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Emile's custom helmet (pictured above, on his head) is specifically designed to prevent all that air from escaping through his ears.

Over the last few years, I’ve had a number of conversations centered around the problematic nature of terms such as “classic” or “cult.”  The “cult film” is a peculiar beast to pin down, especially as our fast-track pop culture moves to induct new releases as “cult classics” before they’ve even finished their (usually brief) theatrical run.  This has led to the longstanding marketing ploy of pre-packaging a “cult film.”  To me, that’s simply targeting a demographic, but successfully targeting a demographic carries no cultural cache; a “cult film” does.  When PR departments and cinephiles eager to participate in new forms of geek elitism converge, the result is the emergence of a so-called cult following for a mainstream flop.

Auteurist films benefit more from a smackdown than generic, studio fodder, so a commercial and critical consensus aligned against the most recent product of an established filmmaker tends to cement the film’s status as an “instant cult classic,” regardless of the film’s influence, durability, or size/dedication of its ostensible “cult following.”  Labels are cheap, especially on the Internet.

Brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski have enjoyed mainstream and cult success in the decade or so they’ve been directing films.  Their first film, Bound, traded on a standard noir premise and a lesbian hook; their Matrix trilogy raked in jillions of dollars, but the last two episodes didn’t ignite much passion from viewers outside of what I will call — for generosity’s sake — their cult following.¹

Their latest opus, Speed Racer, met with similar dismissal from critics, and an even harsher reception from ticker-buyers.  A small minority of film buffs have taken to the Web, claiming it as a visionary masterpiece, woefully misunderestimated by the narrow-minded likes of American film critics and a mass audience that “just didn’t get it.”  Most of the critics who liked it seemed to have gotten on board mainly because they weren’t pretentious enough to pretend they weren’t swept away by the visual kineticism of the Wachowskis’ aesthetic.  ”Garish,” “Kaleidoscopic” and “candy-colored” are adjectives that surfaced in a number of reviews; other reviews referenced attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and epilepsy.²

Though hardly revolutionary, the Wachowskis’ aesthetic approach does catch the eye, even if it overwhelms it.  The human brain is simply not built to process the sensory information rocketing off the screen in Speed Racer; this is neither criticism nor praise.  It is a statement of fact: visually, Speed Racer is turbocharged, and the experience of watching it is exhausting.³  The difference is whether or not that experience is invigorating or irritating.  That lies entirely in the overtaxed eye of the beholder.

This year, the World Cup Grand Prix is being hosted in the scenic mines of Moria, over the protests of a crazy, dirty old chap with a long beard and pointy hat.

For my part, one-and-a-half viewings have led me to embrace the garish, kaleidoscopic, candy-colored, ADHD visual palette.  Narratively, the plot is simple, and the telling is marked with moments of sophistication.  It’s difficult to address this criticism without inadvertently criticizing the taste or experience of viewers who were confused by the periodic fragmentation of the narrative.  The Wachowskis compress raw exposition into sequences punctuated by action to compensate for the expository excess and establish the emotional stakes for Speed and his family, who are heavily invested in his success or failure on the racetrack.  It’s a very rudimentary technique, embellished with state-of-the-art CGI and the love-it-or-hate-it flourish of floating heads serving as screen wipes.

The other primary criticism of the film seems rooted in the story’s simplicity.  A majority of critics who characterized the story’s primary dramatic conflict as little guy vs. capitalism seemed sympathetic to the thematic aim of the story, but felt that the kiddie-flick approach undercut the scope of such themes.  Roger Allam plays the capital-E Evil CEO of a corporate monolith that uses its considerable resources to fix the the races, using drivers as the representative pawns, whose success or failure boosts confidence of stock investors or sends them into a discombobulated frenzy.  Perhaps children won’t grasp the significance of this PG-rated film’s thematic stakes, but they’ll understand well enough that the sneering, scenery-gobbling Royalton is the Bad Guy.  Adults will probably have little difficulty in identifying Royaltan as the story’s representative of capitalist greed, an unchecked bully in desperate need of a smackdown.  ⁴

The question is whether the film is anti-capitalist (as many reviewers seem to assume) or anti-corporate.  This is a false dichotomy.  While the film certainly paints a picture of corporate efficiency and control that is monolithic, nightmarish, and cartoonishly evil, in fact it is not anti-capitalist at all, nor is it necessarily anti-corporate.

In a time when many successful Hollywood magnates are concerned with avoiding projecting an image of complicity with the political Right, the brothers behind the ostensibly anti-conformist Matrix and V for Vendetta have constructed a spectacular Republican apologia.

