The Energon Pub

My thoughts on Skids, Mudflap, and all the offensiveness surrounding this movie...

I went into the theater loving Skids and Mudflap just based on their concept. I left loving them even more, I looked forward to every moment they were on screen. It was questioned in an earlier post how such a ridiculous bunch of robots could have survived through all that their cybertronian history has put them through, and while a valid point I think their scene with Devestator definitely redeemed any and all of their credibility as survivors.

That said, coming home from work and reading all these postings on multiple sites about Bay having to defend them against accusations of being black stereotypes shocked me, simply because I didn't know they were even supposed to be black. I thought they were robots, my bad.

I try not to take Transformers too seriously, it's a fun and fanatical outlet from my every day life, that's why I love it so much, that's what has always made me a fan. I'm just here for the ride you know? Maybe that's why I haven't been offended by practically anything that everyone is making a big deal about.

But I will say this in the defense of these bold, loud twins. They are young and impressionable, that's something that we've been told multiple times in many different ways, so they are pretty easy to influence, just like we all were when we were growing up. So coming to earth and scanning the entire internet, they learned about being street (or at least what they thought being street is/was/whatever), they thought it was cool, and adapted it to their personalities, making it as bold and loud as they already were. It makes sense to me, and I like it.

I'm really sorry that so many of you guys were disappointed by the film. I just took the whole thing for a ride and loved every bit of it, I can't wait to go again.

I gotta say, I'm with Match on this; I left the theatre ready to proclaim the Twins as my favorite characters. Most of the time they were incompetent, and complete morons, but they were so in a way that created comedy and helped to lighten the mood from time to time, but when the sh*t really hit the fan, they turned out to be a couple of kick-ass bots you really don't want teaming up against you, even if they end up accidentally shooting each other in the face.

As for the whole racist thing, in person, I've known idiots from multiple races to behave the way the Twins did, the least of which being African Americans. The stereotype is not of blacks, but of idiots of any and all races who try to act "street" or "gangsta", and anyone who is offended by Skids' and Mudflap's character/behavior is an anger-natured individual looking for a reason to be offended by something, and thus hate who/whatever offends them.

I just want throw this in(take from it what you will): if the twins had different, less goofy head designs, they'd be more liked or likely seen as the type of people who act black and don't pull it off.

Everyone is fine with Ironhide, the two gun-toting Autobot who actually is black. Imagine the reaction if his head was made differently.

I really don't think that this is a problem because this movie is just fun guys. I was surprised when people thought that Jazz was offensive. I liked Jazz in the first film and I also didn't mind the Twins at all. Besides, the different voices gave the TF different personalities.

5150 Cruiser wrote:

Terrorsaur_85 wrote: Oh, PLEASE! blacks complain about EVVERRYYYTHHHHINNNNGGG! i thought they were funny as hell those two.

Terrorsaur_85 wrote:no..i'm not joking...the twins acted like the neighbor hood kids i see everytime...i mean, yeah it maybe racist--but they do act like that. i'm not being 'racist' but they really do act like that. kinda hard to ignore the truth. >.>

As a a Black person myself (oops, i mean "African American"), it kills me to say this, but i have to agree with these comments. While they might not be politically correct, there is alot of truth to this. I get tired of people of any ethnicity always throughing out the race card every time they feel there said ethnicity is shown in any type od sterotype.
Also as an African American male, it aggravates me to no end when people of any ethnicity brings up the most stupid **** as being racist. I mean com'on. think about this....
A red and green robot talk with an ghetto accent, has a gold tooth, and you automatically think..
"Oh, that's racist against black people!! How dare you!!"
You know what that tells me? That you acknowledge that this type of behavior is com'on among black(oops, i mean African American) people. Personally, I'm offended by the people that get offended by this!! Grow up!

Seriously, this is one of the best posts to this I have ever seen... Alot of this racist junk being wrote about in the news is just some guilty white liberals. They're the ones with the race problem... Sorry had to vent that out there.

5150 Cruiser wrote:

Terrorsaur_85 wrote: Oh, PLEASE! blacks complain about EVVERRYYYTHHHHINNNNGGG! i thought they were funny as hell those two.

Terrorsaur_85 wrote:no..i'm not joking...the twins acted like the neighbor hood kids i see everytime...i mean, yeah it maybe racist--but they do act like that. i'm not being 'racist' but they really do act like that. kinda hard to ignore the truth. >.>

As a a Black person myself (oops, i mean "African American"), it kills me to say this, but i have to agree with these comments. While they might not be politically correct, there is alot of truth to this. I get tired of people of any ethnicity always throughing out the race card every time they feel there said ethnicity is shown in any type od sterotype.
Also as an African American male, it aggravates me to no end when people of any ethnicity brings up the most stupid **** as being racist. I mean com'on. think about this....
A red and green robot talk with an ghetto accent, has a gold tooth, and you automatically think..
"Oh, that's racist against black people!! How dare you!!"
You know what that tells me? That you acknowledge that this type of behavior is com'on among black(oops, i mean African American) people. Personally, I'm offended by the people that get offended by this!! Grow up!

