CARS: Porn for Children

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Now Cars.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Directors: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft
Writers: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Jorgen Klubien, Dan Fogelman, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, Bonnie Hunt, Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, Don Lake, Steve Purcell, Dan Scanlon
Cast: Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, George Carlin, John Ratzenberger, Michael Keaton
Runtime: 117 mins.
2006

I went into this looking forward to Cars. It's not every day you get to experience a new Pixar movie, and this was one of the two I hadn't seen (Cars 2 being the obvious counterpart). I had no high hopes, just a willingness to be lightly entertained.

Instead I disliked Cars from the very first shot. The psych-up voiceover interspersed with blurred shots of cars zooming past the camera and slow pans across the sleek shiny red metal exterior of the main character. It's meant to titillate, to ingratiate. Already, mere seconds into the film, the cars are presented as fetish objects meant to be worshiped and purchased in small plastic form. What better way to sell merchandise to children than to take something they already love, slap a face on it, and stuff its mouth with witty quips? Note that I do not use the term "fetish object" lightly. Maybe you think my post title a bit harsh, but the definition of pornography is a cultural artifact intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. What's more erotic to a child than the thrill of moving fast, or the noise of a revving engine? Cars is eroticism for children the way James Bond is eroticism for adults. My point is only enhanced by the movie's baldfaced insistence upon cars objectifying other cars, both for their athleticism and their sexual capacity. I'm not even joking, watch this movie again and notice the moments when one car stares at another's ass, or when a car delivers some sexually explicit line of dialogue that confuses you on a purely pragmatic level but also on the meta-emotional level of why is a Pixar movie forcing me to concoct unspeakable images of motor vehicles engaged in coitus???