A Brief History of the Racist Autobots Exiled from Transformers 3
My heart can't take all this bad news today! First, Jeff Fahey attempted to drag me out of denial, forcing me to finally acknowledge that Lost's Frank Lapidus was really, truly dead. (But we didn't see a body, Jeff!) Now, Michael Bay has revealed that the racist, gold-toothed Autobots named Mudflaps and Skids will not be returning to Transformers 3 after their jaw-dropping introduction in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Though I have no doubt that Bay will replace them with something equally mind-boggling, I think we need to pay those two their due first.
We first met these robots last June, just prior to the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, when Movieline singled them out as one of the 9 most shameless aspects of that movie:
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.
We were so innocent then! Little did we know that these two creatures would jive-talk their way into our hearts, all summer long. First, though, we had the blame game: When Movieline asked writers Alex Kutzman and Robert Orci whose idea it was to give Skids a gold tooth, they passed the buck. "That was Michael," Kurtzman said, laughing. "That was definitely Michael." Later, Orci told Film School Rejects, "I'm not easily offended, but when I saw it, I thought, 'Someone's gonna write about that.'"
"But what's to be offended about?" Bay argued. In an AP piece called "Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues," the director laid out his case:
"We're just putting more personality in," Bay said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes -- they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."
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."
"I purely did it for kids," the director said. "Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them." [...]
"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."
And yet, now they're dead. Which is also a stereotype.
The Twins Won't be Back for Transformers 3 [SuperHero Hype]
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here's the crazy. yes they were racist, but these bots all got their knowledge from tv and movies. and that's the way that Blacks have often been depicted.
so while they were racist, it was almost innocently.
not that I'm sad to see them go. cause they were kind of the Jar Jar Binks of Transformers.
Fingers crossed for "Kwan-Tron Ding-Dong" and, let's say, "Robot Cleveland Indians Mascot" to appear in part 3.
I was hoping for Swish and Limprist, personally.
I understand they're being replaced by "Pacotito", who transforms from a Taco Truck and "tokyo rosalind" which transforms from a souped up Honda Civic with Hello Kitty mudflaps.
Racism: noun
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
Stereotype: noun
Sociology. a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group: The cowboy and Indian are American stereotypes.
Two different things. Stop trying to pull the racist card to get shocking headlines.
If I were him I would make two more "black" robots and name them "Nigger" and "Nigga". People are so touchy no days. You can't do anything without someone pulling a race card. What about The Jefferson's when George was always calling the white guy a "Honky"?
Just get a life and stop trying to make everything about race, this is 2010 not 1840.
That is very disappointing, it was made for the kids and humorious but i know where they are coming from with the racism. But what other movie do you not know that has racism in them.
Those characters are fictitious and manipulated me into watching that movie over and over. There are more racists people on here than in the movie
You're a Decepticon whose evil power is complete lack of self-awareness and unintentional irony, right?
Well played, RD-NK.
First of all I want to address this whole issue that these two robots were racist. They are only racist if you choose to see them that way. Urban is the word to describe them with, not black. How many Eminem wanna be white boys have you seen that talk exactly like these robots did, that have attitudes and style, like these bots displayed? People looking for something to complain about looked for something to complain about and people just jumped on the bad wagon. It is my understanding that one of the voice actors for these guys was WHITE! So just for my own understanding are we saying that white guys that act urban or hip hop are racist?
Once again the race card has been pulled unnecessarily....*sigh*
hehe. Rise of the Cracker.
"What about The Jefferson's when George was always calling the white guy a "Honky"?"
The JEFFERSONS??? Dude, that was three decades ago. Even black racists don't say honkey anymore. In fact, it was a joke past the 60's. By the 70's, it was a sound a car horn made. I guess you never heard that joke.
Let's put it this way. What if the cars were beer swilling vehicles with "mudflaps", that liked NASCAR and wore a ball cap with a Conferate Flag on it and spoke like a Southerner? Thier idea of fun was burning wood crosses (inncently, of course) and get this....the CARS COULDN'T JUMP! So innocent now? There's one thing in being over-sensitive about nonsense like this, but another thing entirely to be in denial. If those robots had spoken like a stereotypical gay male, Bay would have gotten his panties in a wad and fired the "voice actors". But, what offended me wasn't the steorotype, it was the depiction SUCKED! That was a sterotype of a sterotype. A bad one at that. Now if those Transformers had sounded like Richard Pyor and Dave Chappelle...comedy gold. What it sounded like: two white guys trying to sound black.
