Kitt or Kitty?

[SadArticle]

It's been discussed before - as with every other topic - why a 'male' AI personality suited Michael better than the alternative of a female voice. The novelisation of 'Trust Doesn't Rust' (forgive me, I know not what I quote) states that partnering Michael with a synthetic female voice would have been 'disastrous'.

But did Kitt really present as 'male' - not vocally, but in 'character'? And would gender have been so important to Michael, with regards to adjusting to life on the road with a computer as a partner? Kitt had enough 'quirks' of his own to make him far from 'a cold beer on a hot day', after all.

Disregarding William Daniels' brilliant contribution, what are people's thoughts on whether or not Kitt could have been a female personality?

Sarah

[knightimmortal]

KITT as a female = Michael hitting on KITT.

Michael needed a buddy, a partner, not something he would be hitting on all the time.

knightimmortal

[Skav]

but remember kr2010...apart from the movie, i thought the relationship between the guy and the girl had a lot of chemistry but probably cos they were partners. the ending left a lot to be desired.

but without the hologram of which she was, and kitt not being one..i dunno. maybe. it would have a lot more humour to the eps than there already is i think.

i need to think about this even more.

Skav

[Zarate]

why would anyone hit on a car that would scratch it [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

anyway why would anyone hit on a car thats what an autophiliac or something or is that someone who likes to do it to himself...carphiliac?

[knightimmortal]

Michael flirted with anything with a feminine voice.

It's funny.

And somehow, I think Michael would have too much sexual tension with a female KITT. The male KITT gave him enough grief as it was by being prim and proper. A female KITT...well, it would have been just like Bonnie. It might have provided some interesting comic interaction, but not much work would have been done.

knightimmortal

[Darknight]

Not to mention, if the voice came from a real person's waveform initially, Michael might wanna track down the "voice donor". That could be a problem as well. Besides, that notion reminds me more than a little of a certain movie...KR2010...and while it was an ok movie in its own right, I'd just as soon have it lose the KR namesake.

Darknight

[CK]

Kitt with a female voice......sounds like a very um "different" fan fic to me. [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]


Cheri

[Karr84]

Interesting topic! I think it is better that Kitt was a man. If Kitt was a girl the producers and writers probably would've felt that they had to make a romance out of their partnership. That would've spelled doom for KR I think. I think they shoud've done something with Kitt and Bonnie. They hinted to it a couple of times. That would've been interesting. I always thought Kitt was a perfect gentelman and signifigant other. You guys probably think I am nuts! LOL

[Jayn]

I agree with the others, I mean KITT was a male car spike that most cars are named after females. Besides, I think KITT would sound weird as a woman..

Jay

[BabsBunny]

I dunno about the whole sexual tension thing... I mean Michael would keep in mind that KITT's a car! [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[knightimmortal]

Duh, but KITT was still his partner. They intermingled even though KITT wasn't human. Male or female, the only thing that would have changed was Michael's comfort level. And well, anybody who has been around a guy knows that if he hears a modicum of sultriness in a female voice, his thinking goes elsewhere. (No offense to you guys.)

knightimmortal

[Skav]

we're really not THAT bad :P. Although there are a lot of guys that are narrow minded, not all of us are like that.

(I can see this turning into a stereotype thing)

Skav

[Michael Pajaro]

I think people are ignoring SadArticle's question... it wasn't whether or not KITT could have or should have been female, but if KITT, as is, exhibited truly male or female characteristics. In other words, if you took all of KITT's dialog and replaced it with a female voice, would KITT make sense as a female character?

Without getting too deep into the differences between men and women, I'd say that the "traditional" female role is a nurturer and a protector. In this way, KITT was someone feminine. Devon may have told Michael to "be careful" all the time, but it was KITT who did the on-the-scene worrying. Also, KITT did some motherly nagging about a lot of Michael's social behavior.

I say that KITT was definitely all man under the hood. But for the purpose of this thread, I can see some feminine qualities.

Mike

[Skav]

"Oh, excuuuuuse me. I thought I did answer part of it with the fact that Michael would have been flirting with a female KITT."

