Also read: Hollywood, diversity management, racism, cultural competency, Black, stereotypes

Comic relief or racism? Directors of the box-office hit "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" are being asked that question as movie critics and patrons are riled up over new characters they consider "minstrels."

The new androids in question are the twin bots Skids and Mudflap. Disguised as compact Chevys, the characters are jive-talking, break-dancing bots that are forced to admit their illiteracy. And to top it off, one has a gold tooth.  

Click here to read "A Muslim in Hollywood: My 15 Seconds as a Film Extra."

Click here to read "At the Oscars: I'm Not Celebrating Racial Diversity Just Yet."

Click here to read "Report Card on TV Diversity: Latinos Win Big, 'Ugly Betty' Network Scores."

These Transformers characters are given "conspicuously cartoonish, so-called Black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas," The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis wrote, referring to the clumsy, broken-English-speaking "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace" character who was deemed a racial caricature.

Michael Bay, director of "Transformers," brushed off the accusations that the bots perpetuated racial epithets, saying: "We're just putting more personality in. I don't know if it's stereotypes--they are robots, by the way. These are the voices of actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."

Television actor Reno Wilson, who is Black, plays the voice of Mudflap.

This isn't the first time the movie industry has exploited negative stereotypes of Blacks to get a laugh or earn a buck, says Todd Bay, professor at the University of South California's School of Cinematic Arts.

"There's a history of people getting laughs at the expense of African Americans and African-American culture," Boyd told The Associated Press. "These images are not completely divorced from history, even though it's a new movie and even though they're robots and not humans."

Bay has dismissed any notion that the bots are racist, contending they're non-human and, therefore, should not be held to the same standard as human actors. This is a point with which Allyson Nadia Field, assistant professor of cinema and media studies at UCLA, disagrees: "There's a persistent dehumanization of African Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," Field told AP. 

Although it remains to be seen how the brewing controversy will affect future box-office sales (the movie made $60.6 million on opening day), one thing is clear: "It's not about skin color or robot color," says Field. "It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."

Note: DreamWorks, the company that produced the "Transformers" movie, does not participate in the DiversityInc Top 50 survey. The company's web site does, however, have an equal-employer-opportunity clause that states, in part: "We believe that creating a workplace that encourages diversity helps us to attract the best talent and fosters the most creative ideas." According to the site, DreamWorks has protections against discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, age, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, physical or mental disability, veteran status and marital status.

Readers' Comments