Crop from the Cars movie posterLike many people, especially creative types, I’m a big fan of Pixar movies. Their story telling, artful animation, and great voice acting are unrivaled in the realm of animation production. However, they do sometimes take missteps, especially in their design choices. Take for example
A Bug’s Life, where the ant characters only have 4 limbs, or the bizarre conceit in
Ratatouille that a rat can control a human’s actions by yanking on his hair. It’s perhaps easy to overlook such small things, but in otherwise well thought out environments and scenarios, they are poorly conceived and glaringly so.
Without question, their greatest misstep in design, and perhaps in general, is the film
Cars. Released in 2006, this film follows the “stranger comes to town” adventures of stock car racing sensation Lightning McQueen. While it was less than loved by critics, there is no question it was a commercial success. In fact, some would say it is Pixar’s most obvious grab at a pay day, appealing to the NASCAR set without even the thinnest of veils. But I would argue its middle-American appeal goes much deeper than its subject matter. Indeed, I believe
Cars is a vehicle for the conservative, science-denying belief known as Intelligent Design.
Rooted in the Creationist philosophy,
Intelligent Design attempts to explain complex scientific phenomenon, especially biological systems such as photosynthesis, or the structure of the human eye, as being the work of a Designer, commonly understood to be the Christian God. In essence, anything that science has failed to yet explain is easily attributable to the work of a higher being whose intelligence, and rationale can never be understood via human empirical thinking.
Cars, more than any other Pixar world, is designed and built with that very premise as its foundation. It is a world populated entirely by cars, trucks, aircraft, and RVs. These vehicles are essentially stand-ins for human beings. Their only companions in the animal kingdom seem to be tractors (which are cows), combines (bulls), and little VW Beetles as winged house flies. Other than a pair of steer horns mounted to the front of a Cadillac, and the dinosaur logo of Dinoco Oil, there is no sign of any animal we would recognize... Not a bird in the sky, nor a squirrel in a tree. So one is left to surmise that sentient vehicles simply exist, and always have, independent of any other
circle of life.
Dinoco Oil, still from the movie Cars The design of the vehicles is devoid of any suggestion of natural selection. The cars have eyes in their windshield, and mouths, complete with teeth and tongues, between their headlights. (Apparently motorcycles don’t exist, presumably because the Designer couldn’t figure out how to give them a face.) They can flex and move their metal frames, undercarriages, and tires at will, and yet they are undoubtedly made of metal, plastic and rubber. They are imbibed with life, which apparently allows them to ignore the laws of physics. Conveniently, non-living fixtures made of those same materials (buildings, furniture, etc.), obey those laws. Indeed, it is those very fixtures that offer the most disturbing glimpse into the Designer’s machinations. It’s as if the world was made by humans, now long gone, and replaced by living, breathing autos. One might expect Charlton Heston to crash land on the planet and later discover that those
maniacs blew it up.
On this
Planet of the Cars, buildings not much different than ours awkwardly accommodate their four-wheeled tenants, gas pumps — again, like ours — operate with precision simply by pressing a button the ground, and farms, growing vegetables for goodness know who, line the highways. Even the cars themselves are at the whim of a seemingly human mind. They have doors and windows that never open. They’re alive and moving, but can only drive with gas in their tanks. Boy cars and girl cars are attracted to each other, raising awkward questions about reproduction (and yet, no kid cars?). Photojournalist cars are forced to use large, clumsy, tired-mounted rigs to hold cameras, and the racing pit crew chiefs wear comically huge earphones on their non-ears. Perhaps the greatest injustice seen is a minivan toting a mattress atop its roof down the interstate. Do I need to mention they don’t sleep in beds?
But there are a couple of crucial elements in the design of this world that point not to a human overlord, but an all-powerful Designer with a bad case of motorhead. The rock formations surrounding the movie’s main location, the town of Radiator Springs, resemble similar landmarks of our American Southwest, particularly
Monument Valley, with one major difference: They are in the shapes of cars and car parts. That would be as if our Mount Rushmore was a naturally occurring phenomenon. But even more inexplicable than the
Geo-logy: if one looks closely enough, cloud formations resembling tire tracks can be seen drifting through the sky. Certainly, it’s no mistake that this most befuddling design element is also the most heavenward. There’s something up there, and It won’t be explained. But It does have a name, and we can thank the tractor trailer character Mack for this revelation. Upon finding his lost friend McQueen late in the second act, he exclaims, “Thank the Manufacturer!” Must we?
Tire mark clouds, still from the move Cars This weekend
Cars 2 opens. It will be the first Pixar movie I make a point of not seeing. It’s not that I even mind so much that it’s propaganda, or even that it’s propaganda for “The Manufacturer.” In theory, I could forgive that. What I can’t forgive is that director John Lasseter and his team hung their hat on Intelligent Design, and alas, it’s anything but.
