Anti-Latina Racism in Transformers
I’m still recovering from my headache after watching the special effects overloaded Transformers 3 in 3-D. Women were sexualized throughout the entire movie, especially with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s paraded around scantily clad or wearing painted on skinny jeans. But that was okay, because she represented the current ideal of white feminity: blonde, thin, the current fad of white women with full lips, and the constant need to be saved. The one thing that did upset me was a little racist insertion that I found completely unecessary. In this scene, a Latina woman was berated by a white male for being a “hoochie momma” because she came to the office wearing a midriff bearing outfit. She then broke out into unintelligible Spanish, as if every Latino who loses her temper will slip into Spanish to yell at her non-Spanish speaking co-workers. The thing is, what did this scene have to do with the plot? Why did they feel the need to keep this in a a 2 1/2 hour film?
