Is Racism in visual media making a comeback? Pt.1

As we all know, racism is a boiling topic to discuss. Men like Dr. king and Malcolm X fought to keep it down. They ended up dying because of this plague. After both assassinations, the subject matter should had dropped. But it appears that the bigots out there are still rolling strong. It’s okay for a bigot to think racist thoughts and not act on them. As human beings, we are entitled to think whatever we want. But when you express your racy thoughts through visual media, it raises eye browns.

For example, in the movie “Transformers 2: Revenge of the fallen” Michael Bay portrays two robots with African American voices. These robots are the only ones with monkey facial features. Every other robot has somewhat human facial features. The term “porch monkey” is a racial slur intended for black people. This implies that black people look like monkeys. So for these black voiced robots to look like monkeys raises the question. What is the director trying to say? One could argue this, but they would lose.These monkey robots have on gold earrings and one of them has a gold tooth. These characters are clumsy and dim witted. All the other robots seem to be on the ball every time. Is this Bay’s perception of African Americans?

Seth Macfarlane, the creator of Family Guy, shows his other side too. The stereotypes and dialogue makes me ponder about his intentions with the cartoon. The jokes weren’t over the top, but one of his characters that is African American was taken off the show. He has given the character his own separate sitcom now. I think this move was done due to complaints about the jokes. When the character Cleveland was on the show, he didn't stand out to a point where he would get his own show. He was just a normal character. This raises questions for Seth. Unless, Cleveland was voted for the most popular character, I don't why Seth would make this move. So now he has a white family show, and a black family show. When you look at it from this perspective, everybody is satisfied with the outcome.