Transformers: A Writer’s Lesson In Cultural Caricature

Not too long ago, a movie called Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen hit theaters and brought with it a startling wave of disapproval from many critics. Among the complaints was that two characters, Mudflap and Skids, were racial stereotypes that demeaned black people. The offending characteristics cited included a large gold tooth, trendy hip-hop dialogue, illiteracy, profanity, and relative foolishness. I don’t want to delve into that cesspool of conflict with an opinion one way or another; many such claims and debates seem to arise almost every day in some form or another, and the arguments just get worn out. There are those who don’t care, and those who will take offense, and that’s not going to change.

What I found interesting was examining the critiques from the perspective of a writer. Is it possible to avoid what is being called “racial stereotyping” or blatant “racism”? Are characters like Mudflap and Skids really a direct assault on a specific culture, or are they indicative of an entertainment trend? As I contemplated these questions, it became clear that “racism”, as defined by the critics of this film, is in fact unavoidable, and that the so called “racial stereotyping” is in fact nothing more than a caricature of a culture as seen through the eyes of entertainment.

You are a writer. Michael Bay has just approached you and said the following:

“I’m looking for a comedic character for the Autobots. Right now most of the comedy is coming from the humans—I want some memorable, entertaining robots thrown into the mix. The movie’s already 2.5 hours long, so I need the humor to be quick and easily inserted into the flow of the film. Give me something to work with…”

As a writer, your process of developing these characters goes something like this:

“Okay, time is an issue. If I have one comedic character, he’s going to have to play off of one of the main characters like Optimus Prime. But the main characters need to be pushing the plot forward and providing exposition—there isn’t enough time for them to play straight-men setting up jokes for a wisecracking Autobot. We need two characters, not one—that way they can play off each other.

Any sort of depth is going to be lost because they won’t have enough screen time to develop as anything more than comic relief, so they can almost be the same character. Cut from the same…Matrix or All Spark or whatever.

Twins!

Sibling rivalry! Conflict is always more entertaining than harmony, and it creates more comedic potential as well. They’ll be antagonistic towards each other, verbally and physically; that way they can add comedic spice without interfering with important plot points or slowing the pacing.

Pacing. Yes. If the action is fast, these guys have to be too. Impulsive, action-oriented. Shoot first, think later. Not incredibly bright. Intelligent robots are logical, ponderous, and analyze the situation and circumstances. I can’t have these guys making witty social commentaries, or taking time out for Seinfeldian observations. They’ve got to be aggressive and almost hyper with a very simple, almost juvenile mentality…”

Now look at the characteristics developed so far: juvenile, aggressive, simple-minded, and impulsive. We’re talking about a pair of buffoons here; lots of physical comedy, coarse dialogue, and all around foolish behavior. For the type of film that Revenge was, comedic relief had to take that form, or else the pacing (which was arguably awry to begin with) and dramatic elements would suffer.

With that in mind, is there any “race” that would be edified by being identified with these characters? Right now these two are merely silhouettes—skeletal outlines that can be fleshed out in any number of ways. But as soon as they are given specific characteristics of any kind, they are naturally going to be indicative of some existing culture or race of people. Whether they have a British accent, a country twang, or a Scottish brogue, they will still be viewed as buffoons because of the essential elements that form their core.

Any group of people could be offended by having their nationality identified with such clowns! Even white Americans, who are often overlooked as having any culture or substance of their own, could be targeted and demeaned. So what is the answer? The only option would be to eliminate such clownish characters from all screenplays. No goofy sidekicks, no more unintelligent people doing crazy things.

But wait, you can’t stop there. No more villains either. After all, you can’t very well have one race of people being identified as “bad” people. From now on, all characters must be educated, pleasant, and courteous—drama will be created by innocent misunderstandings and hapless blunders.

The fact of the matter is that there are geniuses, idiots, heroes and villains of all languages, colors, races, and dialects. There is no way to create a character that is not in some way identified with a specific group of people. Mudflap and Skids had to be high-energy, antagonistic, impulsive, and, therefore, less cerebral than the other robots. That’s what the script called for—the only thing left was to choose a style. The essence of the characters would have stayed the same no matter which direction the filmmakers went, so some group of people was going to end up sounding like bickering adolescents.

Without removing the characters altogether, there is no way of getting around what seems to be considered “racial stereotyping” or “racism”. Unfortunately everyone in the world is a member of some race, and that includes the writers and actors. Apparently having robots with perceived negative characteristics is intolerable, unless they have no personality, accents, or distinct diction.

Screenwriters, take note!

Aside from trying to see if such vile acts of wanton racism could be avoided in writing a screenplay, I also wanted to pinpoint where the source of these perceived stereotypes came from. Mudflap and Skids are supposed to be a mockery of black culture, but what I discovered is that they are in fact merely caricatures of black entertainment.

