More on ROTF

[fierceawakening]

More ROTF flavored facepalming.

I've said before that I felt the Autobot Twins in Revenge of the Fallen were little more than unfunny offensive stereotypes spiffed up with CGI. Ugh.

But... this? Just no:

In regards to the obvious racial and minority stereotypes, this was the biggest conundrum of this movie. The audience was largely black and latino,

Comments

[sushis]

I don't know anything about the movie in question, but I'd agree with you about that comment. It does sound like "those people are too uneducated/stupid to know that they're being insulted."

[fierceawakening]

Yeah, which is especially facepalmy considering that what the person is complaining about is a characterization that includes being uneducated! (The Twins can't read, and it's played as "Ehh... we don't do no readin'", though as I recall it's explained that not all that many Transformers can read what they were looking at anyway.)

[fierceawakening]

This is a pretty succinct description of what was wrong with the Twins (and as I said, I agree with the issues raised, just not with the bullshit wherein white people say that POC who don't feel insulted are stupid and bad for their race.)

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/orci-and-kurtzman-respond-to-claims-of-racism-in-transformers-2.php

ETA and a longer one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/transformers-jivetalking-_n_220005.html

[shimmerdance]

"I know better than those people what they're allowed to think."

Possibly one of the best encapsulations of the madness of political correctness I've read. I am going to go off and be irritated now.

[roykay]

The thing is that these characterizations were actually developed by Afro-Americans. The characters derive from shtick developed by Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Red Buttons, etc.

I mean no one is say "Hey you stupid Jews. Can't you see that Dot Matrix [the Joan Rivers Character] in Space Balls is anti-Semitic? Do we really need MORE Jewbots?" People draw on their own experience and milieu to create characters. The trick is to develop characters that seem "authentic", while actually capturing traits everyone can relate to.

[fierceawakening]

Yeah. I do see a whole lot of

Prima: This is racist. I don't get why such and such actual person of color I've run into was laughing! Don't they have any self-respect?
Secunda: Er... you do know that a lot of that was ad-libbed, and one of those actors is black, right?
Prima: Doesn't matter.

And, well... while, again

1) personally I didn't think it was funny, and
2) just because one of the people who made it was a POC doesn't automatically mean it's not gross

I do think it's... a little weird and sounds less like people being concerned because, well, ick, and more like people being concerned because they're hip.

I mean, even the people in the long article I posted who were talking about the long history of portrayals like that one hadn't seen the film.

While I won't say that automatically disqualifies them from having an opinion -- and I also totally get why someone wouldn't bother to see ROTF anyway -- these days I do find myself a little worried about people who politically analyze media without having seen it.

[crafting_change]

it often can be the 'I should get a cookie' syndrome. I don't want to speculate on the identity of the author... but shifting away the critique from the movie to the audience 'not getting it' is nothing more than 'look at how smart I am' bragging.

[fierceawakening]

Yeah, this. There's plenty that can be said about why the whole thing was just gross and weird. But why say it that way? (And it's said that way a LOT, that I've seen.)

[crafting_change]

I don't read a lot of sci/fi speculative fiction blogs, but from the outside it looks like a lot of this space is really starting to listen to the critiques from POC about the problems with so much work. The side-effect of all this work is the folks in the sidelines who start to 'get it' but want to be seen as a 'good person' rather than actually work at unpacking shit and dismantling the mechanisms in place.

Its that whole 'why the term ally sucks' problem.

[fierceawakening]

Yeah, that. Or in this particular case, the people who are righteously pissed off because they feel that ROTF is so bad it's an insult to their childhood memories, and will take any ammunition at all to curse it out.

I think a fair few of these guys aren't so much trying to be allies and not getting it as they are just looking for more things to say are outrageous.

I could be wrong, but I get the vibe that some of them wouldn't be outraged about icky stereotypes of POC in a movie they otherwise liked.

[sentso]

Wow. I’m impressed with the OP (that Trin linked to)’s ability to have their head in their ass while at the same time, sticking their nose in the air

[fierceawakening]

I pretty much agree with you, Sen. On the one hand I think it's important to pay attention to the fact that a lot of these stereotypes have a history and people have reason to care about that even if we don't

[cereus_sphinx]

"Oh, really? I’m sorry. While humanity was flying in a tight formation like Blue Angels, did someone stray one angstrom too close to your taste wing?"

Full of Win.