Unconscious Racism

Yes.  I did enjoy the movie Transformers 2: The Revenge of the Fallen.  However, there were just some parts that I did not find funny. AT ALL. While my friends and practically everyone else at the movie theater laughed out loud, I stared at the screen.  Half in disbelief and half believing.  I was in disbelief because I liked this movie.  And to be honest, in disbelief that people found it so funny. I can understand why they found it funny.  But I was not expecting what I was hearing and seeing.  I know violence and threats are used to make people laugh often.  Statements such as “Imma slap the shit out of you” can be said to someone to make a third person laugh.  But, of course, I did believe what I was seeing.  It’s a movie.  Why would Hollywood even care.  The racism in the movie is not such that you see it and say “Oh that’s wrong.”  Of course not.  It works its way into your subconscious without alarming your system.

I will not say that the movie was racist.  I’m not going to make that statement, yet. But there is definitely racism in it.  I have discussed this with a few people.  Some agreed with me.  But others, especially those who loved the movie or who don’t think racism exists, argued my views.  The things that the characters who I had a problem with say in the movie can be funny… if it was in a different setting, with characters developed differently, and when other characters of their same race are portrayed with different purposes.

There are two robots who speak in what our minds will recognize as African-American voices without much thinking.  (When you sit to watch a movie you do not analyze everything that is on the screen – you pretty much sit and absorb.)  Then there is Tyrese, who plays a man in the military.  Just because of the color of his skin we immediately accept that he is black. And there is another character who appears for about 2.5 seconds who the viewer will also identify as black.

The man who appears for the 2.5 seconds (estimating) has messed up teeth, doesn’t look clean, and mumbles something which I cannot remember after being ordered by his white boss.  That – the crowd found funny.

Tyrese Gibson’s character, who is second in line to his white counterpart, only appears in the film to say things to make the audience laugh with his arrogance and anger.  I should also add that this character does not speak eloquently.

The two robots with the voices that we interpret to be African-American voices also come into scene with the purpose of making us laugh.  They are inarticulate at times, we hear them mumble, they threaten each other, fight, and seem as if they are problematic however very funny to watch.  (One of the robots even has a gold tooth!)

Although none of these four characters made me laugh, it seemed that everyone else in the room found it  hilarious.  So… I started contemplating… Reading the book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Maxwell Gladwell helped me theorize.  From what I learned reading the book and from my previous thoughts on race, I  concluded:  Racism persists in our societies not only because  of the reasons scholars have presented in the past, but because we subconsciously carry proves in our minds that dictates to us as individuals how to behave with certain people and groups of people. Although racism is also taught to individuals by society, individuals unconsciously gather information to carry on what they learn from society to reinforce those beliefs within themselves and to others.

The movie Transformers 2: The Revenge of the Fallen does just this.  Just as many other films have done.  They portray characters of a certain race in ways that are demeaning.  The four characters I mentioned earlier were the only four characters in the movie that can be identified as being black (from what I remember watching).  By having all four characters behave in ways in which the white patriarchal system says blacks - in this case especially with African-Americans – behave, the movie producers reinforce into the subconscious of the unconscious viewer that black people  do behave that way.

Gold-teeth wearing, inarticulate, angry, arrogant, problematic and unclean are just some of the ways in which blacks are categorized in this film.  The fact that the audience laughs when these characters are on the screen does not mean the scene is funny.  The laughter just reinstates our subconscious beliefs.