2023-06-08 22:42:34
Some three years ago, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi accepted the unenviable task of directing a Two rebel cops without Michael Bay. Some time later, Fallah and El Arbi would again obtain media attention for signing the ill-fated Batgirl —that film that Warner Bros canceled despite being nearly finished and costing $90 million—but before this misfortune, they could be satisfied that Bad Boys for Life It would have received enough public support to be, through a pandemic, the highest-grossing premiere of 2020. With this achievement, what did it matter to have betrayed a legacy?
The first Two rebel cops they represent a demanding immersion in Bay’s authorial constants: two monuments to excess —especially the second one— that placidly navigate between pyrotechnics, political ambivalence and brilliant machismo. Bad Boys for LifeFor his part, he reunited with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith at twilight, reconsidering his propensity for violence and accepting the generational change: a new team of recruits with much to teach them about a present where the “bad” of Bob’s song Marley who titled the movies didn’t have to be something to be proud of.
Bad Boys for Life He proposed a manageable emptying of Bayhem —this is how Michael Bay’s unmistakable style is popularly known— which, beyond redemptive speeches, affected his images. The greatness was replaced by closeness in a failed exercise of mimesis by Fallah and El Arbi, believing that by emulating the typical ‘Bay plans’ they could match his imprint. Bad Boys for Life It was, finally, a rehearsal of what has been Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. An essay that, at least, displayed a reflexivity that in the new adventure of the Autobots is neither there nor expected.
the secret fuel
Michael Bay rolled five Transformers in ten years. Anyone would have thought that thus, with this commitment to the franchise and Paramount checks, he was challenging the growing critical consideration of him: the one that has established him as an author with all of the law within Hollywood. He would have done it if in between he hadn’t rolled Pain and money o 13 hoursand if later to direct Transformers: The Last Knight he would not have clarified the reason for his fidelity to the robots. Several friends had suggested that she stop making movies of Transformersbut for Bay they were simply “too much fun to do”.
What does this attitude tell us? That, indeed, the first five Transformers they belong entirely to Bay’s impulses, to the fact that he enjoys filming without it being a priority that the public enjoy it as well. What happened after the Bay stage is that Paramount wanted to embed Transformers in a more polished plan, without wayward filmmakers: a plan that first looked quite similar to Steven Spielberg’s original concept when Bumblebee it premiered in 2018. Spielberg, as producer, wanted to tell the story of “a boy and his car” based on Hasbro toys, but Bay had substantially changed this outline. Bumblebeewith Hailee Steinfeld, would return the waters to their course.
What do you expect the awakening of the beasts, articulated again as a prequel to what began in 2007 with Shia LaBeouf? Well, how did Bad Boys for Lifereset the director’s style The rock to produce a more palatable product, employing a manageable director —Steven Caple Jr., who went behind the scenes of Creed II— and ironing out all the conflicting elements that we could find in the Bay stage. Elements that we could well summarize with a specific iconography. Or even a pathology. That of petromasculinity, which Professor Cara Daggett coined in 2018.
At petromasculinity, summarizes Arnau Horta, is a variant of hypermasculinity that is nourished by the convergence of three factors: the climate emergency, an economic system dependent on fossil fuels and a hegemonic understanding of the subject “man” that accuses fragility. At a time when new models of masculinity are imposed along with concern for the ecological footprint of vehicles, man reacts by accelerating and expelling as much smoke as possible from his (phallic) exhaust pipe.
Paul B. Preciado, in Dysphoria of the world, points out that “modern masculinity is not made of testosterone, but of oil and gunpowder.” And, of course, this vision affects the codification of the image of women, as a sidekick for those vehicles that shelter the secret so that men can continue being men. What is that image? Well, basically, it’s the tremendously sexualized Megan Fox in the first two Transformersin her top and shorts in the workshop, fixing the innards of a car.
the cars of Transformers they are alien beings—Optimus Prime and company—but they can also be noisy vehicles that amplify the virility of their occupants. Shia LaBeouf, in the first Transformers, learns to be a man and conquer the character of Megan Fox as a result of meeting Bumblebee. All the iconography of the Bay stage conforms to resounding petromasculine motifs: explosions, slow motion, rust. In Revenge of the fallen even two wrecking balls happen to be the testicles of a robot.
This is Bay’s imaginary, and this is what is responsible for what should have been innocent children’s films, starring toys, have become some of the blockbusters unsympathetic (even abstract) than anyone in Hollywood can remember. Replacing LaBeouf with Mark Wahlberg in the fourth film was the umpteenth declaration of intent, but the affair reached such extremes of masturbatory gloating that it may have been the very leaders of Paramount who asked Bay to stop.
The world after Bayhem
Petromasculinity is also an unavoidable ally of heteropatriarchy and global capitalism, also underlying the films of Transformers according to corporate concerns – the idyll with the Chinese market that took place after the age of extinction— and brand image. After the phenomenon of TransformersFor all the disheveled Bay that has marked its identity, there is the cordial association of Hasbro and Paramount, which has also spawned several movies of G.I. Joe.
This condition is the one that has remained most solidly after the departure of Bay, with petromasculinity losing any poise between Bumblebee y the awakening of the beasts —all while a sideline saga like Fast & Furious Has got, from similar budgetsadapt, and maintain their own narrative coherence—to capitulate to the need for Transformers be profitable and do not cause shocks. the awakening of the beasts it does not cause them, in fact. It is a refined, aseptic work, which has left the Bay label to the minimum expression to look back at children’s entertainment.
It is something that is perceived in the incorporation of the Maximals. Wild animal-like Transformers—an eagle, a tiger, a gorilla named Optimus Primal—who became popular in the 1990s through television and the aforementioned toys. The Maximals are Transformers oblivious to the arrogance of a Filippo Marinetti —father (fascist) of futurism who, by despising cyclists and considering a fast car as “more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace”, turns out to be also the father of petromasculinity— : Transformers in harmony with the environment. Harmless, docile. Asexual.
The Maximals support Paramount’s attempt to return to a production intended for family audiences, with a better chance of extending itself in time than if it depended on Bay’s feverish temperament. As supported by a merely functional action —not exempt from some inspired moment, especially in the climax— and a more contemporary drawing of human characters. As much for the bonhomie that they transmit —leading to humor gaining friendliness, and therefore boredom— and for their casting and circumstances.
Both Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are racialized performers. In the case of Ramos, we also find a young New Yorker with financial problems —in curious concomitance with the musical by In a New York neighborhood that Ramos recently starred in—and without any kind of conflict with her gender expression. He’s not a Shia LaBeouf with raging hormones, nor is he a self-assured Mark Wahlberg. He’s just a normal, nice guy who cares about his sick brother.
Ramos and Fishback represent the visible face of the careful de-problematizing work of the awakening of the beasts. Adding to the mix a 90s cultural background in terms of rap songs and references to Sonic, the new Transformers he turns his back on the Bay stage keeping what interests him. The result is a more correct production, perhaps more bearable, than the mastodons of three hours with the smell of motor grease and Brummel that were released between 2007 and 2017. But also a much emptier production, more similar to any other great film. study that will be released next week.
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