Megan Fox is Setting a Bad Example...Anyone Surprised?

I saw "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" for the second time last night when I took my neighbors to see it. I was interested in seeing it again not only because I like action movies but also because something about it bothered me the first time. I thought that seeing it a second time would help me get past the explosions and loud noises to help me better understand what bothered me about it the first time.

It was obvious, even the first time, that there were racial stereotypes (even though Michael Bay, the director, claims it's just comedic relief) and it was also obvious that Megan Fox's character didn't really serve a whole lot of purpose, at least not to me.

I'm not going to talk too much about the racial stereotypes, there has been a lot of discussion of that (see Newsday and Valley24 - for a more positive review of the movie). What I do want to talk about is the obsolete character of Mikaela Banes, played by Megan Fox.

To me, it seems like the only thing that Fox seems good at in this movie is having pouty lips and wearing low cut shirts while running in slow motion and falling cleavage first in front of the camera. And the main storyline surrounding Mikaela Banes is her trying to get Sam (Shia LaBeouf) to tell her that he loves her.

The first time she tries to get him to say those three words she changes into a white dress to look like the hot, innocent girl. Throughout the movie, she brings this up numerous times and threatens to leave him if he doesn't say it. The message that I got out of this is that to get boys to love you, you have to look hot and wear low cut shirts and very high heels and this is your whole purpose in life. You can't contribute meaningfully to saving the world from killer robots, you just have to get the guy to want you. What kind of message is this sending to the teenage (and younger) boys and girls that are populating the theaters in the thousands (or more, I don't know exactly)?

When I saw this last night, I took four children (1 girl and 3 boys) all under the age of 12. I didn't know what to tell them when they asked why I didn't like Megan Fox's character. Do I tell them that she's only there as a sexual object whose only purpose is to have teenage boys stare at her for hours on end (and Fox likes it that way)? What I did end up telling them was that she was setting a bad example for women and teenage girls. But they didn't really understand what I meant.

How do we talk to children (especially ones that aren't your own, in my case) about what Megan Fox and her character mean for women? How do we expect these children to grow up to have healthy relationships if they keep seeing these types of ones in the media where girl is desperate to be desired and the guy refuses to say "I love you" until the girl says it first? Not to mention how do you discuss the racial stereotypes of the Transformers with them?

Maybe it's just me or the fact that these children aren't my own (I don't want to step on the toes of their parents), but it was a really awkward moment for me when they asked why I didn't like Megan Fox. If they don't understand why this character is harmful to women, what does that mean for them when they grow up?