Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes (don't make it all the time)

[seriousfic]

Okay, maybe I'm not the best person to say this. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about political correctness or social justice. I'm not one for the self-flagellation that tends to accompany a lot of fandom's conversations on race, homosexuality, and gender. My f-list doesn't include racialicious posts or deadbrowalking. I may laugh at the occasional bit of hipster racism. But I do try to stop and think instead of just going "there's no racism anymore lol black president." I go by the Black Comedian Rule. If I can imagine it as a joke a black comedian would tell, then it's not racist.


Admit it, you laughed.

But I do quantify that some. The humor there is based around being shocking, doing things that you aren't supposed to do and acting in ways good people aren't supposed to act. It's edgy humor, and it's okay to be offended by that since it's trying to be offensive. But while I trust adults to get the irony of that, I really don't think kids should be exposed to that sort of thing. I know, I know, hand-wringing, "won't someone please think of the children," but yes, sometimes we should think about the children. You should think about the children before you take your family to see Hostel. You should think about the children before you use language you don't want them to repeat. You should think about the children when you're ordering pizza for the third time in a week instead of making a salad.

, and by extension Michael Bay. Now I'm not a hater. I liked The Rock, because that was Michael Bay at the top of his game, before he lost the plot with Transformers and the techno-bukkake robots (yes, very impressive technically, but in Avatar, you could render the Na'vi so that the audience can see their muscles and blood vessels instead of skin, but then we couldn't tell them apart) and the action scenes that look like you're inside a car crash. And I didn't mind much the screaming black guys in the car chases or when meteors were hitting New York because, hey, I think whatever your race, you'd be screaming too in that situation.


Unless you're Lucas Lee, in which case a meteor is just an asteroid whose ass you kicked.

And now we come to Transformers 2, which is aimed at children. And like all kid films, it needs some comic relief to offset the nightmares your kids will have after the naked lady tries to tell secrets to good ol' lovable Sam Witwicki and then transforms into a rape-beast from mecha-hell. So, who will be the wacky jokester? John Turturro, he's a pretty funny guy. Maybe Bumblebee, just play some old audio clips out of context, YTMND does it all the time. Or Jetfire, crotchety old robo-grandpa, comedy gold there.

Or you can have the comic relief be Skids and Mudflap. You can give them most of the screentime, since they're clearly the funniest thing since the banana peel. Even give them more lines than Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, you know, the heroes? And I used to watch Beast Wars as a kid, so I know there are all sorts of ways you can make an Autobot funny, like having them be outrageously noble or snarky and cynical or young and naïve. Or, you can have the joke be that they're niggers.


That's the joke.

It's not that their portrayal is ironic or edgy, because I don't think Michael Bay understands the concept of irony anymore than he understands the concepts of subtlety or "small children will be seeing this." It's not that they're stupid. It's that they're stupid because they're black. They're ignorant, violent, vulgar, illiterate dumbasses. Because they're black. And when you put something like that in a movie, especially a movie aimed at kids, it goes beyond the realm of political correctness or unfortunate implications or any of that. At that point, you're doing the things bad people do. It really doesn't take that much effort to be a good person, but you've failed at it. On an artistic level, on a human level, you've committed a very real sin. In your own small little way, you're hurting humanity. And I do find that offensive and I do worry about what children take away from that and I do feel shame for supporting that with my dollar. So to say the least, I don't think I will be in the audience for Transformers 3. It's not that I find Skids and Mudflap annoying, although there is that. It's that I find them to be evil.

Comments

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

I wisely was not in the audience for Transformers 1, so I avoided all that.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Transformers the First actually had its good points. If they had just done more of the same for ROTF, but shoring up some of the weak points, they would've had some fine popcorn entertainment. But instead, they not only screwed the pooch, they filmed the pooch being screwed and put it in the movie.

[cleo]

This. This is so why I will not be watching the next film. I can forgive a thin/nearly completely absent plot because, let's face it, I like watching shit explode from time to time, but that sort thing definitely goes beyond unfunny to unforgivable.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

They screwed up giant robots fighting and shit blowing up. I wasn't even aware that was possible. It's like messing up a nude photo shoot of Halle Berry. Just... how?

[rann.livejournal.com]

So, wait, your logic here is that kids would see these robots, decide that they're black stereotypes (or, as you so freely said several times, that they're niggers), and learn those stereotypes. However, as the robots are only black by virtue of said stereotypes, the kids would have to already be aware of those stereotypes and to associate them with black people.

Because, first of all, Bay didn't exactly stick a giant flashing sign up and said "OH BY THE WAY THEY'RE BLACK!" up there... the only association is via the stereotypes. You're berating him for teaching children about black people, but the only way this would "teach" kids anything about black people is if they had already learned those stereotypes.

