I just came back today from watching the new film Transformers out in theatres. I expected a spectacle. As a matter of fact, the term ‘spectacle’ had to be my yard stick because the movie, just like most big Hollywood productions, never promoted itself as anything other than a high budget computer generated fanfare. I also expected flagrant product placements. I was not disappointed. The film was brimming in vehicle advertisements, technological brand name placements, and patriotic military images. Arguably, there’s the whole film! And, the movie didn’t dare to steer away from the classical narrative of good guy, bad guy and happy ending – though, I never expected it to.
However, the movie did leave me with some thoughts.
First, earlier, I used the term ‘flagrant’, a term that I believe applies to the film at every level. At times it seemed that the film was almost consciously flagrant. Not only was the film flagrant about its special effects, product placements, and military support, but it was also flagrant about its support of stereotypes. At face value our protagonist is a ‘geek’ who has a romantic interest in the school jock’s (football player) girlfriend, who, of course, has never noticed him despite the fact that they have apparently been in school together for most of their lives. Depiction of minority groups was also very stereotypical, between the hot-blooded Hispanic soldier introduced at the beginning of the film, and a host of popular African-American actors firmly embedded in the American cultural imagination (including Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson). Characters in the film constantly make reference to all technology being ‘japanese’, many of transformers themselves seem caught up in ‘japanese’ and there are many references to how intelligent the Japanese are. And, of course, I don’t recall a fully dressed young female in the whole film, particularly the female lead (Megan Fox). If that’s not enough, all of the main characters are white, middle class, and naïve but courageous – just the way
Second, I was somewhat surprised by the expected breadth of audience, particularly through the use of comedy in the film. Besides the presence of Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson in their characteristic roles, these huge machines/transformers can be found playing hide and seek in the backyard of the protagonist, a small transformer (who happens to kill a number of people) is presented as cute both in movement, facial expression and sound effects (that closely resemble either an Ewok from Star Wars or Gizmo from the series Gremlins). What’s more the protagonist forms a relationship with his car/transformer that can only be described as comical and cute… not quite what I expected from death machines coming to take over the world! However, this use of comedy is consistent with the (presumably) great efforts taken on behalf of the producers to target the largest possible audience. Between the comedy, expressiveness of the robots, and the fact that Transfomers was at least originally targeted to children in the 1980s – there is some sense in which the film tries to target to a younger audience.
On the other hand, the level of violence, non stop action, extraordinary special effects appears to securely target a 16 year old plus audience. Comical moments are carefully interspersed with heightened suspense, action/violence and some drama. As broad a scope as possible!
Third, and of greatest interest to me is the fact that the film is another product of the Hollywood machine, and as another component in the American Cultural Imperialist agenda it may be making broader comments that what is delivered at face value. Of course, there appears to be a strong right-wing military agenda in the film, largely supportive of the existing Bush administration (early footage of the
What is unique about Transformers is as follows: a) we didn’t create the technology, and b) we largely stole our technology from them. Of course, this posits the film more into an Aliens-type of film, where there is a gross disparity between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the absence of any causal relationship. What is most interesting to me is that rather than have some scary beast as ‘them’, the film uses ‘technology’, which is something that the audience knows to be ‘our’ creation. Is this a statement? Are we so overwhelmed by technology in our day to day lives as to also feel alienated from it? Despite our dependence on technology (or perhaps due to it) have we reached such a divide as to forget or ignore the fact that ‘we’ as humanity have created ‘them’ or this technology?
Our psychological history of violence is paved in the perception of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In light of this I cannot help but think of a famous band Rage Against the Machine, the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution and finally a wonderful contemporary artist by the name of Ashley Wood who consistently emphasize focuses (and often quite comically) on the relationship between humans and robots. I leave you with a couple of his wonderful paintings and encourage you to check out his website following a viewing of Transformers.
