At 7/27/09 04:36 AM, MrCongeniality wrote:
Well if everyone wants to call these 2 robots a racial stereotype, then why the fuck is no one calling Eminem a racial stereotype? He basically acts in the same mannerism, but yet, he's white.
Doesn't matter what color they are, anybody can act a different way. Doesn't necessarily make it racist, unless they are into cross burning or they actually use racial slurs, or if they have imprisoned some jewish men and/or women, and they also own a gas chamber or an oven which they are going to put them in. Now THAT'S racism.
I would say that Eminem is a cultural stereotype (wigger) rather than a racial stereotype.
The argument that those two robots were racist is because they were given quite assuming 'ghetto' characteristics - basically, things that white people joke about being black or ghetto, ie. the whole 'bust a cap in your ass' thing. At the same time their entire purpose in the movie was to be the comic relief, be the clowns to give you a break from the explosions.
The 'clown' character is pretty common, but the difference in Transformers 2 was the combination of the 'african american' autobots as the clowns. Therefore, a mental connection is made that black = clown. Then a deeper mental connection that lowers the standing of black people in the audience's mind. Kids start thinking of black or ghetto people as comedy and nothing else, etc.
Additionally, the two robots were basically the nameless henchmen / worker droids. They didn't do anything particularly important in the movie. All the big and meaningful work was saved for the autobots who had more 'caucasian' attributes.
And don't even get me started on the political and military ignorance during all the scenes in the Middle East.
I have a degree in Communication and Cultural Studies which is why I wrote so much :-)
