I totally get where you are coming from, Fay. The image just doesn't make me go there nor do I think that was the intention. Of course, I may be a bit thick.

Tamara, I definitely don't think you're at all thick, and I'm sure that a lot of people don't consciously go there when they look at the image. That's pretty much why I wanted to unpack my visceral response to the poster a little.

But as to whether it was the intention - yeah, I kind of think it was. I don't think they will have parsed it the way I did, but I do think that this image is consciously pitched at that 18-30 male demographic, making sure that they aren't put off watching a Terminator vehicle just because the titular protagonist is a woman.

They've intentionally turned the ass-kicking super robot into a vulnerable sexbot for that advert, to make sure that the boys associate T:TSCC with fuckable babes rather than scary ballbreakers, and are thus more inclined to tune in.

Except the show hasn't even managed to show any strong, intelligent characters, male or female. IMO, Lena Headey's Sarah Connor would fit right in at Torchwood. She and John have been incompetent morons the entire season, and they've miraculously survived only because the show's about them.

Well, you have the advantage of me in having watched the entire season - my last DVD was scratched, so I've not seen all of it yet. Clearly we have very different takes on Lena Headey's performance and/or Sarah's character, however. Or possibly on the quality of Torchwood.

Like I said, I get your point and I agree completely with your point that they positioned the advertising to show a hot babe so that the boys aren't turned off by a show with a female protagonist. What I don't see is how a robot torso is seen as fuckable. Interesting and disturbing in an offputting but attractive alien way, but not fuckable.

It's the hair across the boob that screams sex toy to me.

They've intentionally turned the ass-kicking super robot into a vulnerable sexbot for that advert, to make sure that the boys associate T:TSCC with fuckable babes rather than scary ballbreakers, and are thus more inclined to tune in.

Yup. This.

And Tamara, as ita says, it's the boobs, and being naked. Even with only half a torso, she's still a sex object.

Invisible Green, I think I understand your point, but I still disagree with you. The writing is not what it could be, plot-wise. But I don't think that makes Sarah less an agent in her own life: she's the one who gives the orders and makes the decisions here, she's the one who's driving the bus. Even if not all her decisions are wise, she's operating with less information than the viewer is, and at least she is operating.

I'm damned sick of female characters who do nothing but be objects for the men's angst; or are evil or dead (or both). (Yeah, I've been watching SPN.) So I'll take Sarah Connor gladly, and Cameron, too.

It's the hair across the boob that screams sex toy to me.

Yeah, that's what pinged me as well. And I'm generally unpingable.

What I don't see is how a robot torso is seen as fuckable. Interesting and disturbing in an offputting but attractive alien way, but not fuckable.

Okay, I get that to you, it isn't a sexual image. Fair enough. But I'd argue that on Doctor Who (and this was not one of their finest moments) they managed to give "a sex life" (and I'm using the quotation marks advisedly) to a woman's disembodied face trapped in a paving stone. Cameron retains an orifice and a pair of tits - and although she is notably sans ladygarden in the poster (sorry, I just love that term - it cracks me up), there's still almost as much female body there as you get with your average mermaid - long-established avatars of female sexuality. Just without any pesky arms to push away a wandering hand. Or any means of swimming away.

Plus that whole soft porn hair-over-boobs thing. I mean, actually, if they weren't going for cheesecake, there's no reason she should be naked.

But I don't think that makes Sarah less an agent in her own life: she's the one who gives the orders and makes the decisions here, she's the one who's driving the bus. Even if not all her decisions are wise, she's operating with less information than the viewer is, and at least she is operating.

This is true: I can give her credit for being independent, powerful, and respected by others.

Ok, I get the hair over the naked boobs thing as being over sexualized. She didn't need to be naked for the purposefully disturbing image of what is alien and unknowable about this robot to work. There is some other (non-sexualized and really non female) power that I feel from that image that I have a hard time articulating. It really drives home the feeling that Cameron is beyond and apart and foreign. To me, Cameron isn't female. She is pure other. That is powerful.

I'm not able to make words say what I mean, but I think that an overly knee-jerk feminist response to this image is almost too easy. There is more there than that to me. Obviously other MMV.

I think that it's worth mentioning that the otherness could have been conveyed in many ways besides using a bare torso. She could have been fully dressed, holding an arm in one hand, or her head under her arm.