International Society of Supervillains: The ISS Takes on: Transformers 2

In news that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, Transformers 2: Revenge of Yet Another Big Indistinguishable Explodey Thing is well on its way to becoming one of the most popular films of all time, despite its critical approval rating nestling comfortably somewhere between George W. Bush and being attacked by bears.

While the film's many, many shortcomings have been discussed at length ("it's stupid," "it doesn't make any sense," "it is utterly devoid of any artistic merit, a craft-free, soulless display of pandering to the lowest common denominator, the success of which has terrifying repercussions for cinema as an art form itself," "it's too long") there is one aspect of the film that we think deserves a mention here.

Don't see it yet? A hint after the jump.

It's a robot in blackface. What the hell people?

Director Michael Bay and his proponents (typing that hurt me more than you will ever know) have defended the Little Black Sambots by claiming that they were meant to be comic relief characters and that any racial connotations were entirely unintentional. So apparently, it's just a coincidence that these robots possess apelike features, have flared nostrils and comically enlarged ears and lips, are shown to be unintelligent, speak in an "urban" dialect, carry decorative "bling", and mention not reading very frequently! And that one of them has a gold tooth!

Yeah. Every single person who worked on this movie, from the writers to the visual effects artists to Stephen Damn Spielberg himself, is so amazingly ignorant of the history of racial discord in America that nobody noticed a pair of racial caricatures so blatant that they make Jar Jar Binks look like Malcolm X. And that's the position taken by those defending the movie! So, over the course of nearly a century of cinema, public opinion has evolved from "black stereotypes are HILARIOUS" to "black stereotypes don't bother me as long as I have explosions and boobs to look at." That my friends, is truly change we can all believe in.

Well, if nothing else, hopefully the movie's inevitable Rifftrax will be funny.

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Personally, I enjoy several seperate websites that provide me my daily requirements of explosions, boobs, moral outrage, and facepalming disdain (sometimes, they're all the same website. Sometimes.)

I'll stick with them rather than seeing this movie now. I'll sneak into the theatre this time only long enough to kick a ticket-taker in the groin and steal a tub of popcorn, which I will take home and eat watching my DVD of that newest Batman flick for the dozenth time. Thanks!

Posted by: TheCatastropheSyndrome | June 30, 2009 12:55 PM

I try to picture the racism here, but all I see is Michael Bay riding around in his pimped-out lowrider with his blinged-up ghetto buddies snorting coke off of money and not reading traffic signs. Maybe Michael Bay just needs to hang around normal black people for a change.

Although I have it on good authority from a black friend that these characters are actually Latino.

Posted by: Senor Taco | July 7, 2009 10:50 AM

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