Transformers: Race problems lacking disguise

July 10, 2007, Filed under: Core Posts — @ 8:16 pm

Just back from Transformers, the Michael Bay teenage romance flick which also had robots.

In short, it had more than a few race problems up and central on screen. 

ETA: On the whole, as far as comparing Transformers:TheMovie to Transformers:TheSeries? No problems. Mainly, because, well, the series and the movie had so little connection, it was George Clooney’s “Batman & Robin” to the DC print lines.

[Complaining about a film means spoilers after the cut. Errr. Sorry about the RSS feed *grimmace*]

  • I do not need to have a US Marine SpecOps groups say “Speak English” to the spanish speaking unit members. 
    • Doing it more than once means setting it up for a take down.
    • Doing it twice, and leaving it at that, means race problem. 
    • Take down = Other marines speaking spanish, and realising they were dicks for saying “Speak english”.
  • I do not need to have to see racial stereotypes of three different racial cliches. 
    • OH HAI! POC character IT HAZ CRIME HISTORY.
    • OH HAI! I IZ OTHER POC! I CAN BE STEREOTYPICALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WAYAN BROTHERS COMEDY
      • Remember kids, all black people are good with music, hate cops and an look like Fat Albert cast members.
    • OH HAI! I iz…wait, they got the Australian right. Woah.  No kangaroos, no g’day, no shrimp.
      • Excusing the fact that they breached the show don’t tell rule by telling us about said character’s skill set without ever actually demonstrating it on screen.
    • OH HAI! I IZ WHITE! WORLD BE SAVED BY ME!
      • Please tell me I wasn’t supposed to look at Sam “Cardboardbased Lifeform” Witiwikipedia and care about him.  Tell me. Please.  Just make him go away.
  • Oh look, Voice Actors of Colour!
    • Jazz - Darius McCrary
    • Frenzy - Reno Wilson
    • Well that went well.
  • We couldn’t have Arcee because GirlBots need explaining. 
    • However, we had plenty of time for human mating rituals, human bonding rituals, and explaining how people we saw on screen did stuff off screen (including a couple of quite seriously important moments for one character. We are told, not shown, at the end of the film, that this character is dead.  But hey, no time for an onscreen death, those minutes were spent on Bumblebee urinating on a human).  Explaining that GIRLBOTS EXISTS OMG! WHAT IF THEY HAD SEX? THEY MAY BE HAVING RELATIONSHIPS THAT GOD WOULD NOT… were transformers evolution or creation?…APPROVE OF AND REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES FOR THE WINterofoutdiscontent.  Seriously. Explain?  We didn’t need to explain that an autobot would say “What’s up bitches?” or that the human male wished to mate with the female human … wait, they did.  How about “And this is Arcee, communications/weapons/asskicker” just like we found out that Ratchet was the medic by being told. 
      • Also, get a better medic next time.  One with more than a laser pointer.
  • Also, Ironhide, dude, LESS TIME WATCHING MATRIX FILMS.
  • Also, Prime, dude, I’m sorry, I really am.  Watching Prime cry over Megatron was heartbreaking. 
    • Either they really were brothers (Winchesters in robot form!) OR
    • They were so in love once, and it never worked out did it? 
      • Also, no Girlbots. All I can say is babybots come from when a Daddycon and Daddobot^H^H^H Daddybot love each other very much…and give birth to CD players.
  • Call centre sequence.
    • Totally not needed.
    • Made no sense
    • Felt entirely racist in the context of a film about giant transforming robots.
    • Also, we had time for a scene attacking call centre staff, but no space to explain a girlbot?
  • Also, seriously, I really fucking hate the “Bros before hos?” shit. What? THE? FUCK? (Do not want, do not like, do not care if the cool kids are saying it. Do. Not. Want.)
    • Jazz needed dialogue that didn’t scream “This content download from Chappelle’s Show and stripped of all ironic content”
    • Given the Australian voice didn’t say “Strewth”, everyone else could have skipped the cliche.
  • Finally, I’m looking forward to the Transformers Movie.  Y’know, the one about the Transformers?

 

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