Honestly, I call bullshit. On this entire thing. I think you're enjoying wider popularity in fandom and gearing up for your attempt at getting published by submerging into fandom's outraged-on-others'-behalf wankery. Michael Bay is not only an obvious target because it's popular to hate him, but that he doesn't get on well with a woman you'd dearly like to fuck. So he can't just be "problematic" like Whedon, a creator with a more varied perception among fandom, but must instead be an evil Cinema Hitler attempting to poison young minds with racist propaganda.

I'll believe in the sincerity of this when you devote (more than) a few journal entries to raging at the people who were responsible for pretty much the entirety of UPN's nineties lineup, the majority of which were unabashed minstrelry written by black people, starring black people, and targeted as family entertainment (for everybody, but mostly for black people). Hell, more than that, Mudflap and Skids were essentially Will's goofy buddies from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, right down to the gold teeth and being so stupid that being illiterate wasn't out of the question for a joke. Are you going to go after that show for poisoning young minds and say it was sincerely evil?

I mean, shit, that alone is just so... fucking god-damned ridiculous. Evil? Fuck. What kind of sheltered existence do you lead, unaware of the world outside of whatever fandomsquee show you're watching this week, that you would think the "black" robots (actually red and green, but apparently through the magic of racism five-year-olds will magically know they're black) measure up in any way to the evils that happen in this world. Ethnic cleansing? Female circumcision? Political corruption? Fuck all that, MICHAEL BAY MADE POLITICALLY INCORRECT JOKES IN A PG-13 MOVIE!

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Dude, you can keep saying whatever you want and you can even bring up genocide, but it doesn't change the fact that putting ethnic caricatures in a kids' movie is wrong. I mean, it's never going to be okay. It's one of those things that we, as a society, should agree is unacceptable. I mean, why would you even to argue on behalf of characters like Skids and Mudflap? They're not edgy. They're not funny. They're not even politically incorrect. That implies some sort of shocking truth-telling that makes monocles pop out and shit. They're not. They're not entertaining, they're not truthful, they're not even controversial. They're just bad. And no, they're not the worst thing in the world, but in their own way, they are hurtful, if just because now someone can say "who cares if this movie has the racial connotations of Aunt Jemima, Transformers 2 made a shitload of money and the characters with the most screentime were ebonics-speaking thugs with the facial features of monkeys."

[rann.livejournal.com]

I'm not arguing on their behalf. I'm arguing that they're not as bad as you're saying. Calling them annoying, calling them stupid, calling them Jar-Jars (and boy is the "outrage" over Lucas' racism decidedly low-key), calling them a distraction from the movie overall, those are all valid and almost certainly correct. Calling them "evil" sets the bar for evil so low that you may as well not even bother.

And you still don't address how the characters are somehow 1) inherently worse than characters created by black people and played by black people, and not always as the goofy, idiotic, do-not-do-like-these-morons examples that those two are, but as the main protagonists shows, and somehow vastly more capable of teaching children negative messages than a constant barrage of blackcoms and gangsta rappers and 2) capable of magically imparting to children that somehow hadn't been exposed to all of these other things that they are black racial stereotypes and that this is an image of black people, when the robots are only black by association with the stereotypes. You've got a stable persecution loop going on, the kids are somehow being taught racist things without any actual racial examples.

But, you know. I guess in a way I don't blame you for your anger. I felt it at one time. I even felt it towards Michael Bay at one time. Long before Skids and Mudflap. When I read about, and then noticed, how he treated the goofy black characters. In those younger days, when I too was bucking against the stigma of being perceived as racist, to try and break out what I'd grown up hearing and being told was an acceptable way to look at black people, when I was trying with all my might to be as not-racist as possible. I was angry with Michael Bay, I was disappointed that my enjoyment of his films had been tarnished.

Then, y'know. I lived in the real world awhile. I saw black people glare at me coldly purely because I was a white person in a "black" establishment. (KFC, on at least one occasion. Oh teh ironee.) I endured argument after argument where I was told flat-out that simply by being white I was racist and always would be racist, no matter what I said or did or felt. I was informed that by voting Republican I was essentially part of the KKK. I was informed how it's white peoples' fault that black comedians became ever more angry and anti-white, because apparently when a black comedian tells jokes about black people, black people are allowed to laugh but white people need to bow their heads in shame (or, I suppose, better yet, not be allowed to view the joke in the first place). And many, many more. And eventually, I stopped giving a shit. So yes, even if Michael Bay is using stereotypes, I can't say I care. If he's perpetrating stereotypes about black people, they're ultimately more positive stereotypes than black people are perpetrating about themselves.

Mudflap and Skids are stupid, goofy, and illiterate. They're also heroic, determined, and devoted both to the cause and to each other. Which is a far cry from "poppin' caps in niggers who diss me".

Mudflap and Skids are not an evil message. You want to see an evil message?



