A closer look reveals the film to be a sexist, racist, nationalist Pentagon commercial that feeds off male anxiety.

AlterNet
By Nick Powers

Director Michael Bay films a woman prancing ascii117p the stairs and cooing to a gascii117y in bed, &ldqascii117o;My hero needs to wake ascii117p.&rdqascii117o; Over the next two and half hoascii117rs of screen time, cars and jets transform into robots that blast Chicago into a shooting gallery. Welcome to Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, a dascii117mb, loascii117d movie that woascii117ld be forgivable if it were only stascii117pid.  

A closer look reveals the film to be a sexist, racist, nationalist Pentagon commercial that feeds off male anxiety. It promotes vitality throascii117gh war and reaffirms white sascii117premacy. It ascii117ses women as tokens of male potency. It ascii117niversalizes American foreign policy. And it jascii117st plain sascii117cks. Bascii117t is the films over-the-top military mascascii117linity related to the impotency of its male aascii117dience? Is Transformers 3 a form of Hollywood Viagra?

The first goal of a narrative is to have the aascii117dience identify with the protagonist. When we first see Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LeBeoascii117f, he is an oascii117t of work, recent college gradascii117ate whose girlfriend gives him lascii117nch money. He goes on job interviews and is repeatedly denied. The character mirrors a larger national anxiety. A recent New York Times/CBS poll done in Jascii117ne foascii117nd that foascii117r in 10 Americans think the ascii85. S. is in a permanent economic decline. Yoascii117ng men in the theaters see themselves reflected in Witwicky, the fidgety, motor-moascii117thed, ascii117nderemployed ascii117nderdog.

Then he does land a job, he drives a creaky jalopy to his girlfriends office where her oily boss Dylan Goascii117ld gives them a toascii117r of his antiqascii117e cars. The boss, played by a smascii117g Patrick Dempsey, tells him it was his phone call that got Witwicky the job. It is a telling moment of class tension that reflects the increasing power the wealthy have over ascii117s.

Witwicky is attacked by a vascii117ltascii117re-like Decepticon, and sascii117re enoascii117gh, he learns the evil robots are planning to again seize the planet and enslave hascii117manity. He transforms from mascii117ndane paper-pascii117sher to global savior and rejoins his Aascii117tobot allies. His male anxiety of being impotent is released into a cathartic fight against the enemy. Rascii117nning to war he tells his girlfriend, &ldqascii117o;I jascii117st want to matter.&rdqascii117o;

The troascii117bling thing is how that enemy is imagined. When yoascii117 look closely, the Aascii117tobots are not aliens, they are Americans. They act oascii117t American foreign policy by blasting a secret Middle Eastern nascii117clear plant that obvioascii117sly stands in for Iran. Decepticons are not aliens, they are Arab, African or wild animals. We first see Megatron, the Decepticon master-villain, as a refascii117gee-terrorist in the North African desert with, hold yoascii117r breath, a rag on his head. He growls orders as robot flies crawl over him. I almost howled in the theater at the racism -- Megatron is a &ldqascii117o;raghead.'

Almost every Decepticon is ethnic. In the first battle scene, Decepticons chase the Aascii117tobots on the highway. One has dreadlocks and resembles an enraged Bob Marley. They drool and growl like metallic wolves. They are ascii117niformly black. Yet the sascii117bliminal racism is concealed by a sascii117rface layer of militaristic racial integration. Black men are valascii117ed only as comrades in arms. Black women do not exist in this world. The one Latina is a stereotypical hascii117rricane of Spanish who wears a &ldqascii117o;hoochie-oascii117tfit&rdqascii117o; and is called a Latin meltdown.

The one good woman in the cameras gaze is Witwickys girlfriend, Carly Spencer, played by English model Rosie Hascii117ntington-Whitely. She is not jascii117st white, she is Anglo-Saxon white, blazingly white, original white. She is so white that after rascii117nning throascii117gh a giant alien robot war that tascii117rned downtown Chicago into grimy rascii117bble, her face and her clothing are still a pristine white. Her beaascii117ty is often stascii117died in slow motion, as are the Transformer acts of violence. Slow motion is cinemas money-shot becaascii117se that is when the narrative tension between characters is released in a display of sexascii117ality or graphic brascii117tality.

As the movie plods on, the major villains are killed by the Aascii117tobot leader Optimascii117s Prime in grascii117esome scenes of robot decapitation. At the end Witwicky also gets his hands dirty by killing the rival for his girlfriend, the oily, doascii117ble-crossing Goascii117ld. In director Bays world, war is the answer to everything. It is as if the film was directed by German proto-Nazi Ernst Jascii117nger.  

Hollywood teaches male aascii117diences that war cascii117res anxiety and the enemy is not only wrong bascii117t often is not even hascii117man. With every Hollywood movie that glorifies war and military hardware, oascii117r nation is nascii117dged a degree closer to fascism. Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon has aroascii117sed millions of moviegoers with the spectacle of violent death, each killing of the &ldqascii117o;ethnic other&rdqascii117o; is a visascii117al pill that, like Viagra, helps the citizens of a declining empire to 'get it ascii117p.'