In the vast world of comics, I wonder if there have been heroes with a “Groundhog Day,” type power. By that I specifically mean a hero who, if they die, immediately finds themselves waking up at the beginning of that day again. If they don’t die, they just continue forward through time.
I’m just thinking of how crazy it would be to have that hero on your super hero team. Like, you go to headquarters in the morning, and it seems like everything’s normal. But then you go to fire off a one liner, and they say it at the same time as you. And suddenly you know. Something went wrong.
And then one day you come in, and your heart drops as you see that their every move looks rehearsed. They answer questions before asked. They are totally aware of everything that’s about to happen. Imagine how scary that would be, realizing you’re starting a day that you’re team mate has failed to survive maybe dozens of times.
Sometimes he’ll walk up to you and just slap your sandwich out of your hand and say “don’t eat that” and you’re thinking, damn, what did that sandwich do to me? This was actually still the first time through the day, he just wanted to mess with you.
In case you aren’t familiar, Michael Scott Moore and David Rohde are both journalists. Moore was held by Somali pirates for 977 days. Rohde was held captive by the Taliban for 7 months after being abducted in Afghanistan.
Jenny’s narrative in my life as a teenage robot is implicitly trans, and her struggle with being viewed as a normal girl by society going so far as to wear a human suit is a perfect representation of trans people’s struggles to pass and be accepted by their communities. In this essay I will….
Trans people are not the only group to struggle to fit in to anywhere. It is not implicitly anything
Being a misfit isn’t exlusively trans. But take this show as you will.
Hey! No shit struggling to fit in is relatable to any marginalized community. I’m saying the very specific narrative of wanting to be a real girl, (which is text not subtext by the way, she at one point has a short speech about wanting to be a ‘real girl’) changing your name because it doesn’t match how you see yourself (Xj9 to Jenny), changing your appearance to pass as a real girl only for it not to work and to be seen and regarded by mainstream society as a literal freak, finally getting what you want and conforming to standards only for it to necessitate you changing who you are as a person, are all intensely trans experiences. Obviously the showrunners didn’t construct this narrative with a trans intent and there is the potential for parallels to other marginalized experiences, but Jenny’s character arc bears uncanny resemblance to the experience trans people have coming to terms with their genders.
Also it’s fucking trans.
Actually. I wouldn’t be too quick on saying there was no intent on the show runners part:
Like OP mentioned Jenny often is shown to experience disphoria. Especially in relation to her outwards appearance.
She also was shown to go through “puberty” in one episode. And the writers decided to give her symptoms that are traditionally associated with male puberty. Which horrified her despite people around her assuring her it’s just fine.
Jenny also learned mutiply times that she doesn’t need to comform to anything to be a real girl. She already is, the only difference is that she was made with diffrent parts.
While there certainly are diffrent interpretations, as is always the case with metaphores, it’s not unlikely that some of the writers explicitly had the trans community in mind while writing some of the episodes.
Jenny’s narrative is heavily tied to self image issues, insecurities about her identity and a feeling of issolation.
She is surrounded by people who are supportive of her but still can be ignorant and even hurtfull without intend (her mom and Brad come to mind which both clearly love her but both have upset her on multiply occasions due to not really getting her). She is constantly side eyed by society for potentially being dangerous. She is often treated like a sort of “freak show” by others and generally a lot of the people around her only give her respect if what she is doing is directly benifitial to them or is a source of amusement for them.
Then there is Sheldon who almost fetishizes her to a very uncomfortable amount.
All of them had induvidual arcs which relate back to said issues. Jenny’s mom starts viewing her more as a daughter then as a robot. Sheldon started to be less of a creep and developed more genuine feelings for Jenny based on her personality rather then on her being a robot.
Even Brad, who already was just the best, was called out and confronted with instances where he unintentionally was being hurtfull more then once.
So yeah. Jenny is very heavily trans coded and a lot of the narrative mirrors the experiences and struggels of real life trans teens.
And frankly I think that are too many coincidences to 100% rule out intent.
literally the first episode has a moment where she gets mad when her mom calls her by her deadname and she corrects her
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
