(an analysis written at 1 am, based on things me & my friends talk about in my transformers server)

So, this might sound like a stretch at first, but hear me out.

G1 Transformers was made in the 1980s, which is the late Cold War era. I think that laid the foundations for the traces of pro-capitalist Americana we see throughout the franchise even in the modern day. Communism in the US was largely colored by the Soviet Union and their authoritarianism, which I think has a LOT to do with how Megatron and the Decepticons are portrayed.

In G1, Megatron's main ideological catchphrase is peace through tyranny, which can easily be compared to economic equality achieved through authoritarianism.To me, this is a pretty good representation of how many anti-communism Americans viewed and still do view communism; I’ve seen a lot of this idea that the evil commies are going to come take away your money and your rights and your free market for the sake of building a more equal world. Sure, they say they want to create a peaceful world free of inequality, but they’ll have to take away your rights to exploit others to do it!

More importantly, the entire war in G1 seems to be focused on a race for resources, which is very similar to how the Cold War played out! Rather than being a war of physical battles, it was largely a war of economics, ideology, and resources. Anyways, nearly every episode is about the Decepticons finding some new energy source, and the Autobots having to stop them from taking advantage of it, because then they will use that energy source to power their weapons and vehicles, and spread their evil “peace through tyranny” throughout the galaxy. It’s very reminiscent of the Cold War and the development of nuclear weapons and power, and the ways nuclear power was treated as being very entwined with the advancement of capitalist and communist ideologies.

Another thing is that the Autobots worked openly and often with the US government in G1, and the US government was portrayed as the good guys who only wanted to develop new power sources for good—but those nasty Decepticons want to steal it for evil purposes! I vividly remember an episode where the US government developed a new and extremely powerful energy source, and had to do everything in their power to keep it away from the ‘Cons. One of the protagonists of that episode was a heroic human scientist working for the government, who was kidnapped by the ‘Cons, but never gave up their secrets.

Another thing I noticed is the language at play in Megatron and Optimus’ character designs, and the designs of their respective faction members. Optimus is very clearly the colors of the American flag, and Megatron’s construction reminds me of stereotypical Soviet bloc architecture—big, grey, rectangular, heavy, utilitarian. Ruth (@rainbowfoxes on tumblr) pointed out that the Autobots are mainly consumer vehicles like cars and vans, while the ‘Cons are mostly military and industrial builds, which plays into the narrative about Evil Commies Coming For Your Nice Consumer Products With Their Weapons. Also notable is the Decepticons’ association with red (a VERY popular stand-in for communism—it wasn’t called the Red Scare for nothing). On the other side, the Autobots all have blue eyes, which to me is reminiscent of the Stereotypical Good, Strong, Blonde-Haired Blue-Eyed All American stereotype.

Ruth also suggested that there’s something in the way the G1 Autobots and Decepticons teamed up to fight a mutual threat (the Quintessons) and then the Decepticons turned on them because they were too “war hungry” to settle, so the Autobots had to fight them to keep their evil ideology and empire from expanding. It all screams “metaphor for American capitalism and Soviet communism post-WW2.”

So that’s just G1. But later on I think we see echoes of that original Cold War era signaling throughout the franchise, even in media made after the War ended. For example, in Aligned; Megatron wants to force economic equality on the populace. He does this in a violent way that threatens both Cybertron’s way of life, and the rich and middle class bots of the planet. Megatron is a scary, violent communist rising up from the working class to wreak havoc on Good, Polite Society with his Radical Ideas. What I find interesting is that this version begins to lean more into the fear of American communists, with Megatron being a disenfranchised member of the community & building up his own army of rebels who commit acts of domestic terrorism, rather than being an outside force. And in Aligned, in response to the Decepticon uprising, we see Optimus Bravely Defending the American Capitalist Upper Class From Robot Antifa. Aligned really espouses the idea that “sure, economic equality sounds great and all, but these people really want to blow up rich people’s houses and amusement parks and destroy our government entirely! That makes them the true villains, not the rich upper classes keeping the majority of the population disenfranchised!”

Certainly, some of this is is probably unintentional or even purely coincidental, but I still enjoy pointing it out and pointing out the associations these character design choices would have had at the time they were made, and even today. A lot of it is just the public perception of what “evil” looked like during the Cold War Era. The thing about creative media is that it’s always coloured by the assumptions and stereotypes of the time. Even if an author didn’t mean to create a commentary on something, you can still observe how certain pervasive ideas of the time made their way into the work. This is especially true of villains (what does “evil” look like to them?). Look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The character of the Count plays on fears of immigrants from southeastern Europe “corrupting” England. Any shorthand for “evil” will be STEEPED in the era and location’s politics. Since Transformers is meant to be a kids’ show with very clear cut heroes and villains, it makes it especially easy to locate these biases and discuss them.