Transformers, Starring Al Jolson

LOS ANGELES – "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" introduces some 40 new mechanized characters of all shapes, sizes and even ****es — but it's a pair of jive-talking 'bots that critics are singling out as more than just harmless comic relief.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact Chevys, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.  As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But the traits they're ascribed raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," was criticized as a racial caricature....

American cinema also has a tendency to deal with race indirectly, said Allyson Nadia Field, an assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."  If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."  But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"

Bay brushes off any whiff of controversy.  "Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."

That show successfully established the "anti-stereotype".   

I think stereotypes are predominantly negative.  Sure, we all buy that Brazilian girls have smokin' hot asses and short people are great lovers but often stereotypes are demeaning or perceived as demeaning. 

The Irish drink too much 
Black people like fried chicken (I always thought that was beyond bull*feces* 'til I lived in Alabama for four years) 
The English are effeminate, pasty white wankers with bad teeth 
Asians are slow at golf (okay, I have no clue about this one but it fires people up so what the hell)

Are there many "good" stereotypes?  If so, what's the ratio of bad to good?