A criticism of “Cars”

A critique of the movie “Cars” has just been posted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which describes its mission as to “restore a high place for theory in economics and the social sciences, encourage a revival of critical historical research, and draw attention to neglected traditions in Western philosophy.”

The argument presented by the von Mises Institute is well-reasoned. However, I still disagree with the crux of it, which is this:

Pixar’s latest flick, Cars, is kid-friendly, but it has fails to carry over to adults the capitalist themes exposed in previous productions. There are good economic lessons to be learned from the film, but the primary message is little more than a restatement of a conventional theme in politics today: the tendency to bemoan the supposed hidden costs of progress and to romanticize a past that resists innovation and change.

A few key points are ignored or overlooked by the von Mises folks.

First, even Dwight Eisenhower was dismayed by the final shape of his interstate highway system. He wanted superhighways to connect towns, not bypass them completely.

Second, highway design that causes unforeseen economic upheaval is not “progress,” it’s bad highway design.

Third, it was shown clearly in the “Our Town” segment of the film that the residents of Radiator Springs were willing to adapt to the interstate. Remember their initial enthusiasm to the construction of the superhighway and their hoisting of the “Welcome Interstate travelers” banner?

A final point: I’m a proponent of corporate social responsibility. If a big company establishes a manufacturing facility in a town, it in turn has the responsibility to “behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large,” as described by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

An example of heavy industry running amok with no social responsibility is the Route 66 town of East St. Louis, Ill. The city is now impoverished, crime-ridden and a cesspool of toxic chemicals. Read Andrew J. Theising’s “Made in USA: East St. Louis” for more details.

The case of Radiator Springs and dozens of other real-life Route 66 towns is even more onerous — it was the federal government, not corporations, that failed to be consider the social and economic impact of its superhighway.

7 thoughts on “A criticism of “Cars”

  1. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE, REMOVE THE TRAIN SCENE OR I WILL NOT PURCHASE THIS DVD. My 7 year old was fascinated that the car beat the train. Hmmmm !!!!! I will not even rent it because this already made an impact without continuous viewing. It scares me about the message that has been sent here. Is this a test to the childrens future Psychie???? Is this another Disney experiment, possibly subliminal. Other than that scene the movie was an abosolute 10 but if not rewritten and absolute ZERO. The movie also impacted me to want to visit the place where it was filmed in the mountainess region. Just breath taking.

  2. Ummm … ELL … this post has absolutely nothing to do with the train scene. You didn’t bother to read it, did you?

    I think the so-called contoversy with the train scene is a big zero. Anybody with half a brain (or less) knows you’re not supposed to try to beat the train at a crossing. The scene served to show Lightning McQueen’s self-centeredness, rashness and stupidity at the time.

    And remember, your 7-year-old can’t drive. His fascination of the scene will be long forgotten when he’s able to drive in nine years.

    The scene is not a Disney experiment, as Disney didn’t even own Pixar when the film was made.

    And even if there was a subliminal message (which I doubt), such messages don’t work. Science has proven time and time again that subliminal messages are worthless.

    I, for one, am not jumping on the bandwagon to remove the scene.

  3. I spent my entire childhood watching Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny, and the rest of the Warner Bros. stable of characters do incomprehensibly stupid, dangerous, and occasionally cruel things and then come back, frame after frame, Saturday morning after Saturday morning, like nothing happened. I watched Brainy Smurf land on his head outside the Smurf village every Saturday morning as penance for his uppity attitude, only to return the next Saturday perfectly happy, the repeated blows to his head never seeming to make the slightest impact on his I.Q. I even watched Christopher Reeve — a real, live MAN, not a cartoon character — FLY across the movie screen over and over, and I thought he was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

    Yet somehow, my siblings and I managed to survive to adulthood without shoving each other off cliffs, dropping anvils on each other’s heads, leaping out of second-story windows with only our Superman capes to protect us, or getting the idea that a person could land on his head once a week without sustaining a concussion or a spinal-cord injury.

    Why? Because we weren’tidiots, and our parents didn’t let the TV babysit us. Sure, they limited some of the things we were allowed to watch — no PG-13 or R-rated films for us until we were the proper ages — but we were permitted to watch G and PG-rated films and Saturday morning cartoons to our hearts’ content. Our parents just had sense enough and cared enough about us to sit down with us and talk about what was real, what was imaginary, and what we should and should not try in our own home.

    If Cars had been out when we were kids, I can bloody well guarantee you that Mom would have sat down with us after it was over and said, “Remember that scene where Lightning tries to beat the train? You know that’s not real, right? Did you notice how scared the train looked? Did you notice that he came very close to being hit? What do you think would have happened if his wheel had gotten caught on that track? Do you think that was a very smart thing for him to do? Now, I want you to promise me that you will never try to beat a train, because that is a very dangerous thing to do, and a lot of people have been killed that way.”

