‘Namibia, West Africa’

I know I should be a better person. I really do. I try my best to add more goodness to the world than I take out.

I know I should be the kind of person who looks at distractions and temptations in the face and walks away from them, the kind of person who looks at the ‘Transformers 5: The Last Night’ trailers and film posters and says “well, I ain’t watching this crap”.

I know I should be that person.

But I am not. I am weak.

I went to watch Michael Bay’s fifth ‘Transformers’ film. Despite the terrible film reviews, despite the plotless premise of the film, despite the terrible casting – despite everything I hold to be good and true about storytelling. I went. Please forgive me.

I do not intend to review the film here, but the short version is that it is a terrible film.

The long version is that it is a really terrible film.

Mindless dialogue, CGI gluttony, scenes cut and pasted together with the nuance and skill of a sugar-jacked toddler with scissors and Pritt, absolutely no character development, weak female representation – it’s just terrible.

But there is a scene, about halfway in the film, that managed to illicit some patriotic applause from the audience. It starts with panoramic shots of brown sand dunes creased and crumpled in the wind and a blue sky. In the background one sees a towering Transformer monolith, some hitherto unexplained horn-like artifact rising out of the shifting sands.

Then the location marker says: “Namibia, West Africa”.

People clapped. Loud and hard – Namibia was featured in ‘Transformers 5’!

Only, it was in West Africa.

Yeah, you are reading that right.

Namibia is, according to Michael Bay and the legion of producers, editors, and writers who worked on ‘Transformers 5’, somewhere in West Africa. Maybe near Nigeria or Ghana or Senegal or Burkina Faso. I cannot be sure.

It seems Michael Bay can break and manipulate all the laws of physics, rewrite the history books, and even change the geographic layout of the world.

That should have been the straw that broke the camel’s back – I should have gone home and spared myself the remaining two hours of nonsense. But, hey, I am weak. There was too much Bumblebee to call it quits.

But that West African location marker rankled. It was sour. How did Bay get the funding to render all the CGI, pay all of the actors, market and distribute his film, and not check Google Maps to see where Namibia was?

I mean, Google Maps is definitely cheaper than rendering Optimus Prime’s shiny and scratched surfaces. It is callous, really, the misrepresentation – an unforgivable slight.

It seems permissible to overlook details of culture and geography when it comes to Africa while every western detail is rendered superlatively. These slights will only continue unless the numerous voices which represent the continent are provided with an opportunity to make themselves heard – to bring parity and clarity, to represent the misinterpreted.

“Namibia, West Africa”. Nee f*k.