Where's the racism in "Transformers 2"?

Do you know what I’m tired of hearing? That “Transformers: Revenge of the fallen” is racist for featuring Skids and Mudflap. I haven’t really heard many good arguments for why. The most popular one out there right now is that these characters represent a stereotype for a race of people—African Americans. I’m not going to be bold and claim that those who make this association in the first place are racist, because nobody wants to be called racist. So allow me to take a different approach.

Why are movies like “Baby Boy”, “Friday After Next”, or “Rush Hour” (with Chris Tucker) not racist? Oh, because it’s African Americans acting like themselves? Really? Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker in “Rush Hour”) is often the epitome of the stereotype that Mudflap and Skids portray. Why does no one have a problem with that? Again, don’t say ‘because Tucker is acting like himself’. And before people bring out the argument that Tucker consented to the script, let me remind you that Mudflap was voiced by Reno Wilson (African American).

Okay, let me come at this argument in a different way. Why was there no racist outcry against “Bringing down the house”? In fact, the point of the scene in which Steve Martin portrays someone from the ‘hood’ is to have a Caucasian man exemplify the stereotype. It was hilarious right? Well the rest of America thought so as the movie did well at the box office. This isn’t the only movie to have some non-‘hood’ character act stereotypic for a few laughs; I'm sure a few come to mind now. The situation in “Transformers 2” really isn’t any different. Would it be less offensive if instead of robots, skids was played by Chris Rock?

Since the mid-90s the ‘token black guy’ has been an integral part to comedy. They play a stereotype that many people find funny. Would “Rush Hour” be as funny if Detective Carter was played by a zany European? Michael Bay appreciates the cinematic value of comic relief and understands the quality brought to a film by the stereotype we are discussing. Hence, Luenell in “The Rock”, Mark Curry in “Armageddon”, and Bernie Mac in the first “Transformers”.

So please, quit with the robot-racism issue. I saw the movie in St. Louis with an audience that was a majority African American and we laughed at every single joke (at least the funny ones) made by the two robots. And afterwards, I didn’t’ hear one person threatening to phone the studio over being offended. So if this applies to you (and you know who you are) please read thing #101 that white people like to do.

Thank you for your time and for listening to my opinion.

Please feel free to comment, but keep the violence to a minimum. Thank you.