I’m transformed!

.

I’m transformed by Michael Bay’s Transformers

It’s amazing how those special effects work on my sensory organs on the big screen. One hour into the movie, I feel like Automas Prime is looming over my head outside my own backyard. Two hours later, I feel my heart aching for Bumble Bee and its lost limb. One hour after the movie, I find hallucinating along the road, wondering if the coming car will transform into a depticon.

I’m never really a Transformers fan, although I pretty much grew up with it and thought the idea of vehicles or airplanes morphing into robots – which can think, talk, and function better than human beings – really cool.

And it is ironic that in this information age when human beings have become (almost totally) reliant on machines, we still think we are one step up above the inanimate robots. So much so, we have persisted to model the inanimate against the animate – now the Japanese are a different class here with their partiality towards humanising the robots, but I think the reader will get my point here.

What makes us – the humans – which (and not who, because living things are still things afterall) seem to rule the only ‘livable planet’ (again livable according to our standards) in the universe so far, so steadfast and staunch in believing the trusting our superiority – intellectual or moral – to other animate and non-animate things when we’ve never really been in control of the situation or even our own bodies?

Ironically, in Transformers, our best defence has to come from the benovelent Automas Prime who has this to say to the resident villian Megatron and fellow autobots (an indirect quote here, not word for word)

The humans may be weak and primitive, but I also see signs of courage these sentient beings (screen flash to show Sam the teenage human hero)

As with most remakes that kept to the spirit of the original comic, the face of human courage and empathy in Transformers is mostly that of youth (of course you have a few brave commandoes making their ‘guest performances’ but they are not the ones communicating with the robots). The message remains quite consistent despite the overwhelming special effects: Humans, especially grown ups, have somewhat lost their touch to connect not just with beings different from their own, but also with their own humanity.

Addendum after the movie experience:

Looking up Michael Bay on wikipedia, I realise this guy hasn’t had good reviews for his past movies. He’s been nominated for Worst Director twice for Pearl Harbor and Armageddon and was not spared the criticism for his design on the robots in Transformers.

I’ll say, give the guy a break for his great delivery in Transformers! Afterall, he has successfully converted quite a number of adults into fans for big screen remake of “presumably kids’ stuff” (again the adult prejudice sets in).

I’ll be waiting for MegaTron to make a comeback in Transformers 2 – let’s hope Steven Spielberg gets to raise enough capital to produce a sequel.

Addendum after addendum

Ah well, so I’ve just confirmed one of the main grouses Transformers fans have against the movie is that Bumble Bee has turned into a Chevrolet when he’s supposed to be a Volkswagen Beetle. But I don’t really see how a Hollywood blockbuster will ever pass up a US carmaker over a German one. Of course, this is just my own conjecture.

Hana Kimi – The art of androgyny

Androgynous: (adj) a term derived from the Greek words άνδρας (andras, meaning man) and γυνή (gyne, meaning woman)that can refer to two concepts regarding the mixing of both male and female genders or having a lack of gender identification.

Above definition from Wikipedia.

In Hana Kimi, Ella (pictured centre in the above poster) of the Mandarin pop trio, S.H.E., won fans over with her hilarious personification of the trials and tribunals of a girl cross-dressing as a boy to enrol into an all boys school to get up close and personal as her idol (an accomplished athlete studying in the same school).

What doesn’t fail to entertain through the history of such cross-dressing series is the confusion that arises from mistaken gender identity. Of gay men who can tell a woman from a man better than other heterosexual men or women. Of (heterosexual) men doubting their own sexualities when they fell for these (wo)men.

Ultimately, it boils down to a single question – how far should our sexuality be tied to our gender.

And it is precisely because of this controversial aspect of the storyline that the series did not pass through the local censorship board unscathed. Crucial scenes capturing the dialogue between the female protagonist with her love counsel, a gay teacher, were heavily censored to remove any direct mentions of homosexuality – obviously an unpopular and taboo subject in an island-nation that cannot afford to put the sexuality of its limited population to test.

But what really puzzles me is why did the local TV station even consider airing Hana Kimi in the first place, knowing and understanding that gender confusion/(homo)sexuality is a major theme in the series?

Thankfully for me at least, I do not need to rely on local channels solely for my entertainment needs.

I couldn’t imagine deriving any joy from watching the censored version after watching and enjoying every bit of the uncensored original.