Robots of Color (in Disguise)
So lately I’ve been watching a lot of Transformers, and was recently struck with this. When growing up, I thought of certain autobots as being black guys.. like, if they were human, they would be black dudes.
Obviously Jazz was one of these, he was voiced by genuine black person Scatman Crothers (RIP). This was somehow paid tribute to/made fun of in the 2007 movie by having Jazz sound like a “bibbity-boppity, yessuh massuh” black guy and promptly killed (RIP). The original was more of a wise jazzman stereotype, but whatever.
I also thought of Trailbreaker as being black. Although played by white fella Frank Welker, Welker has a ridiculously versatile voice (he’s the most prolific living actor in the world right now) and Trailbreaker was a black robot who transformed into a black car, so that makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is I also always thought of Wheeljack as a black dude. Wheeljack is a red, white and gray robot that turns into a red, white and gray car and is voiced by couldn’t-be-whiter Chris Latta (Sadly also RIP)- the guy who also voiced Starscream and Cobra Commander.
In watching the show, Wheeljack is very OBVIOUSLY voiced by Latta.. he barely changes his voice at all.. Latta got a lot of work because he had a very distinctive voice, not because he had a versatile one. I have no idea why I have, for the last 25 years, thought of Wheeljack as a black dude. He displays absolutely no stereotypical african-american qualities (and stereotypes tend to be what sinks in when you’re four years old), his personality is more of a good-natured crackpot inventor a la doc brown in the cartoon. He would be a positive black role model, except he wasn’t voiced by, colored like, or portraying a black person.
I was a strange child.
