Even though I’m not a fan of mainstream movies, I like to see at least one blockbuster film a summer. While I’m not anticipating intense dialogue or acting skills, I look forward to hot action sequences, the latest cool special effects and enough of a storyline to keep me interested for a couple of hours. I can remember when the Transformers TV show and the subsequent toy action figures were all the rage, although I was too old to really absorb it. So when I heard that the movie was coming out this summer, I thought it might be a good movie to check out.

Luckily for me I haven’t seen it yet and thanks to the countless online reviews of the movie by people who claim that the show reinforces negative racial stereotypes, I think I’ll pass. I first read a review on Angryblackwoman where guest blogger Nora writes:

As the 2.5-hour movie wore on, I found myself smiling less and less. That’s because as the special effects grew more extravagant and the action became more spectacular, I kept noticing something that left a bitter taste in my mouth, and eventually ruined my enjoyment of the film entirely. Namely, stereotypes.

Because I didn’t see the movie, I cannot weigh in on the alleged racist overtones (but I will surmise). But am I surprised at Nora’s assertion? No. I would probably agree with her if I saw it, as these types of movies are geared towards mainstream audience, a large portion of them who probably wouldn’t see anything wrong with some of the suspicious instances in the movie, as any effort to stray from racially stereotyping characters is not a great concern to Hollywood. But what is most interesting is that by doing a search in Google, a lot of other people – and not just people of colour, by the way – have also commented on the racial stereotyping in the movie. So it’s not just black paranoia….yipee!
While visceral negative reactions are not rare when talking about race and racism, what has been interesting (yet always disturbing, even though at this day an age I would have thought that nothing would phase me) is the amount of people who simply refuse to even consider that the director of the movie, Michael Bay, might, a) have some personal issues concerning race, or b) is giving the audience exactly what they want – providing a glossy action flick that subscribes to America’s preoccupation with reinforcing racial stereotypes as a form of humour. People don’t want to think when they watch these types of movies. They want to escape from reality but don’t have the patience to sit through something that is so far removed from reality that they have to spend more than two seconds to figure out something. You need to have a contemporary layer in a movie – whether it is a sci-fi flick or horror, and racism is not only contemporary, but a mainstay in North American culture.

Perhaps Bay was thinking, “if some of the more prominent characters are black, Asian, South Asian and Latino, I better throw in some ‘common’ characteristics in there so people won’t be wondering why they’re there…otherwise they’ll won’t be relatable.” Kinda killing two birds with one stone? After all, if there were no POC’s in the movie, people would be offended, and a demographic of the population wouldn’t see the film and it wouldn’t be an accurate representation of the cultural fabric of America. So you pepper your cast with POC’s but try an make them relatable to the population of viewers whose only contact with people outside of their cultural background is through TV shows like COPS or Jerry Springer. But sadly, I don’t think Bay was thinking about this at all. After all, it’s not that important to a millionaire Hollywood film director, and not that important to those who have never experienced discrimination and feel that others are just being too sensitive.

Think I’m being sarcastic? Making too much out of this? Read the comments from Nora’s post. Commenter’s – not just the trolls but people who went out of their way to refute her assertions by of course, turning the tables back to lay the blame on, in this case, the black and Latino population. Here’s a good example:

My wife of years is Mexican. I can honestly state without malice that most of the Mexicans I’ve seen & met love tortillas, dig the accordion and have no problems parking on lawns. That isn’t racist, and some stereotypes exist for a reason. It’s called reality. But I guess everyone has to have a big bug up their ass about everything nowadays, so if I see a movie that has Mexicans eating tortillas at a gathering of the familia in the park, listening to some norteno music, or parking on the front lawn of their uncle’s house while paying a visit, I should be offended? Offended that the Mexican people weren’t being portrayed in some hard push not to offend and actually displayed in a manner representative of most of their daily lives?

Despite the valiant efforts by both ABW and Nora to respond to some of the commenter’s (like the example above), and others whose attitude is “why are you complaining? That’s just the way it is,” or “it’s your fault…if you didn’t all act the same than there would be no stereotypes,” the comments kept on coming in, despite their efforts to give rational explanations of why the content in some of the responses were not valid. Again, having a comment from a troll – someone who does a ‘hit and run’ on your blog just to try and disturb the flow of conversation is one thing, people who use their own racist attitude to school the apparently misinformed minority blogger on what is racist or not (and usually not, as because they have never experienced it, it doesn’t exist) is more problematic.

But despite all that, these comments do serve a purpose. It brings out the ugly and cowardly side of human nature to the forefront, proving to people who feel that racism is not an issue to the realization that there are more people who harbour racist thoughts than we ever imagined, and the insidiousness nature of it. These comments force readers and bloggers to take action by either commenting or creating their own blogs – perhaps a more efficient and constructive way of resisting racism than if you were to confront someone on the street (you can avoid the cops this way). We can respond and try to change the mindset of some, but there will always be more people who are resistant to change. But ultimately, it is better than doing nothing at all.

Related Posts:

• Another take: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto
• Talking About Race: Are We Doing A Disservice?
• America’s Identity Crisis - Who’s Black and Who’s Not

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