Racist animated characters keep slipping by.

I'm taking a class called African Americans in the Media this semester and my teacher brought up a topic about racism with made-up characters. Her lecture focused on two characters in this summer's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

The characters, named Skids and Mudflap caused some controversy when many believe their characters to be racial caricatures of African Americans. According to the Huffington Post, the characters "constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth."

Here are a few clips of the twin robots:





The conversation in class made me think of other characters where I have seen this happen and I instantly thought of Space Jam. For those who have not seen that classic movie starring Michael Jordan, it involves a race of cartoon aliens who try to take over the Looney Tunes for their theme park in outer space. When the Looney Tunes recruit MJ to challenge the aliens in a basketball game, the aliens take the skills of other NBA stars like Charles Barkley and Muggsy Bogues to become better.

When the tiny aliens turn into mammoth monsters, they morph from little pip-squeaks to what in my opinion is another caricature of African Americans. Not only do they talk in "street slang," the caricature is perpetuated even further because they are playing basketball — clearly an African American stereotype.

Here are a few clips of the "Monstars":





I love Space Jam. It is one of my favorite movies from my childhood. But clearly African American caricatures have not changed since the movie came out in 1996. This summer's Transformers sequel made that very clear. My question is why do writers or directors feel the need to make Skids and Mudflap sound like they came from the ghetto? What purpose does that serve for the film? And it is obviously not unintentional. Michael Bay knew what he was doing when he created those characters.