Looking Back, I Think ‘Robots’ Was My Gay Awakening
People often reflect on the moments in their childhood they can pinpoint as their sexual or queer awakening. Normally these moments are born from songs or artists, but for me, it was the 2005 film Robots.
Yes, Robots. And no, I wasn’t turned on by the actual robots in the movie. I don’t want to yuck your yum but c’mon, I wasn’t looking at animated pieces of metal thinking ‘oh yeah, this is it’. Instead, I found my young queer self (before I realised what queer even was) attached to one particular scene in Robots: Fender dancing and fighting to Britney Spears’ ‘Baby One More Time’. Yep, doesn’t get much gayer than that I’m afraid.
If you’ve never seen Robots, firstly, I mourn for your childhood. And secondly, some context: the film’s about an inventor who wants to meet Bigweld — a big hotshot in the invention world — but gets tangled up in corporate hell. None of that is important, though, because Fender is the real star. Played by the late Robin Williams, Fender offers endless comedic relief throughout the film, and there’s a great deal of queer appreciation in the performance.
It’s hard to fathom the stronghold one 17-second scene in a 90-minute movie had on me as a child. The scene literally came out of nowhere and is probably one of the most random things in cinema history — but as soon as I watched those 17 seconds play out, I knew my life had changed forever.
When my family was out at sporting events, I would rewind that scene over and over again (I miss DVDs), trying to perfect the dance moves. I would put a t-shirt on my head and wear it like a wig and sing along to Britney Spears. It was actually one of my first introductions to Miss Spears, which then set me on an entirely different chain reaction of homosexuality — but I digress.
Watching the scene back, I remember so clearly just wanting to be Fender. I wanted to be able to break out in song and dance in a skirt, pigtails, and a metal breastplate and belt out “Hit me baby one more time”. My brother, on the other hand, wanted to be one of the ‘strong robots’ who didn’t need Britney to fight anyone off. Boring.
Now I’m thinking about it, there are quite a few queer icons cast in Robots. We’ve got Robin Williams, Amanda Bynes, and the supreme queen Jennifer Coolidge. With all this in mind, I actually believe the purpose of Robots was to make me realise I was gay.
Needless to say, Robots holds a very special place in my heart and is one of the very early memories I have of me finding out who I am. For that, I will always be grateful.
Ky is a proud Kamilaroi and Dharug person and writer at Junkee. Follow them on X.
Image credit: 20th Century Studios