Well said!

I actually just thought they were just teenagers.

009* wrote:I just want throw this in(take from it what you will): if the twins had different, less goofy head designs, they'd be more liked or likely seen as the type of people who act black and don't pull it off.

Everyone is fine with Ironhide, the two gun-toting Autobot who actually is black. Imagine the reaction if his head was made differently.

actually he acts more like a texan (or american for that matter) cause we LOVE GUNS!

Transformers simply adapt to their surroundings, mannerism and all. They re masters of it, and thats what they do. Jazz offensive? Jazz was awesome in G1, he was into human pop culture, and voiced by an african american actor. Darius McCrazy(Eddie Winslow on Family Matters) said was honor follow Scatmans foot steps infact. He was still jazz as he was the cool autobot who loved human culture. I just wish hed somehow came back, but such as life.

It never crossed my mind the twins were "black", I just thought they were two idiot kids. I laughed at them,I took as them trying too hard be hip and were posers. Like dynamite hack singing boys in the hood heh. Anyone who read any more into it either being terribly self concious or just looking to be offended.

Whether their humor was too low brow for ya or now I can understand. But racist...not by a long shot. Insensitve perhaps..but tons of transformers have been modeled after people, (Prime modeled after Peter Cullens older brother in way he speaks. Mirage was after Dean Martin) whether be large groups of people or a single one. As they say, imtitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I dont feel world needs walk on egg shells at every turn.

Call me crazy but I didn't see the racism. I saw 2 impressional young bots representative of kids influenced by pop culture and urban society. I actually enjoyed the twins, I didn't think I would, but I did. I didn't find them racist at all, and I didn't find them annoying either. Jar Jar Binks was annoying, these bots didn't remind em of Jar jar at all.

Lastjustice wrote: It never crossed my mind the twins were "black", I just thought they were two idiot kids.

Agreed. In my mind, and as I told my wife in the car on the way home from the theater, Skids and Mudflap were like the white kid in the 'Pretty Fly For A White Guy' video.

I've also noticed (and it's already been mentioned in this thread) that most of the "That's racist!" finger pointers have been white.

That's just my two cents, it's probably worth just that. Still, when Skids said "It's supposed to hurt, it's an ass kicking" I almost laughed Diet Pepsi out my nose. So sorry folks, but I dig the twins.

The Twins were pretty goofy, I guess they were supposed to be afro-bots or whatever.

I had two black friends of mine who saw the movie with me and they weren't really offended by it, but we all agreed that Buttwipe and Shitz were a little over the top (to put it mildly).

As far as racist, no they're not really but they are stupid as hell and shouldn't have gotten so much screen time. However that being said, Jazz (with the exception of his "what's crackin' little bitches) was portrayed in a much better light as a 'bot who spoke like a certain demographic. I'm not saying I liked the movie Jazz as much as the G1 nice guy version, but he was much less dumb than the Twins.

Mudflap and Skid racist stereotypes. Nah. But, all this controversy is just bringing in more publicity and curosity for the film. Personally, the twins grew on me. No way will they hold a candle to Ironhide, Optimus Prime or Bumblebee, or hell, either Star Scream or Megatron for that matter, but I do know the kids that sat next to me, jumped to attention everytime they were on. It was clear, they were added in, more or less, for the 8 to 12 year olds. Anyone who can't see that are being old prunes.

If they really think this is the worst racism and stereotyping Transfomers has ever done, they are very very wrong. Anyone remember the G1 episode "Theif in the night?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbombya

Terrorsaur_85 wrote:

009* wrote:I just want throw this in(take from it what you will): if the twins had different, less goofy head designs, they'd be more liked or likely seen as the type of people who act black and don't pull it off.

Everyone is fine with Ironhide, the two gun-toting Autobot who actually is black. Imagine the reaction if his head was made differently.

actually he acts more like a texan (or american for that matter) cause we LOVE GUNS!

God bless Texas

Ironhide was characterized as a southerner (not a redneck, just a good old boy) in the original series, and I kind of felt that Bay kept that the same in the movie. A grass roots God-fearing (or whatever the Transformers have for a good lol) dude who has his friends backs all the time... just don't make him mad heh... or he'll show you his cannons.

Skids and Mudflap served no purpose other to be dumb and silly as Bay himself said, and we all know they definitely succeed in that area.

Cormaster628 wrote:If they really think this is the worst racism and stereotyping Transfomers has ever done, they are very very wrong. Anyone remember the G1 episode "Theif in the night?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbombya

Casey Kasem left the show because of that. I don't see anyone jumping ship from the movies because one of the twins has a gold tooth.