KI, don't worry, i am sure he wasn't aiming anything at you. he was referring to people in general if you look at his first few lines.

getting back to on topic, i think it will be a very interesting relationship between the two. i don't think michael would hardly hit on kitt since he would know 'she' was a CPU and he may give into women easily but i don't think he is that much of a weirdo to fall in love with a computer.

everytime he saw a women pass him by he may make some smart comment such as the fact that the woman was better looking than kitt or something since he was always sarcastic to kitt anyway!

it would work out but i see it being a complex relationship to deal with. and, for some reason, i see michael being very emotional if kitt was to be destroyed as a girl. simply for the fact that it would be a GIRL and i think he would be more sincere.

ive always thought michael to be rather ignorant whenever kitt was destroyed. apart from JYD, he wasn't exactly emotional about it. sure, he would panic at the beginning but i noticed he soon forgot and just carried on with his mission.

Skav

[jup]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Skav:
<STRONG>ive always thought michael to be rather ignorant whenever kitt was destroyed. apart from JYD, he wasn't exactly emotional about it. sure, he would panic at the beginning but i noticed he soon forgot and just carried on with his mission.

Skav</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It could be called that...or professionalism on Michael's behalf. "...don't let your emotions get in the way of the mission..." and all that.

As for KITT being a female personality, I am not sure. After all, I suspect that Bonnie was both placing apart of herself into KITT's personality AND her idea of what the perfect man should be. And, it might say volumes if Bonnie made a female AI...

On the voice deal, I believe it is the Air Force that found that their male pilots responed extremely better to female voiced computers ordering them around. So, you've gotta wonder if Michael WOULD HAVE stayed inside KITT had 'she' ordered it.

[Darknight]

I think KITT was exactly as he was billed. He was proper, but that was no doubt a result of Devon's influence on the programming. Women don't have a monolopy on the protective instinct, for one. Better stated, I supposed, women "shouldn't" have a monopoly on that instinct, or behavior. KITT was more than just macho under the hood, also. He loved a mental challenge. He loved a well placed one line jab...and let's not forget in KR2K when Michael referred to KITT as a "she" and KITT was obviously irritated. Yeah, KITT was a little hard to figure sometimes, and he would sulk other times. Guys are never that way...right girls? Heh. Also, I know KITT's body was seperate from his cpu, but even so, his strong masculine lines suggest strongly that he's all male. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with a female version of KITT, but KITT is a dude.

Darknight

[knightimmortal]

Those of you who have been watching will probably notice that there are a few messages missing. I decided to remove any potential inflammatory messages that I could between myself and Skav to keep a fracas from taking place and ruining this thread.

I am sorry to Skav, Mike and everybody else.

I shall be quiet.

knightimmortal

[WhiteBird]

I hate to but in here, but just to state the obvious for everyone's benefit. Knightimmortal should not have had to delete any of the posts in this thread because there should not have been any derogatory comments.
For once, can we please keep the posts on the subject for which they were created for. There seem to be a lot of threads lately that have gone to the dogs so to speak.

[knightimmortal]

It's probably all my fault anyway, so you don't have to worry about it. It will all be taken care of soon enough.

knightimmortal

[SadArticle]

It's interesting how qualities are being identified with each gender - 'surliness' in a woman's tone, and a protective/nurturing personality being primarily female, as the main examples - and even more interesting how Kitt is placed with regards to these traits. Kitt was surly, and he was definitely protective! Didn't Michael even say at one point, "Kitt, you're beginning to sound like my mother?" [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] Also, there was that quote in an article that Universal were getting a little worried about Michael and Kitt's relationship - that was definitely a case of identifying female characteristics in a 'male' personality.

I didn't really have an opinion when I phrased this question, but now, 18 posts later, I'd say that Kitt wasn't really masculine or feminine. He demonstrated more of a 'sensitive' approach to his driver and responsibilities, but what does that make him? (Thinking of the classic line in 'Soul Survivor': "Michael, be honest. Do I look just dreadful?")