    And you know what? We would have understood, just as we understood when Mom said, “You know that people can’t really fly, don’t you? How do you think they made it look like Christopher Reeve was flying when he played Superman? That was pretty neat, wasn’t it? They can do a lot of neat things with trick photography and special effects, but it’s not real. What do you think would happen if you tried to fly?”

    My parents used movies and TV shows the way they should be used: as tools to provoke family discussions about important issues, be it safety or morals or whatever. We talked about how the things Bugs Bunny did to Elmer Fudd weren’t nice, and how someone could really get hurt if we tried some of that stuff on real people. We talked about how cartoons are just pretend, and movies are just pretend, and it’s fun to pretend, but we have to remember the difference between what’s pretend and what’s real.

    And at the end of the day, we all grew up to be intelligent, responsible adults who understood that we were not magic and did not have superpowers that would allow us to do stupid, dangerous things without getting hurt.

    Then again, we had an unfair advantage. Our parents were bright and cared enough about us to do their job as parents instead of trying to blame Hollywood for their failings.

    That’s probably why it didn’t warp me for life when I sneaked around reading Stephen King novels and watching Brat Pack movies against my mother’s wishes when I was a young teenager. She didn’t want me to see some of that stuff, but she and Dad had taught me well enough that even when I was exposed to it, I wasn’t influenced by it.

    And, as Ron correctly points out, by the time I was old enough to have a driver’s license, I was also old enough to understand that I couldn’t drive like Bo and Luke Duke and expect to live to adulthood.

  4. Nice to see Theising’s book get a mention here (not just because he was a prof of mine at SIU-Edwardsville,) and East St. Louis serves as a great example of a town not only betrayed by industry, but by the necessary evil of the Interstate system replacing the US highways. The stretches of highway that US 40 and US 50 took from richer Collinsville and Fairivew Heights into ESTL are now broken down and poor, businesses shuttered and replaced with strip clubs and pawn shops; following IDOT’s “National Road” signs into the city leads you through a tour of poverty. If not for the casino downtown, few people would leave the overpass carrying I-55/I-64/I-70/US 40/SR-3, and the area might as well be a junkyard aflame. ESTL was hardly ever a city that relied on the Mother Road for her dollars, but having three major coast-to-coast highways pass through her certainly didn’t hurt.

  5. I totally agree with redforkhippie. My new 16 year old with a drivers license totally understands that you don’t race a train across the tracks, my ten year old (who has seen the movie 4 times, and which I have pointed out to her, when that scene happened, that you don’t do that) is more interested in finding and traveling Route 66.

    Just came back from Tennesee to Nebraska, and she was very disappointed that we were unable to find it on the map so that we could take Route 66 thru MO. She’s knows what states it goes thru and some of the places that can be seen.

    I think the movie had a positive affect in that she want’s to find out about this part of America’s History and now has me excited about it. Planning trip to St Louis in October that will include traveling part of Route 66 now that we have done some research and have found needed information.

  6. There was a story in the Trib about this this morning. While I’m sorry the guy lost a kid to something like this, it’s simply a non-issue.

    If he honestly thinks a scene in the latest installment in a string of stupid Pixar movies is going to cost peoples lives, while I hate to say it out loud, he needs a new copy of Origin of the Species. This is nothing but whoring for his cause and it disgraces the memory of his kid.

    On the other hand, my wife is thoroughly convinced that by letting my kids watch the Three Stooges they will bonk people on the head with hammers, poke them in the eyes after saying “pick two”, and not understand that running a two man lumber saw across someone’s head might cause some damage.

    I swear to God….just grow up America

    ts

  7. My wife and our two kids enjoyed Cars over the weekend. Even while that scene was on, before McQueen made it, I said to my 7 year old, “daddy would never race against a train, this is just a movie, McQueen is the star, so hate to spoil it for you, but he will beat the train…okay buddy?”

    End of story, not an issue.

    Now, in response to the issue of romanticising a past that bemoans the hidden costs of progress… I just don’t think the main thrust of the movie is this at all. There is clearly a message, but it’s more directed at character development of McQueen in learning to appreciate people, and gain some perspective on life. The comment that the original highway rolled with the terrain and the new highway cut through it was fair, but taxpayers would rather pay for less ashphalt and a straight road is cheaper to build – who should ultimately decide how the road should be built? And, to whatever degree there is a question on the costs of progress, this is GOOD! because progress should be continuously checked to ensure that it is implemented in a socially, environmentally, culturally, financially, economically, legally, healthy manner. If America is a land of diversity, then that diversity leveraged as a strength should provide counterpoint and perspective and ecclectic advantage to see a circumstances in a well-rounded manner, and that means there will be different ways of looking at the same thing; if this is embraced, America is better for the experience of a process that is inclusionary of dissenting argumentst towards a better end result.

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