Those who deride Adorno's readiness to equate Hollywood dreck with fascist propaganda consider this box office smash apologia for imperious exceptionalism. Beneath the grease of sentimental hilarity rubs post 9/11 bubba jingoism smearing the face of patsy Continentals with freedom fries to defend carbon based obesity with unilateral militarism.
Feminine Frenchy Sacha Baron Cohen, specialist in junior high school foreigner mockery, norms NASCAR good-ol'-boy gender, firecrackered by rebel flag on roof of Luke and Bo Duke's '69 Charger smoked in scent of roasted meat resting over idyllic southern town square, one morning after lynching picnic.
The same scent spreads from Disney's Main Street U.S.A., with mascot Mickey's welcoming white gloved hands, nostalgia for Song of the South's "happy darkie," Br'er Rabbit comforted by briar patch.
Lacking cartoon bigotry, Disney's pixelated version of racing romanticism, Cars, holds equally pernicious patriarchal lessons for my Lightning McQueen pajamaed, wall-papered, bedsheeted 5 year old nephew: cars are either boys or girls, and boy cars are real men.
In this autotopic country, collapsed mines don't kill, oil canals don't erode Louisiana coastal marshland and vital organs don't spurt from endoskeletons onto highways because machines build, repair and fuel themselves. And when Ford GT40 Stickers jacks off at the thought of rough sex with Carrera Sally we have a charming embodiment of Lukacsian reification: no more wet dreams.
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