Autobots! Transform and do a funny dance for the nice people!
Apparently I’m not the only one who was bothered by the racism in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. According to the ultimate authority:
There has been a strong negative reaction to Mudflap and Skids in Revenge of the Fallen, who are alleged to embody racist stereotypes. The characters have been given ape-like appearance, speak in street-slang dialogue, and confess an inability to read; one of the characters also has a gold tooth. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said that “the characters […] indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas.” Critic Scott Mendelson said, “To say that these two are the most astonishingly racist caricatures that I’ve ever seen in a mainstream motion picture would be an understatement.” Harry Knowles, founder of Ain’t It Cool News, went further, asking his readers “not to support this film” because “you’ll be taking [your children] to see a film with the lowest forms of humor, stereotypes and racism around.” Director Michael Bay has defended the robots as “good clean fun” and insisted that “We’re just putting more personality in” the film.
Bay added “Listen, you’re going to have your naysayers on anything.” Gosh, remember the good old days, when white people could use caricatures of black people for their own amusement and nobody complained?
thankfully, in the G.I. Joe movie, Marlon Wayans does not have a gold teeth and doesn’t dance for the white people … or does he?
I’m…uh..wow. It’s times like these where I so wish the Boondocks still had their daily comic strip. Aaron McGruder would have an absolute field day with this movie. These guys make Jazz from the last movie seem like Chuck D. And yes, I am ashamed for seeing the movie. But when Peter Travers from Rolling Stone says you’re watching the worst movie of the decade…well – that’s just too tempting of an offer to pass up.
That image is amazing. Thank you, Jim!
I never followed the original cartoons, but I had assumed that the urban characterization of Mudflap and Skids stemmed from their personalities from back in the day… Did they just make it up for the movie? Seems like an odd choice after a similar contoversy surrounded The Phantom Menace (with Jar Jar sounding like the maid from Gone with the Wind and the asian sounding fishy aliens).
Yeah, it was just for the movie. The ’80s cartoon was surprisingly far more sophisticated, though understated, in its handling of diversity. They had “black” characters who had personalities, as opposed to just being elaborations on a stereotyped racial identity.