Comments [70]
06.23.11
12:16
06.23.11
01:13
And while I haven't seen the movie, your core criticism of intelligent design falls a bit short if you haven't actually seen the movie either. I can guess however that the fundamental glorification of gas-guzzling American-mades are not shown to be the last dieing vestige of our oil-addicted society with some super powered solar car winning the day. But more like a utopian idea of today's machines making the right choices for "society" and the planet itself - further emphasizing how we should trust corporations because the good ones design moral machines.
Regardless, it's fun to imagine machines like Milton the Toaster that work on their own AND have emotions and morals - regardless of where their scruples or designs come from. It helps us forget about our responsibilities to the decaying environment outside of the box theater or beyond our 52" plasma.
Yea, I probably will skip this one as well.
06.23.11
02:35
06.23.11
03:01
It's fantasy. It's made for entertainment. To enjoy.
Time to get over yourself, Josh. Everything doesn't have a higher meaning. Try letting loose a bit; you'll enjoy your life a lot more.
06.23.11
03:38
06.23.11
04:56
06.23.11
06:00
06.23.11
06:03
Or that toys can't acually talk. I mean, to think that Pixar had the audacity to say that toys are able to talk; this is a much bigger issue. Via enabling the toys to be able talk they are explicity stating that there is a higher power above that is able to give life to inanimate objects. A God like power if you will. Possibly even *the* God.
06.23.11
06:28
06.23.11
06:44
06.23.11
06:49
06.23.11
06:51
06.23.11
06:58
06.23.11
07:02
VR/
06.23.11
08:09
But if you're not, you need to realise that not everything is a conspiracy or can be reduced to fit into your individual world-view. My analytical mind asks the same kind of genesis questions re Cars, but my intellect overrules this and tells me to chill out and take in what is purely a suspended-reality story whose only socio-political point is the sad demise of small towns along Route 66.
Deep breath and relax, pal.
06.23.11
08:21
06.23.11
09:45
06.23.11
09:52
06.23.11
10:12
(Unless this is satire. I which case, well done).
06.23.11
10:26
06.23.11
10:49
Alternatively, it might actually be Cybertron in the distant past.
06.23.11
11:19
06.24.11
12:48
I hope this article wasn't a uncanned from a 100 level English correspondence course! You make some pretty far stretches here, but the smear job of Intelligent Design is just a little over the top. I'm not sure how this ended up on DO, but I hope there isn;t more of this to follow.
06.24.11
12:54
If you're serious, here's 2 facts.
1. It is a work of fiction
2. you're giving atheists a bad name
06.24.11
02:08
Please bash My Little Pony next. Pretty please? I'll forward it anywhere you want...
06.24.11
07:06
Now how am I supposed to believe that they got to this period in their civilisation with all these buildings and such? Oh sure, there are monkeys in Babar's land who could have done the work, but how about the rest of their daily lives?
No, I will not accept this kind of nonsensory.
06.24.11
08:49
06.24.11
11:13
06.24.11
11:59
06.24.11
12:55
06.24.11
01:35
It is human nature to give life. Nature makes it easy for us to enjoy it. Seems like Cars is a good example of a bunch of designers and writers playing manufacturer. Human nature right?
I'm ok with the "Manufacturer" references. Like most skeptic gnostics I have no idea what that means to you, but I know that it could mean a million things to me.
Well done on the article. Too bad you didn't mention any thing about how petrol powered motorheads are well on the way to finding a quick destruction for our planet and yet this isn't even touched on in the film. Bad manufacturing I suppose.
06.24.11
02:44
06.24.11
03:45
I think anyone that challenges our views of film with a different perspective or analysis from the norm is a good addition to the conversation. Why all the hatin on Josh?
06.24.11
03:46
06.24.11
04:55
06.24.11
05:55
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/cars-2-theme-upsets-some-conservatives/17yiptmid
Kudos to Mr. Berta. The comments following the article are just as entertaining.
06.24.11
06:08
06.24.11
07:14
06.24.11
07:18
Besides that, that's some clever satire. I also wondered about the farms.....
06.24.11
07:26
06.24.11
07:38
06.24.11
07:38
06.24.11
07:58
06.24.11
08:01
06.24.11
08:53
06.24.11
10:34
06.24.11
11:02
06.24.11
11:55
1. Suspension of disbelief. I know it's hard, but you do it whenever you watch a fantasy show and enjoy it, or a unhistorical historicla piece. Whatever old guy in the clouds knows what you might make of Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1.
2. Like some other Pixar films, the movie's world is based wholly in itself, just as Monsters Inc. is based in a world that, by all accounts, cannot exist in any manner, but allows the physics-bending ability to play a game of Tag through inverted, sideways and continuous connections between two wholly-parasitic worlds, where mechanics operate on the screams or laughter of children not of that world. Seriously? Thus the world of Cars is canon in and of itself, rather than some experiment or contiuum that influences or is influenced by our own.