"Vote Yes On Prop 8". That's an evil message.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing how being racist isn't evil. But fine. Justify to me Skids and Mudflap's existence and exactly what you think a kid would take away from watching them.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

PS. THEY SPEAK IN FUCKING EBONICS. They talk about busting caps in people's asses. How can you look at that and not get "black stereotype"?

Kids aren't dumb. They figure this stuff out. It ends up in their subconscious and even though no one says "black people aren't as good as white people," that's what they come up with.

[rann.livejournal.com]

So they're not dumb, but they're not smart enough to make their own value judgments or overcome Michael Bay's powerful brainwashing.

Whatever.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Okay, think of this way. Transformers 3 comes out and there's a new Autobot with a lot of screentime. His name is Stickshift. His vehicle mode is a hot pink Prius. In robot form, his armor looks like bicycle shorts and a leather vest. He talks with a constant lisp and never goes into battle (it's soooo macho), but he just loves to stay back and paint the Autobots' base in pastels while listening to showtunes. He reacts in disgust whenever in the presence of women. He also loves to go shopping with Arcee. He can also transform into a humanoid with flaps that look like a dress and two big exhaust ports on his chest. Oh, and he dies at the end, natch.

Now, the movie never says he's gay... after all, do robots even have gender?... so it's not like he's a gay stereotype. It's just that he's mincing, and weak, and effeminate, and he can't fight as well as the other Autobots, who all prefer spending time with Arcee.

Would you want your kids to watch that?

[potatoko.livejournal.com]

Woah, did you read that guy's comment? Because his argument seems to be that skid & mudflaps are fine because they're better than actual black people who're all racist homophobes. Which... How can you reason with that? I would like to say obvious troll is obvious, but I suspect we're dealing with a genuine idiot here.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Woah, did you read that guy's comment?

I skimmed.

[potatoko.livejournal.com]

lol, I thought your response was rather measured.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a complete bystander, what an... interesting comment this is. On so many levels. I could unpack it all day.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

according to Bay, they're supposed to be wiggers. Which kind of makes Bay stupid because if they're not human then you can't see that they're white.

Unless he expects the audience to inject no subtext into the movie(which may actually be a fun experience I suppose) and they figure out that they can't be black because they're not human and those races don't exist on their planet.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

And one of them is voiced by a black man. And their facial features are right out of a Sambo cartoon. And there's never any indication that they're putting on an act. But other than that, wiggers, how could we have not seen that? My apologies to Mr. Bay.

[lejo.livejournal.com]

Why does it have to be one or the other again? We can't have a world without ethnic cleansing without hateful caricatures in popular entertainment, either?

You seem to be drilling for outrage and hurling wank by belaboring "Megan Fox is hot invalidating all criticism of Micheal Bay!" Seriously, no one gives a shit. It's all in your head.

And getting strident and dismissive because a genre fan is making a coherent critique of a scifi blockbuster you don't happen to agree with just makes your opinion that much smaller and less compelling. Try not flipping your shit over the very same irrelevant crap you're scolding someone for discussing.

Btdubs- I totally agree. No one took Lucas to task for his crap in the prequels, so we get this sewage. And Bay doesn't have nearly the pedigree or goodwill to hide behind.

[rann.livejournal.com]

Accuse others of drilling for outrage and hurling wank

idiotonlj.jpg

Attempt to stir up more shit

[amore-di-libri.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Stereotypes are still stereotypes in fictional contexts. Unfortunately, we live in a world where racism exists in overt and subtle forms and our artistic products really can't be divorced from reality.

I'm just kind of curious what exactly about this particular bit of racefail pinged your radar. Like, d'you generally notice the racefails and it's just not usually your thing to post about it, or did you just really, really notice Michael Bay's particular brand of racefail?

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I'm just kind of curious what exactly about this particular bit of racefail pinged your radar. Like, d'you generally notice the racefails and it's just not usually your thing to post about it, or did you just really, really notice Michael Bay's particular brand of racefail?

A little bit of both, actually. Sometimes, there are things other people think are racefail which I don't mind (60s architecture, for instance), and sometimes someone fails at race but I don't think I have anything insightful to say about it that hasn't been covered in-depth already and I spam my flist enough as it is. But someone commented saying that the racefail in TF2 wasn't that bad and I just had to make a post about how, yeah, it is that bad.

[tgirl78.livejournal.com]

Okay. Here I go again. And I think I argued with someone else about this. I am part black, and I was not offended by Skids or Mudflap. Maybe I should feel guilty about this? I don't know. I was more offended by how lazily the movie was put together.

I also see what rann is trying to say. I don't know your race, seriousfic, nor do I care. I like your posts for the most part, but I find that so many people find things offensive that actually "I" should find offensive. I am married to a white man who almost has to apologize for being white when he is the least racist person on earth. Once people see that he's married to me- the way they react to him change.

I used to get angry and offended by many of these "types" of stereotypes, but they are always going to be out there. There is nothing I or anyone else can do about.