Alignment grid where the horizontal axis is “having my identity represented in media via robot metaphors is dehumanising“ versus “being human sucks, chrome me up”, and the vertical axis is “robots permit the explicit exploration of issues that human characters can address only indirectly“ versus “hrng, robot sexy”.
(If you’re wondering what would live in the top-left corner of the grid, it’s
completely possible for a given piece of media to legitimately make good use
of robot protagonists to explore issues that would be difficult or
impossible to directly address with human characters and still be a shitty,
dehumanising take. I leave identifying examples of the type as an exercise for the reader!)
