Lots of people review Transformers, but few of them filter every aspect of the film through an all-encompassing fundamentalist worldview, and that’s where Focus on the Family comes in. Set phasers to “tisking sound.”
The first time the Transformers motored into theaters, we were dismayed by the film’s sexual content. This time around, we’re appalled.
Let’s start with Alice, an apparently beautiful college student with an eye on Sam. Alice tries every way possible to seduce the lad. She dresses in the sultriest of outfits and makes sure Sam gets the best possible look at her attributes. She coos and pouts and makes suggestive comments.
When that doesn’t work, she straddles him on his bed—obviously intent upon having sex—starts kissing him and “reveals” more of herself, so to speak. But Alice’s big reveal isn’t what Sam has been led to believe. A metallic appendage snakes out of the bottom of her dress (we see Alice’s underwear) and later out of her mouth (her tongue is still attached to the end). She’s a Decepticon with rather freakish sexual intentions, it seems.
Indeed, the Decepticons as a whole have grown more sexualized since the last movie. One huge robot displays two dangling orbs that are meant to resemble testicles. Another, smaller critter wraps itself around Mikaela’s leg quite suggestively.
Characters also make crass references involving testicles, pubic hair and other intimate body parts. A guy crudely propositions a college girl by comparing his anatomy to the meat pizza he’s carrying. Two pairs of people end up unconscious in compromising positions (including two guys in one instance). A professor flirts suggestively. Leo, Sam’s roommate, asks if he can watch Sam and Alice have sex. Some people walk by a store with a neon “Porn” sign in the window. And we see a character’s nearly bare backside while he’s wearing a thong. Sam and Mikaela kiss and cuddle.
A good drinking game is to have someone read fundie movie reviews aloud and every time he says “suggestive” you have to chug your beer. Sadly, the review never addresses the minstrelbots, but if it did I imagine it’d go something like this: “Using the two robots obssessed with street culture as comic relief is fine and dandy indeed, but we can’t help but think the filmmakers missed out on a rather golden opportunity to remind kids that negroes can be dangerous.”
Poor Michael Bay. You use a couple jive-talking, gold-tooth wearing, breakdancing illiterate robots as comic relief and suddenly everyone’s calling you racist. Maybe it’s you who’s racist. Racist against awesome stuff.
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. [Oh right, I forgot] 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. 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.”
Script excerpt: “Optimus Prime walks up to [HILARIOUS RACIAL STEREOTYPE TK.]. OPTIMUS: ‘Hey you worthless [HILARIOUS ETHNIC SLUR TK.]s, why don’t you get off your asses and get a job instead of blowing all your robot welfare money on [HILARIOUS ETHNIC FOOD TK.]?’ Hold for laughter.”
“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. [Yahoo]
Orci and Kurtzman added that they weren’t able to squeeze in a few of Bay’s other ideas, like Squint, a “math bot” who’s bad at driving, or Grease Spot, an Autobot who can transform into a Puerto Rican flag and spends all day on his stoop “being loud.” And then there was Tiger, Bay’s beloved but ultimately abandoned idea for a tiger who can transform into “a bigger tiger.”
In the first Transformers, Jazz was a jive-talking, breakdancing robot and the first Autobot to die. Luckily, the sequel promises even more urban flavor.
There are two robots in the film called Mudflap and Skids, and despite being red and green, respectively, they are voiced in a way that clearly designates them to be the “black” robots. Also, Skids has a gold front tooth (no, I’m serious) and both cannot read.
Oh sure, you put a grill on a white transformer and it’s fine, but you put one on a black robot, and then imply that he’s illiterate and make him breakdance and suddenly it’s racist. Maybe you’re the racist, ever thought of that?
Shia LaBeouf’s college dorm room is outfitted with a gigantic poster of Bay’s own Bad Boys 2. Just in case you miss it the first time it comes up, it receives its own loving close-up when Shia begins writing an equation on it later in the film.
See? Bad Boys 2. Michael Bay movie. Starring black people. Clearly he’s proud of it. Boom.
One hot chick is revealed to be a Transformer, and naturally, we discover this when a mechanical tail comes out the back of her thin blue panties. [Movieline]
Look, you sold, me, okay? I’ll see the movie. If my 13-year-old dick had an id, and was racist, it’d be named Michael Bay. In related news, Mudflap and Skids would be good nicknames for your sisters.