I agree that a female voice might throw Michael a little, but not that it would have altered his emotional response to Kitt's destruction. Michael pitched Kitt against Goliath, and was always sure that Bonnie could restore his partner to former glory (Junkyard Dog), because of the car - 'the safest, strongest vehicle in the world'. That, and he didn't understand computers! I don't think Michael regarded Kitt as he would have done a human partner - maybe that was where the trust came from. Gender didn't come into it - it wasn't 'Kitt's a guy, he can fend for himself', but 'Kitt's encased in this (nigh-on) indestructible block of two-tonne metal, which can defend itself or drive off at 300mph' (his insistance that Kitt was an 'it' in the pilot episode).

Kitt's power - his masculinity, if you like - came from his all-encompassing intelligence as a computer, and from the shell of the Knight 2000. But his personality was different.

This thread needs more thinking time - cohesion follows later [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Sarah

PS Another interesting point was raised - did Kitt's voice come from a 'human' template? Wilton Knight certainly had a penchant for 'building things in his own image' (Michael's face is either a younger Wilton, or Garthe). Perhaps he modelled 'Kitt' on a close friend?

[Michael Pajaro]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SadArticle:
<STRONG>I didn't really have an opinion when I phrased this question, but now, 18 posts later, I'd say that Kitt wasn't really masculine or feminine.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're cheating and taking the easy way out! [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

You could make a similar argument that in many ways Devon, although played by a male actor, was neither masculine nor feminine. And there's plenty of evidence to support all of Bonnie's "masculine" traits.

Questions like these are great, but they make me laugh at ourselves: imagine how we must look to someone who stumbles upon this site and discovers a group of people debating the sexual identity of a talking car!

Mike

[CK]

That's cuz we're all a bunch of Knight Knuts lol [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]


Cheri

[SadArticle]

I know what you mean - I imagine we must be like the Itchy and Scratchy fans from the episode of the Simpsons where Homer takes on the role of the talking dog. At a convention, one fan asks about hearing the same musical note from a xylophone of Itchy/Scratchy's spine, when different vertebrae were shown to be sounded. 'I mean, are we meant to believe it was some kind of magical xylophone? Huh. Huh' (paraphrasing) I caught that as a repeat recently, and cringed. That's exactly what we must sound like! [img]images/smiles/icon_redface.gif[/img]

But, back to magical xylophones, Devon and Bonnie were different. Neither was so confused about their gender orientation that it wasn't blatantly obvious who was a man and who was a woman. Bonnie favoured trousers and casualwear (and got it horrendously wrong when she did dress up), and she was a mechanic, but she was enough of a woman to carry off the first, and the second was merely an admirable career choice. Devon was a true gentleman.

Kitt was voiced by a male actor and referred to as a 'he', but demonstrated more 'feminine' traits. The actual car balanced the equation with its power.

Sarah

[Dreamchild]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SadArticle:
<STRONG>I know what you mean - I imagine we must be like the Itchy and Scratchy fans from the episode of the Simpsons where Homer takes on the role of the talking dog. At a convention, one fan asks about hearing the same musical note from a xylophone of Itchy/Scratchy's spine, when different vertebrae were shown to be sounded. 'I mean, are we meant to believe it was some kind of magical xylophone? Huh. Huh' (paraphrasing) I caught that as a repeat recently, and cringed. That's exactly what we must sound like! [img]images/smiles/icon_redface.gif[/img] </STRONG>
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, I don't think we're quite as sad as that. But ok, maybe sometimes we come close, when we start to take it all too seriously.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>
<STRONG>Kitt was voiced by a male actor and referred to as a 'he', but demonstrated more 'feminine' traits. The actual car balanced the equation with its power.

Sarah</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As for Kitt, I find myself agreeing with you, SadArticle. I reckon that if Kitt's voice was female then Michael's intitial reaction might have been slightly different - but the longer-term relationship would have settled down to much the same. Now, of course in the case of the xylophone...

Calum

[ August 23, 2002: Message edited by: dreamchild ]

[jup]

Well, perhaps we SHOULD consider a third alternative in Kitt's case...(Male/Female/Other.)

I remember a very old RPG that, when building your character, gave M/F/O as a sexual choice. Perhaps, in AI situations, it should be applied.