3. Expectation of the familiar. Just as Pixar had to work hard at making their human characters believably human, a problem in the earlier Toy Story movies and later evolving into Ratatouille and the Incredibles, and now with Brave (previews of next movie), the idea is that we see and are comforted by what seems familiar to us. We know the faces seem odd and distorted, and thus find difficulty feeling what is being conveyed to us is plausible. As such, Cars needs cars to look like cars ... and humans ... and it has to be familiar. Thus you get headlights, sideview mirrors, "doors" including power-locking (in the original), and apparently invasive open-hood surgery they don't need any sort of medicine for.
4. Pareidolia. You're seeing things here you are looking for, and thus find them. This should be a lesson, both for noting that the world is build with geologic formations that look like cars, buildings that look like cars, natural structures that sprout that look like wheels, etc. Otherwise, it's our world ... with CARS in it.
06.25.11
01:46
06.25.11
02:14
Look, Pixar isn't "hanging their hat" on anything. The reason the Cars universe makes as little sense as it does is because it's made to sell toys. Period. I've got a hunch that the whole idea behind Cars was spawned in a Disney focus group and then pushed onto Pixar, who simply had to make the best of it. And they did, even though it's still their weakest film (mostly BECAUSE its world makes no sense). Cars 2 is being made for one reason: Cars 1 made a bajillion dollars off of merchandise, and Pixar's last few films (Wall-E, Ratty, Up, The Incredibles) are very un-merchandiseable by comparison. Whoever came up with the movie concept just wanted to sell toys and not put too much thought into it.
06.25.11
03:15
06.25.11
07:33
Cars 2 Toys Your Kids Will Love
Car 2 PVC 10Pack
06.25.11
08:10
06.25.11
09:15
Part of your argument is that some of the events like a rat controlling a human by pulling his hair is absurd. I don't know what to say other than what's been said above. It's 3d animated movies (cartoons). It's not supposed to be based on reality. That's why we love it.
Even if these movies are specifically made to make money, sell toys, etc... They surpass by leaps and bounds a majority of movies that have come out in recent history in story, characters, and artistic value.
06.25.11
11:33
06.25.11
01:00
although this is not an intentional piece of intelligent design propaganda, it may well be the manifestation of these modes of thinking realised in a piece of cinema. Our underlying beliefs in the world will often show through the things we produce, albeit intentionally or not.
06.25.11
03:35
The pivotal scene, where Sally points to the Landscape to explain what she fell in love with, says it all: somehow, interstate highways ruin landscape, but two-lane highways don't - these concrete and asphalt structures "move with the land."
Somehow, driving at 60x walking speed along the interstate is an existential dilemma, but driving only 40x faster than walking speed represents living for the now in a transcendent moment.
Of course, the rise of the real Route 66, and object of intense affection in this film, developed in part & parcel with middle-class America's abandonment of urban centers, public transport, and was a clear prototype for the interstate highways that followed; it, like the interstates that followed, were principally tools of middle class mobility/flight that wrought huge, destructive changes to the landscape at every step.
And have been killing over 40,000 Americans every year for over 6 decades.
So, again, I hope my kids read this movie in pure allegorical terms, and I believe the characters of the film can transcend their mechanical trappings.
But knowing Lasseter's intense nostalgia for these things, and the larger culture's intense commitment to outfitting all citizens with 4,000lb carapces, its hard to think this movie is limited to selling only toy cars: it may not be pitching intelligent design, but it is certainly selling pollution, sprawl, and ultimately, the mangled wreckage of millions of lives cut short through the use of these destructive machines.
06.25.11
04:17
I want my click back.
06.26.11
05:49
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/06/27/cars-2-vehicle-religious-science-deniers
06.27.11
11:25
06.27.11
06:27
06.28.11
01:15
Evolution: The Creation Myth of Our Culture
by David Buckna (June 26, 2011)
http://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth01.asp
06.28.11
09:59
Josh, do your friends put up with listening to this? Relax, enjoy an animated movie for what is it supposed to be ... entertainment.
06.29.11
12:03
//Beth @ the Graphic Design Agency
06.29.11
03:29
07.07.11
01:14
07.07.11
03:11
Don't worry, with a little practice you'll be real good one day :) Will
07.07.11
03:54
Now riddle me this: Where the fuck does Wiley Coyote get his health insurance and what are his rates? Lets be honest, your research could be put to better use elsewhere. So many cartoon loop holes and mysteries eating at my insides; I can barely take it anymore.
I totally giving you "Troll Article of the Month". You worked very hard for it and in my eyes, no good deed should go unrecognized.
07.08.11
10:34
07.17.11
10:30