Why Cars 2 is objectively the best, and the most American, movie ever made.
On a hot summer day in 2011, not much was going on for the American youth. Osama Bin Laden was still on the loose, South Sudan was contemplating independence, and some frustrated millennials were planning to sleep on some street in New York to protest capitalism. And then, on June 24th in Los Angeles, California, the world changed forever.
5 years earlier, Pixar had released another one of its animated hits, this time about automobiles that spoke and acted like humans. That movie, Cars, beat out a dozen other well-known films in domestic box office revenues, including Casino Royale (Which Cars 2 would borrow elements from), the Da Vinci Code, and Superman Returns, to become the second-highest domestic grossing film of the year.
But Cars wasn’t just another Pixar film, it created a world both the same and totally different from our own. It wasn’t a magical subworld like in Toy Story, or a whole new one like The Incredibles, but one where planes, trucks, and trains live like humans in our world.
Real-world events have even occurred, the Pope canonically exists, implying the existence of Judaism and Christianity. In Planes, taking place in the same universe as Cars, the Twin Towers are conspicuously absent from the New York Skyline. My point is just that cars are so similar to us, they are us. And so, on that day in 2011, we saw ourselves up on the big screen, we saw ourselves as we are.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the movie, go watch it. You are a disgrace to your species for not having done so already. You watched it, good, let’s continue. Cars 2 has everything that represents the United States: oil, cars, guns, spies, government corruption, humiliated Italians, and most importantly, humiliated Brits.
Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, and Sally represent the American dream. McQueen is a small-town car who becomes the best racer in the world and wins the World Grand Prix. Tow Mater is an idiot who manages to uncover a huge conspiracy that even the best British agents failed to recognize. Sally founds her own small business and it thrives, bringing economic prosperity to her small town.
In the movie, Britain is analogous to oppression. Mater and his less-than-bright English friends are attached to the gears of Big Ben, the national symbol of Great Britain, and are almost killed as they grind together. The tyranny of monarchy grinds freedom into dust. If that isn’t symbolism, I don’t know what is.
Ultimately the lesson is this: Cars 2 is America at its finest. It represents us better than any other film in our history and we should be grateful for it. That is what makes Cars 2 truly the best film ever made. Never before has the entire spirit of a nation been captured in less than 2 hours as well as it is in Cars 2.
In the nearly 250 years since our nation freed itself from our oppressors, we have surpassed our former overlords in every respect. Since the Battle of New Orleans we have never lost to them in the field; in fact, we saved their puny nation during their darkest hour. Our economy has been larger since before the 20th century and our culture, literature, film, etc., has been more prevalent for a century. At the end of the movie, Mater is knighted by the Queen for his services, a great honor that is limited to a couple per year, once again showing that Americans are recognized as being more worthy of honor by even their monarch.
But it was not until that warm day in 2011, that we, as a nation, truly surpassed Great Britain. We as a country turned out to see a movie, and more importantly had our kids see a movie, where the stupidest American defeats the smartest Briton, and the British did not even have the heart to object. It is our ultimate triumph, one from which the United Kingdom will never recover. A struggle that went on for over two centuries, one that started in Independence Hall with Thomas Jefferson, and ended in Los Angeles with Cars 2.
