The United States Department of Homeland Security has struck again: it branded the iconic Optimus Prime from the Transformers for a social media campaign that bears DHS logos and, above all, ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement strongly advocated by Donald Trump, a figure associated with abuses documented in recent months. Politically loading a symbol from the childhood of many people was not a very balanced move, but there have been precedents over the last year. Hasbro was forced to distance itself from the material.
Hasbro did not authorize Transformers’ Optimus Prime as an ICE agent
After the ironic “gotta catch’em all” applied to immigrants, the DHS’s (United States Department of Homeland Security) strategically tasteless move is reaffirmed, this time by misusing the Optimus Prime from Transformers. On social media there appeared images of a hypothetical film Transformers: Age of Deportation, complete with Prime branded with the DHS and ICE logos. In another image Optimus threatened a man of Sikh faith, addressing him with “Self-deport or you’ll see what happens / America for Americans. Out of our streets“, followed by the gleefully racist conclusion “you don’t even know how to drive, Mr. Singh”. The images were removed after protests, of course not only by the Transformers fandom, but also by those who noted that, shortly after the 11 September attacks, which are remembered as 25 years today, many men wearing turbans were attacked indiscriminately.
Regarding authorization by Hasbro, which holds the rights to Transformers, it will come as no surprise that it was never requested nor would it have ever been granted, so much so that the company issued this statement: “Optimus Prime is a beloved character who represents humility, leadership, empathy and justice. Hasbro is aware of the posts that use his likeness. Those posts were made without any permission and do not represent the Transformers brand or Hasbro.”
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