Skids and Mudflap (C) DreamWorks
Besides a mass array of carnage, explosions, Megan Fox posing and a few extra explosions on top of that, director Michael Bay's latest movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, may also carry something a bit more sinister? Like portraying awful stereotypes which are used, supposedly, as innocent entertainment.
As mentioned in my review, two of the Autobots, Skids and Mudflap, appear as degrading urban stereotypes. Unable to read, shown with huge ears with one robot sporting a single gold tooth, Skids and Mudflap aren't just the most annoying characters since Jar Jar Binks, they are quite possibly representations of jive-talking racial caricatures.
Fans exploded with comments after viewing the show during it's midnight release on Wednesday. "It's one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes," said Todd Herrold, who saw the film in New York City, "but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who's also a stereotype."
According to Michael Bay, "We're just putting personality in. I don't know if it's stereotypes --they are robots, by the way. These are voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it. I purely did it for kids. Young kids love these robots, because it makes [the film] more accessible to them."
Allow me to translate: 13-year-olds love minstrel-bots. Whether Transformers 2 is appropriate for "young kids" is another story.
Racial and gender politics just doesn't end with fake characters. The women in the film are used merely as something to ogle and laugh at, offering nothing redeeming to the overall story and certainly not strong enough to actually fight back. Fox's character is often seen obsessing over Sam with questions over love while his mother is lacking key mental faculties. Tyrese Gibson's character, the only African-American with a speaking role, is reduced to one-liners and looking pissed-off. Ramón Rodríguez, the only minority with more than a few sentences, plays Sam's roommate and is seen screaming the entire movie and doesn't offer much in way of bravery.
The voices for the two heroes were provided by Reno Wilson, an African-American, and Tom Kenny, a Caucasian who also provides the voice for popular Nickelodeon cartoon character SpongeBob Squarepants.
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Comments
Ok you are saying that dialog that would fit in any Eddie Murphy movie is not appropriate for Robots? I've seen more than one racial stereotype of rednecks and stupid white folks. Get off your high horse and enjoy the movie.
But I can see so much of the movie from atop my horse...
Anyone with half a brain can see the subtext and the friggin' text in this movie...its not just limited to the Ebonic Autobot twins, other foreigners/minorities are portrayed as laughing stock in this movie. Also, a heavy dose of conservative politics, e.g., Sam's middle-aged parents are goofy tourists who want to try new things in Paris and end up not liking escargot (subtext: foreign foods suck and a swipe at liberal conceits of foreign travel and keeping an open mind) (would have been diffent if Megan Fox's character was traveling and enjoyed the escargot b/c now you're signaling that travel is cool and sexy).
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