LOS ANGELES — "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" introduces some 40 new mechanized characters of all shapes, sizes and even sexes _ but it's a pair of jive-talking 'bots that critics are singling out as more than just harmless comic relief.
Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact Chevys, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.
As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But the traits they're ascribed raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I _ The Phantom Menace" was criticized as a racial caricature.
Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern described Binks in 1999 as a "Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit," a reference to a black character from the 1920s and '30s that exploited negative stereotypes for comic effect. Extending that metaphor to the "Transformers" sequel was AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire, who calls Skids and Mudflap "Jar Jar Binks in car form."
And Manohla Dargis, film critic for The New York Times, takes it a step further, writing that the "Transformers" characters were given "conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas."
Director Michael Bay insists that the bumbling 'bots are just good clean fun.
"We're just putting more personality in," Bay said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes _ they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."
TV actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids. Neither immediately responded to interview requests for this story.
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Bay said the twins' parts "were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters."
"I purely did it for kids," the director said. "Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them."
Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said they followed Bay's lead in creating the twins. Still, the characters serve no real purpose in the story, and when the action gets serious, they disappear entirely, notes Tasha Robinson, associate entertainment editor at The Onion.
"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."
Hollywood has a track record of using negative stereotypes of black characters for comic relief, said Todd Boyd, a professor of popular culture at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, who has not seen the "Transformers" sequel.
"There's a history of people getting laughs at the expense of African-Americans and African-American culture," Boyd said. "These images are not completely divorced from history even though it's a new movie and even though they're robots and not humans."
American cinema also has a tendency to deal with race indirectly, said Allyson Nadia Field, an assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."
If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."
But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"
Bay brushes off any whiff of controversy.
"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1761 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 25 Jun 2009 18:45 Post subject:
G-Man wrote:
Didn't one of the Transformers in the first movie-the one that was "killed"-sound "black"?
I do think these two new robots may be taking things a bit too far LOL.
Now I really want to see that movie.
I expect low level media-driven controversy over this to continue.
I don't know if he got killed, but one of them obviously had a African American accent. It was not "offensive", or not deemed so at the time, but he also did not "clown" he was a serious character.
I knew there would be backlash sooner or later. My husband and I went to see the midnight show on Tuesday. On an IMAX screen. Don't hate. Our individual assessments of "the twins" were that they sounded like one was black and one was, oh, how can I put it delicately...? Starts with W, rhymes with the opposite of smaller. So, I'm not surprised to now read that one of the voice actors is black and one is white.
Anywho, this is who those two Autobots made me think of...
It's kind of messed up that characters speaking in broken English, riddled with curse words and slang are automatically pegged as black stereotypes. Do stuffy old fuddie-duddies realize that LOTS of young folks talk that way today?
Still, the characters serve no real purpose in the story, and when the action gets serious, they disappear entirely, notes Tasha Robinson, associate entertainment editor at The Onion.
"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."
Wait...The Onion??? Seriously?
I do agree that Hollywood still takes way too many potshots at African-Americans and African-American culture. But, those cars are similar to PLENTY of young Americans - black, white, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, you name it.
The supposedly "black" robot character from the first Transformers movie is named Jazz. The late Scatman Crothers, a black actor, voiced the Jazz character in the 1980s cartoon series, so maybe the filmakers were trying to stay consistent by making sure the character sounds stereotypically "black" for comedy relief I guess. Even though he was cast as a computer geek, Anthony Anderson's character in the first Tranformers movie was probably more stereotypical and bufoonish than any of the "black" robot characters--his performance seemed a bit offensive because he wasn't funny, and their attempts at urban humor just didn't work.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1761 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 01 Jul 2009 13:46 Post subject:
amatrex wrote:
The supposedly "black" robot character from the first Transformers movie is named Jazz. The late Scatman Crothers, a black actor, voiced the Jazz character in the 1980s cartoon series, so maybe the filmakers were trying to stay consistent by making sure the character sounds stereotypically "black" for comedy relief I guess. Even though he was cast as a computer geek, Anthony Anderson's character in the first Tranformers movie was probably more stereotypical and bufoonish than any of the "black" robot characters--his performance seemed a bit offensive because he wasn't funny, and their attempts at urban humor just didn't work.
Jazz in the cartoon had a "stereotypical" Brohim voice, but he did not act ignorant at all. It was similar to Pather in Thundercats, he also was obviously an African American, but he was also the military expert and tech guy...he did not speak in broken English or use slang. Neither did "Jazz" their voices were "African American" as much as MLK, not like Lil Wayne.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1761 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 01 Jul 2009 13:47 Post subject:
amatrex wrote:
The supposedly "black" robot character from the first Transformers movie is named Jazz. The late Scatman Crothers, a black actor, voiced the Jazz character in the 1980s cartoon series, so maybe the filmakers were trying to stay consistent by making sure the character sounds stereotypically "black" for comedy relief I guess. Even though he was cast as a computer geek, Anthony Anderson's character in the first Tranformers movie was probably more stereotypical and bufoonish than any of the "black" robot characters--his performance seemed a bit offensive because he wasn't funny, and their attempts at urban humor just didn't work.
We need to separate accent and language usage.
Jazz in the cartoon had a "stereotypical" Broheim voice, but he did not sound ignorant. It was similar to Pather in Thundercats, he also was obviously an African American, but he was also the military expert and tech guy...he did not speak in broken English or use slang. Neither did "Jazz" their voices were "African American" as much as MLK, not like Lil Wayne.
If the directors and producers could not tell the difference between MLK and James Earl Jones (both who have obvious "African American" voices) and Lil Wayne and FLava Flave...(also obviously African American but also obviously speakers of very base street vernacular) than that is a very sad thing because they just associate "black" with ignorant and ghetto.
THen again "Other" has a point. I have met Hispanics from Texas who talk just like this, it is not limited to poor blacks...although it seems everything negative in this manner is associated with blacks in general (poor or not)...regardless of who else does it.
Yeah, those are all good points. I should've been more specific when referring to "black" accents as opposed to "broken english" (I know there's another thread about the correlation between race and voice tone somewhere on this board).
Yes, there are plenty of African-Americans who still sound "black" while speaking proper English for the most part. Others examples who come to mind include Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Donna Brazil, Avery Johnson, and Michael Jordan.
I'm almost certain that the guy who voiced Panthro in the Thundercats cartoon was the same guy who played Cliff Huxtable's father on the Cosby show. I can't remember his name though.
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Who wrote that article? 
Our individual assessments of "the twins" were that they sounded like one was black and one was, oh, how can I put it delicately...? Starts with W, rhymes with the opposite of smaller. So, I'm not surprised to now read that one of the voice actors is black and one is white.
