Critical Race and Discourse in Media Stereotyping Perspective Assignment 10/8

I was watching Transformers 2 tonight, and I was immediately taken aback when I noticed 2 goofy looking, characters in the movie Mudflap and Skids that were designed as stereotypical urban African Americans. Michael Bay, the director himself, apparently acknowledged as much in an interview with the Association Press but was not concerned suggesting that this was the way the voice actors chose to voice these characters, dismissing the characters as simply being robots. Though the movie was shallow on plot, I have difficulty believing that the racist cartoonish depiction of these two characters would be left up to voice actors, and was not instead planned to appeal to young white audiences with preconceived perceptions.

There is a particularly poignant scene early in the film when the two robots are asked to read a tattoo, and they say with an urban accent (below: 1:48) "we don't really do much reading" - thus reinforcing race stereotypes, without question.

The perspectives I am reading these characters from include both critical race and critical discourse perspectives as African American obstacles to literacy derive from slavery and continued cultural and economic barriers to education. Despite Mr. Bay's assertion, anyone with some minor history understanding should be able to understand just how insensitive two goofy looking, African American sounding characters stating their illiteracy actually is.




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