Automation: Roll Out!
At the heart of the US-Japanese franchise Transformers is a tension between visions of robotics as liberation and as enslavement.
![](https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/11182459/issue52-c-redchannels-GettyImages-952635096.jpg)
(Yamada Hitoshi / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images)
For many Generation Xers, watching an old toy commercial on YouTube for a beloved childhood franchise like Transformers provides a sugary rush of nostalgia. But look a little closer at those ads and you’ll find that the “robots in disguise” were the harbingers of all kinds of Reaganite doom and dread, packaged in laser-outlined, high-tech […]