Michael Bay has made a number of movies that Black people love to see. Those titles include The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Transformers and Pearl Harbor. He has endeared himself to Black people for casting Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as cool cops in the Bad Boys franchise, roles which are denied to white people because white cops are never cool in real life or movies. In movies, white cops are always evil racists that want to restore Jim Crow laws to America. Or, white cops in movies are the comedic fodder for their funnier, cooler Black counterpart.
Black people however, were none to pleased with Mr. Bay's latest offering, the horribly conceived film, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. The movie made a fortune at the box office its first day out - $60 million - which will ensure another horrid sequel, but critics were not to thrilled about the cinematic value of the film.
Regardless, Black people and most white reviewers of the film are in agreement: Transformers 2 is a vile piece of Hollywood fat, tossed to the masses so that they can gnaw on the inedible movie that showcases the "talents"of Meghan Fox - her looks - and the highly annoying Shia LaBeouf.
Black people - who are known for making a lot noise in the theater - have been up in arms though for the inclusion of two new robots in the film, Mudflap and Skids. In the words of one reviewer:
"If you snoop around movie sites today, you’ll find references to Mudflap and Skids, twin Autobots from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen who bear more than a passing resemblance to minstrel show depictions of African Americans. CHUD.com aptly dubbed them Little Black Sambots. The wider story is that Mudflap and Skids are just the tip of the insensitive iceberg in Bay’s newest film."The so-called Little Black Sambots, are just robots - good guys who fight for the side of justice against the evil robots - were largely in the film for comic relief and never did anything that resembled courageous action. They just loitered in the background of the action a lot. The Little Black Sambots display Black people characteristics and mannerisms.
One reviewer wrote:
Mudflap and Skidz - the aforementioned “from da hood” Autobots with gold teeth, poor grammar, the inability to read (or speak with inside voices) and, final sigh, actual simian features. The voice work (by Spongebob Squarepants’ Tom Kenny) is more of the Howard Stern/Amos & Andy style as opposed to the Chris Rock “daaaaaamn!” variety."Perhaps a better explanation of the two Black person inspired robots can be found here:
"The characters in question are Skids and Mudflap, who after an initial appearance as a ratty old ice cream truck are upgraded to be green and orange Chevys. More to the point, both characters speak with voices that sound like urban black stereotypes, have big ears and buck teeth and proclaim that they ‘don’t do much readin’‘. Skids even has a gold tooth."Yes, the Black robots in Transformers 2 are based off of the urban Black male, and yes, Black people are aghast that this would be how Black robots are depicted in the film. To quote Kurtz,"the horror, the horror." One of the Black 'bots even has "grillz".Black people love to act Black, but they don't like to have a mirror held up so that they can see how their actions look on film. It hurts their feelings.
One of the Black person inspired robots does actually say, "don't do much readin," which must be inspired by the literacy rate in Detroit, where reportedly 50 percent of the population can't read.
Black people are horrified when reality is shown on film, instead of a fabricated lie and the portrayal of Black robots is just too much truth for the Black community. The negative depiction of Black robots is a disgusting reminder of the brutal truth Black people have been trying to suppress: that Black people aren't all as articulate and charming as Barack Obama.
Michael Bay has done a disservice to the Black community. He has shown Black people what Black robots would be like, and that is just something that can only be found in Stuff Black People Don't Like.