Yeah, I was trying to come up with a non-jokey argument, but I'll just go with yours.
Oh, well you see they learned their personalities from pop culture so blah blah blahTHEY COULDN'T READ!!!!!! That just trumps everything else. They're hyper-advanced, sentient alien computers and they couldn't read because they were the blizzack ones. Did they learn illiteracy from us or was there no room to install that will all the bling? This is the exact same shit that Lucas pulled with casting Samuel Jackson as a jedi, tappin that "urban market". So goddamn racist.
Funny I watched the movie twice first time in the theater second at home, and neither time did I see racism, I just saw two idiot bots. Now how could this be that I did not see racism? Maybe its because you people look for things that are not there, racists see racism so maybe if people who grow up and move on from the past then maybe just maybe people would stop seeing racism in every little thing?
How can someone who voluntarily watched Transformers 2 twice see (or hear) anything at this point?
Wow, are autobots cool or what.
Lou
http://www.anonymous-posting.us.tc
I understand the point of the "Jeffersons" comments, but it misses the mark. "The Jeffersons" was a comedic social commentary about race relations in the '70s and the show would mock George for his shallowness just as much as he used "honky." Transformers 2 is just lazily using stereotypes because it thinks the audience will find them amusing. Which, apparently, is mostly true.
You rule out the possibility that you may be ignorant to a variety of common stereotypes associated with black people. And that's ok, you just may need to pick up a history book. however Michael Bay was born in 1965; I assure you he is fully aware of these circumstances.
BTW: If you do plan to do some research, try finding basis for the "can't read" part, that's the key.
In the future don't assume something is not there because you didn't notice it yourself. You'll find yourself in a lot of embarrassing situations that way.
- Cheers
Lol!
Frank isn't dead, don't worry.
Honestly, the only people who saw them as racist were people who WANTED to see them as racist.
They're not RACIST stereotypes. They're stereotypes, yes, but NOT of a particular ethnic group. They're stereotypes of those morons who TRY TO ACT LIKE THEY BELONG to a certain ethnic group based off what they've learned of "street" culture from TV and music.
They're no more racist than idiots who try to "act black" are. And those people aren't racist as they're trying to EMULATE that culture (and typically just looking like idiots in the process).
Also, this is out of date. There was a recent on-set sighting that suggests that Skids/Mudflap ARE in Transformers 3. Two Chevy Sparks turned up on-set - both black with green or orange racing stripes. Given the car Mudflap turned into never got manufactured, but the Spark did, this likely means the Twins are back with new paintjobs. This is the EXACT SAME THING that Bay did with ROTF when he continually denied Megatron was returning, despite all the evidence to the contrary via toy pictures that leaked from the factories.
As a final note, anything that Tom Kenny voices can't be bad. Seriously - the dude is hilarious, and Wheelie and the Twins were parts of the movie I wasn't expecting to enjoy (I was ready to cringe going off the leaked artwork of the Twins and descriptions of Wheelie) but that's a case where the voice actors took the characters and made them interesting. I was expecting to see a couple of hillbilly moron stereotypes, and when I saw a couple of robots trying to act street I instantly found that hilarious on multiple levels.
Note that people are STILL TALKING about these "racist" twins in the second Transformers movie. Rather than use somewhat generic characterisations like for Ratchet, Ironhide, and most of the Decepticons in the first movie, we got characters with CHARACTER to them.
As for the "They couldn't read" bit...
Admittedly, this was communicated VERY poorly in the final film, ENTIRELY due to the stereotypes used for Skids/Mudflap, but if you listen to the actual dialogue/look at the background, what's MEANT to be communicated is that NONE of the Autobots active on Earth can read the language (after all - can most people read Latin? Nope.) Which was the entire reason they tracked down Jetfire, because he was from a time where Cybertronians actually COULD read that language.
I won't disagree that this was poorly communicated, however. What it APPEARS to be is a couple of illiterate stereotypes - but RATHER what it is is that the language of the Primes is a dead language, which very few 'bots can actually read.
Well, they ARE stereotypes. But they're not BLACK stereotypes.
They're stereotypes of people who try to ACT "black". They're immature robots - they latched on to the whole "tough gangsta" persona like many humans often do.
People who try to act street aren't racist. They're morons, but not racist. They're not TRYING to make themselves look dumber - they want to look tough and badass.
There is a fundamental difference in intent - one is somewhat racist, but the other is simple mockery.
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