When Royalton spins his rags-to-riches story for the Racer family over breakfast the morning after Speed’s biggest victory yet, he clearly earns the respect of the Racer family, including Mom and Pops, the moral centers of Speed’s universe.  Though he turns out to be a through-and-through villain, Pops can respect the success of a small businessman because he is a small businessman.  Royalton sets up the opposition of Royalton Motors and Racer Motors as two family businesses: one family happens to be a zillion dollar empire, and one family happens to be headquartered in the garage of a well-appointed suburban home.  Royalton’s flaw is not that he mischaracterizes his business as “one big family,” but that he abuses his position as patriarch for his own benefit, rather than putting the welfare and interests of his employees (“family members”) first.  Pops cares about his business and his reputation, but he loves his son enough to put his son’s career and interests ahead of his own.

This warm and fuzzy gloss on the capitalist theme is further elaborated by the significance of the film’s dominant motif: a race, in which there is a winner and a loser.  Competition.  Speed Racer lives and breathes racing.  Since childhood, all he could think about was going fast, faster, setting the fastest time at any track.  The entire Racer family enjoys the thrill of the competition, blowing other racers off the track, the money that the prestige of building the winning car will bring into the family business.  What’s good for the family is good, full stop.  And competition, sayeth the brothers Wachowski, is Good.

By conflating the interests of the business with the interests of the family, the Wachowskis engineer a shockingly all-American family film.⁵

Ideologically, the film’s orientation is purebred capitalist, with an anti-corporate bent.  Many critics have noted the irony that Speed Racer is an expensive production underwritten by Time/Warner, one of the largest conglomerates on the planet.  Instead of hypocrisy, this fits in well with the philosophy espoused by the film.  While Time/Warner is indeed a zillion dollar empire, if the Wachowskis view their movie as Pops Racer views his race cars — as quality product representing integrity and ingenuity — perhaps even their anti-corporate bent can be compensated against by another key element of American culture: religious fellowship.

The mysterious Racer X was last seen boarding Oceanic Flight 815. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please call 1-800-XIS-REXX.

One of the film’s most unfortunate elements is some “feel the Force, Luke” nonsense about listening to the car, figuring out what it needs, the car will tell you, yada, yada, yada…  It’s Herbie, the Love Bug as directed by George Lucas.  The quasi-religious aspect is fully in line with the brothers’ Matrix trilogy.  To an extent, the conviction of V for Vendetta’s fascist protagonist enables him to generate a Jimmy Jones-like cult following, with Natalie Portman playing Peter to his Jesus.  Once again, in Speed Racer, the Wachowskis invoke the name of religion in semi-figurative terms.  Speed calls racing his family’s religion; Royalton’s calls money his religion.  Since love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, it’s no surprise that Royalton plays the role of Satan’s lapdog.

However, currency itself is not decried as evil.  The corruption that Royalton enacts to secure his cut of the pie, however, is.  Greed is the culprit, not the stock market.  The brothers’ nuance pays off again: though Royalton’s power is cast under suspicion by Pops, the real problem is that rich, powerful men tend to cheat to stay rich and powerful.  The Wachowskis don’t demonize capitalism, they demonize its excesses and the arrogance of prioritizing the bottom line above all ethics.  That’s why Speed Racer is the hero: his religion is competition, not the bottom line.  He lives to win, but also to enjoy the ride.  A capitalist to the core, if the competition is fair and square, the money involved is not an ideological issue.  As a face-off between two religions, the Wachowskis smash the bronze idols of avarice and place laurels at the feet of Her Lady of Survival-of-the-Fittest.  If Time/Warner plays the game by the rules, then its board of directors and the Wachowskis worship the same god.

With that kind of financial backing and religious zeal, the Wachowskis set about constructing a film with all the trappings that gold can buy.  The look of the film is entirely synthetic, a testament to the ingenuity of man’s imagination and his mastery over his helpful tools of illusion.  Rather than an example of capitalist excess, the film is the most sincere distillation of humankind’s desire to master his environment — nay, to create his own reality.  In the cinematic universe, the Wachowskis envision themselves as demigods, empowered by their deity — the free market and the gifts it has bestowed upon them — to do whatever the hell they want, including (re)making a fading-into-obscurity 1960s anime as what can only be called an animated live-action cartoon.⁶

This may explain why liberals would be right to hate the film, despite a common misperception that the film adopts a slightly Leftist perspective.  How unfortunate for them that in real-world terms, the film upholds the efficacy of the brothers’ philosophy.  If the film is (correctly) read and attacked as a pro-capitalist, family-values tract, its alleged ideological failures are countermanded by the film’s fate at the box office: it lost the summer competition, and how.  As an aesthetic and ideological failure, it validates the discernment of the consumer in a capitalist society to ignore a product designed to prop up its own corporate overlords.  If the film is (correctly) read and embraced by conservatives, it can serve as an example of an ideologically sympathetic film done well, perhaps out of step with a viewing public that has swung too far to the Left to appreciate it.  Either way, capitalism triumphs.

Thus, the cult audience for which Speed Racer is designed is that of the young, pseudo-nostalgic Red State Voter.  As a pre-packaged, studio-backed, mainstream “cult” aspirant, this could not be a more perfect match.

Edited by Tracy McCusker.

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