Funny enough...it's the black directors that are creating that stereotype more than white directors.
Please provide examples of black directors
creating this stereotype? Now, I'm sure there are some black directors that use stereotypes and demeaning depictions of black people, but did they create those stereotypes? Or merely profit from them like white directors do? Furthermore, compare the number of movies from white directors compared to black directors, and then take a look at the type of black characters in the movies of each. I think you'll see occassional buffoonery in films from both, but at least with films from black directors you might get a diversity of black characters, that come from all social strata. Usually in majority white films, there is one black character and they are often used as comic relief, objects of sympathy or pity, someone to be saved, sacrificial lamb, or just a helpmate, the bland black best friend type of roles. Roles that do little but make black people objects of derision, or keep them inconsequential from the main happenings.
I haven't watched RotF. I didn't care for the first Transformers movie so this one didn't interest me. But I have read about the twin thing, and seeing what Bay did with Jazz, it didn't give me much hope.
I would like to know what some of the people who declare that the twins aren't racist, and it seems that is a commonly held view among many posters, if someone would tell me what they consider would be racist?
Some of the comments remind me of when people say the n-word just refers to an ignorant person and it doesn't necessarily always have a racial connotation. I'm sorry, but it does, and there's a long painful history behind that word that backs that statement up.
Are there ignorant black people? Yes. Do some fit some of the gansta stereotypes? Yes. But is that the majority? Of course not. However, that seems to be the majority depiction for black people in the mass media, and it's a skewered and negative depiction that doesn't increase racial/ethnic understanding. It only hardens feelings or confirms suspicions that 'they' are all like that, if you see the same kind of crap over and over again. Bay could've just as easily made the characters rockers if he wanted to appeal to youth, or perhaps had them acting generically young. It didn't have to be race/culture specific.
Just because some black people co-sign some of these negative images doesn't mollify me or justify stereotypical portrayals. We are fed the same type of negative garbage time and again as others so many of us buy into the stereotyping of our own people as well.
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