender and those that (like Astro) don't. I'm not sure if one group is bigger than the other, but certainly the plurality of robots express androgyny when compared to the groups that express masculinity and the group that express femininity.

Astro treats everyone equally, of course. Whether the bots belong to either of the minorities that express a male or female identity, they are still accepted. The fiction doesn't give me anything to suggest if these identities are chosen, or pre programmed from the moment they come online. Personally I believe they're chosen. That the wigs and costume items (and any custom gear or programming) are built by the robots as they choose to express their truths.

Even if androgyny isn't the default out of the box configuration, it remains the most common one.

And so I default to seeing Astro and a good chunk of the other robots as non-binary.

I think it's telling that we as humans tend to default to male pronouns when presented with a robot or alien race that doesn't have a gender binary. The Sontarans in Doctor Who for example. They're a clone race. One single gender. There are countless other examples I'm sure you can bring to mind.

Even when presented with a culture of robots where a plurality (if not a majority… I'm not going to do the math) present androgynously and only minorities present as masculine or feminine, why do we default to thinking Astro is a boy?

If you're one of the people who felt compelled to come in here and point to the 'fact' that Astro is referred to with he/him pronouns outside of the fiction, or who find an endeavor such as writing an essay on the gender identity of a robot in a video game annoying or frustrating, I really want you to try to reflect on why that upsets you. There are no genitals to check. No pronouns to ask for. No DNA test you can do. No gametes to measure. Because Astro is a robot.

If someone non-binary looks at all that and concludes that Astro is a non-binary icon, since they have an androgynous expression in a culture clearly accepting of masculine, feminine and androgynous gender expressions, and that has some value to them, what in any of that is cause for discomfort?

You can insert a computer code pun here if you want, I won't get offended. And thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

That's a lot of words to suggest that s*x-less robots, literal non-humans somehow also have the this guy's uniquely human concept of gender and gender expression... because they just do okay. How do the ERA philosophers react?

OP replies with

How does this make sense? Don't question it bigot

You didn't think about it because it's a game about being a cute robot thing and platforming and being a celebration of the Playstation Brand. Love how he calls it a fact at the end to validate the delusions

One person lets it slip that gender identity, especially NB, is a costume

Most reset-era tier replies. "I didn't play the game because I don't play games" & "TLDR, but I liked your title"

ANNNNND that's it. Thank you for coming to

where all the true g*mers gather