And all that Jazz.

[odditycollector]

 

The Transformers movie has been running around my head since I saw it, but, surprisingly, it's not the aforementioned creepy thing that stuck with me. It's the other creepy thing.

It's what they did with Jazz.

So, Jazz. He's the Autobot introduced to us as a parody of black culture as seen on MTV and... that's it. That's his characterization. It's so over the top and delivered with such a straight face that I was grimacing during the scene, rationalizing to myself that it had to have been some sort of homage to his initial '80s appearance. Because we're over the blaxploitation phase, right? Right?

And then, I think he gets one speaking line between the initial "yo yo my homies" and the final battle scene at the end. And then he gets ripped in half by the bad guys.

And this is how important his death is to whatever there is of plot: When a couple of the Autobots sadly relate the news of his fate, it took me a few seconds to remember that it had happened. About as long as it took the on screen characters to get over it, in fact, and launch into a monologue on the subject of how easy it is to replace him with their new found human friends.

Nice.

 

The question that's been been going around my head is this: If Jazz is The Black Autobot, does that mean that the rest of them are The Not Black Autobots? IE, are they coded as White?

I've settled on yes. Except for Jazz, the Autobots seem to exist in a sort of cultural void. They don't even act *alien*, really. They're just as one-dimensional as everyone else in the movie, but they're exaggerated along traits. ("I like to shoot things!" "I like to heal things!" "I like to give badly written soliloquies that don't end until long after the audience is embarrassed on my behalf!" "I like my human charges perhaps more than is appropriate for a PG13 rated film!" "...I'm 'Black'."")

It's easy to say race does not apply, then, but. But they've *applied* it. They've set aside Jazz as Other, so, Other than *what*? Other than the cultural default that the rest of the cgi robots belong to? Well, okay.

But.

Our "cultural default" is White. There is no Everyman of Colour in western media. Every time a movie chooses to have a character be not white, it is saying something about that character.

As it should, really, because we none of us exist in a societal vacuum, but it's too easy to use "black" or "asian" or whatever as shorthand *for* character. It's how we end up with stereotypes: he's Black, therefore he listens to rap music. Of course. And he has a rap sheet? Who's surprised. Barely even have to bother mentioning it.

(And it's too easy to forget that if a movie chooses to use a white character, it is saying something just as important.)

In the case of Jazz, this is turned around. Since we don't have any visual cues to go on, the stereotyping is used to code him as Black. It's kind of bizarre; though, since we're talking about giant alien robots without proper human facial features, I'm not sure how you *could* set them apart along (human) racial lines without resorting to blatant stereotypes. You could have them interested in different things; you could play with the accents and word choice; you could could draw names from different cultures (Srsly, though. "Jazz"?). But none of that's really the same thing.

It's too subtle, too thought out, too much like individual variation. It's not "Race" unless there's a visceral identification.

 

But the thing is, would they still be coded as White if Jazz *hadn't* been set apart as Other?

I... can't decide.

Even pretending they had not all been voiced by white guys, I have no idea. Even - especially - if it's never brought up as an issue, the writers are going to bring certain assumptions to the keyboard, aren't they? Even if ALL the nominally humanoid robots belong to that same cultural default....

It's still White.

And I'm white, and so many of the assumptions the writers make are probably going to be the same as my own. I'm not going to *see* it.

It's troubling me, because it's not like Transformers is the only show with non-humanoid characters who can't act too non-human because then how would the kids identify. Do those characters read as, you know, *people*, or do they they read as White?

And it's troubling me that - judging by how they treated Jazz, who *didn't* - maybe you don't get one without the other.

Or maybe you just don't get one with the Other.

 

Comments

If you don't indicate it somehow, in your text,

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

how do you expect that anyone who reads it is going to know that you *intend* for some characters to be non-white, unless you tack an AN on? It's not like readers are psychic.

Given that a lot of readers didn't get that *all* the main characters in Anansi Boys were black, until it was specifically mentioned that So-and-So was *white* (tho' it was pretty damn obvious to me at least that Charlie's family and friends were black West Indian living in the US and UK, given all the cultural clues and tip-offs early on, e.g. young Charlie's dilemma at not being able to speak in stereotypically "black" (American) ways when rap and hip-hop became popular in Britain) you can *guarantee* that 1) white readers will assume that the characters are just like themselves, the way that Hollywood and mainstream fiction always presents main characters as Default White, and 2) readers of color will assume that they've been excluded again, since there's no evidence to the contrary.

Saying "my viewpoint character doesn't notice color" is a cop-out: is your viewpoint character in a coma? No? Then she will sort of kind of have to notice how *other* people in the world react to her color, won't she? And to other people's around her? Because not *everybody* is as happily non-biased as in an afterschool special, you know. "I couldn't help but notice how Sarah flinched when Pete jokingly asked Vince if he was a Jew after he picked up the dime from off the pavement," would be a plausible sort of "noticing" - and yes, that is based on something I really saw someone who thinks of themselves as non-racist, not an anti-Semite, nice middle American do, a few years ago.

Besides which, there are other ways of coding ethnic background than something as cringe-inducingly-blatant as "I looked into the mirror at my mahogany-hued countenance". Offhand references to the kinds of household names/colloquial expressions/injokes/pop music/other *differences* that make visiting an Asian friend's house even in Utter Suburbia a different experience from visiting a European-descended family. What snacks are on the table, frex.

"Hey, what is this stuff? This isn't Chex Mix! It's really good! Ow, it's HOT!" (Been there, done that, inhaled the dal...)

Re: If you don't indicate it somehow, in your text,

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

how do you expect that anyone who reads it is going to know that you *intend* for some characters to be non-white, unless you tack an AN on? It's not like readers are psychic.


Thank you for re-articulating my point for me. Because this is precisely the point, and the problem; despite the fact that there is actually every reason to assume (including off-hand remarks, if not focused ones) that the characters are in a multi-racial environment, without deliberately drawing pointed attention to it, the majority of people will assume everyone is white, and I am not in a position to draw more pointed attention to it without mangling my novel.

Within the plot and the set-up, along with the point of view premises of the novel, none of your suggestions are particularly viable/relevant, but thank you for your phrasing. I appreciate the implications of it. However, may I point out that your example of Anansi Boys demonstrates how clearly those more subtle forms of pointing it out can be missed? Likewise to yourself, I knew that the default race in the book had been switched, because I did pick up the coding involved (and was massively pleased with its subtlety). Very obviously, many people didn't. It is unfortunately not appropriate to my viewpoint character to be any more blatant than that in 90% of cases, and thus my "hmmmm" worry.