Stereotyping is, “a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, or prejudiced attitude”. In order for the characters in Transformers to be stereotypes, they would have to be in some way a representative of a group of people—in this case, black people. The problem is that I don’t know a single black person who acts or talks the way the two characters in question do. I have friends, co-workers, acquaintances, teachers, coaches, and pastors who are black, and none of them even come close to being mimicked in Revenge. I recognized a connection, but it wasn’t from the real people that I knew and corresponded with on a daily basis.

So that got me thinking that maybe these characters weren’t stereotypes as much as they were caricatures of some sort. A caricature is defined as, “an exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics”. Caricatures by their very nature are unflattering—it’s almost impossible for them not to be. Exaggerating one characteristic creates disproportion, and disproportion always looks ridiculous and/or comical.

In the case of Mudflap and Skids, they were caricatures by necessity. There was no time in the plot to give them depth or fullness—the characteristics that allowed them to be comedic relief were developed to the detriment of everything else. And, in order to make them memorable, they had to be exaggerated even more. The design and mechanical nature of the transformers makes it difficult to convey emotion and character without juicing them up a bit. Optimus Prime isn’t memorable because of his character; he has the most lines, the best fight scenes, and he drives the plot forward. Bumblebee is able to get away with minimal exaggeration, but he has a gimmick: he talks using TV and radio catch phrases. The rest of the Transformers are, well, forgettable. They can afford to be.

In order for the two robots to do what Michael Bay wanted them to, they had to be exaggerated, which in turn meant that they had to be caricatures of something. But again, caricatures are disproportionate representatives of something or someone that exists. The characteristics I saw in Mudflap and Skids weren’t caricatures of any black people I knew—or any people I knew in general.

Then it hit me. They were caricatures of black culture as it is portrayed in the entertainment industry.

Turn on a rap or hip-hop video. You’ll see gold and platinum teeth aplenty. And they aren’t just visible, they are displayed with pride. Listen to the lyrics. They worship violence and aggression. Not to say that you won’t get similar messages from heavy metal or other genres of music, but if you’re looking for the model that the caricatures are based off of, you can find them in the images put forth by the music industry. If countless successful black entertainers sport gold teeth, why is it so outlandish for a robot to have one as well? (Bearing in mind the type of film Transformers is.)

Watch movies like Bad Boys, Rush Hour, and Gone In 60 Seconds, and you will hear almost verbatim the same dialogue that is used by Mudflap and Skids in Revenge. None of those movies were lambasted for racism, yet the black characters in those films make the same punch-lines, comedic threats of violence, and quips. So what is the difference? After all, the lines don’t sound any smarter coming from a live person than from someone doing a VO for a CGI character.

The difference is that the exaggeration used in Revenge made the lines and actions a parody of the characters instead of a celebration of them. Instead of looking smooth and sounding dangerously amusing, they looked goofy and sounded foolish. Same characters, same lines, different perspective.

In a film like Revenge, the perspective of everything is going to be different. It’s essentially a very long Saturday-morning cartoon that substitutes real people for animation. In that light, everything and everyone is going to seem childlike and silly. Short of having Will Smith voicing a suped-up Bentley that fires off pithy one-liners along with armor-piercing rounds, the film wasn’t going to show black entertainment culture in a flattering light.

The question is, should it have? Is it racist to parody a stylized culture that has been created by entertainers from the original culture? If actors like Martin Lawrence, Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Master P can create a standard of sorts for how comedic roles are written for black people, is caricaturizing that standard such an offense?

For every culture, every race, every group of people, there is a “real” version and an “entertainment” version. The entertainment version is the easily-digestible, superficial, quotable, and profitable presentation of the original. It needs to appeal to the masses to be profitable, and it has to be formulaic so it can be mass produced for multiple films. It’s almost a caricature in and of itself; exaggerate or distort even a small portion of it, and it becomes parody.

As a writer, I found Revenge and its critiques to be an enlightening window into the realities and perceptions of the entertainment industry. I have always been taught that generalization is the death of character, so I can’t say I’m a fan of the broad strokes the entertainment industry uses to characterize a culture, but judging by box office results, I’m in the minority. It is helpful to bear in mind however, that it is not any true culture that such films victimize, but rather the shadow of said cultures created by an industry that makes decisions based almost completely on profit.

Revenge may have many faults in many aspects of filmmaking, but in terms of racism, it does little more than mimic the characterizations presented by the industry on scores of films before it. It exposes the cultural caricatures for what they are, and leaves it to future writers and directors to either maintain those counterfeits, or to transform them into a deeper reflection that edifies the true diversity of the industry.