Oops! Disney's Cars Did Eugenics

[@LackingSaint]

Go to NordVPN.com/jacksaint or use code JACKSAINT to get 70% off a 3 year plan plus 1 additional month free. and why do they have sidewalks anyway???? *ADDENDUMS:* As I've tried to be clear on with all of my critiques, my issues with the exploitation and subjugation of the marginalized are squarely aimed at systems, not just individuals. Therefore, when I refer to Mater's cottage industry of towing around lemons for fun and profit as "kind of disgusting when you think about it", that's intended as a reference to the fact that this has been turned into a profit-making industry in absence of a public service, not to shift all of the blame onto people trying to financially support themselves while they fill that hole in the system. It's a grey area that should not exist - all people deserve a decent quality of life, whether or not they have the extra money to dole out for it. Apologies if that was unclear! PATREON: www.patreon.com/jacksaint KO-FI: ko-fi.com/lackingsaint TWITTER: twitter.com/LackingSaint STORE: www.teepublic.com/stores/jack-saint-store TWITCH: www.twitch.tv/lacksaint

[@coltmartin152]

I don't know comrade why do they

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

Robots feels kinda like a counter example to Cars 2's eugenics. In Cars the makes going out of style isn't looked at as bad, the disabled cars losing support makes them villains. Whereas in Robots the robots losing support is the main conflict and a eugenicist robot is the bad guy. It does also have some transphobic jokes in it though it's not a perfect counter to bad things.

[@Causistica]

Please look at the movie Robots I only have the vague recollection of seeing it once as a kid but I swear it had the exact same plot but the Robots that needed new parts were the heroes. But also I think it was a pretty bad movie so maybe not.

[@kimberleesi]

Oh okay I was even gonna say like, I care for the disabled for money, but the funding comes from the government, so really Mater towing these cars only becomes an issue if they are expected to pay out of pocket. You're right it really shouldn't be a gray area, as many people who haven't been deemed disabled "enough" don't get enough or even any government assistance and have to find ways to pay for aid or go without. I would definitely feel conflicted about my work if my clients or their families paid me themselves, despite still knowing that my care was needed and deserved payment.

[@worlddictionary9954]

thank you for adding in the beastars spoiler warning! i havent read the manga yet but i didnt notice it either way ahahha

[@philipmoreno2678]

"Oops, accidentally eugenics" should just be a playlist on this channel at this point

[@LtZerge]

As its absolutely most basic extrapolation, the concept of a character being 'born superior' to all the others in same way, or a society structured around promoting certain born traits over others, is very very prevalent. And it seems natural, since humans happily apply eugenics to every living thing we come in contact with, or at least that we have the power to breed.

[@zuiop9993]

Everytime I hear it I have to laugh, I watched the sentese in his Sky High Movie several times... It is just awesome

[@SisyphusStrange]

whether or not "accidental" is a big point of discussion tbh

[@takemetoyonk]

I'm going to eventually edit an "Oops, All Eugenics!" Captain Crunch image at this point

[@simonmacomber7466]

This isn't a case of "Oops, accidentally eugenics." Because this is not an accident. Many of the creators at Pixar have always been very public about the fact that they are followers of Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Which includes a support for eugenics.

[@felixkahn4845]

There's also a point to be made here that Mater isn't that far from being a "lemon" himself, despite mocking them at every opportunity-- like, he's rusty, missing his hood, and he could easily break down or lose more parts. And if he does, another tow truck will be mocking him while towing him back to town. This is something that definitely exists in the human world, ie., people making fun of disabled people without realizing that they themselves are or could easily become disabled.

[@daraghokane4236]

Here would be the real world example me being sent to a special needs class and I get nervous uncomfortable look and being around them because I'm not as bad and being reminded of that I'm like them makes me feel uncomfortable

[@Vooblebooble]

Considering he's supposed to be like a redneck... yeah that definitely hits very close to reality

[@justlola417]

Exactly, we'll all become disabled eventually if we live long enough

[@kaylaa2204]

I had a similar thought that it feels like when you have someone from a minority being discriminatory towards other members of their minority group, without realizing what they’re implying. And if they do realize it, it’s usually a “but I’m one of the good ones” things. I imagine Mater probably thinks the same way. “Well I don’t break down nearly as often as these people, and I’m making a living off of them. I may be rusty but I ain’t as bad as them” Very much mirrors similar archetypes like the gay person saying homophobic shit about other gay people, or the racial minority being racist, or the disabled person being ableist

[@christiancinnabars1402]

@kaylaa2204 And it could also be a "It's okay for me to be extremely prejudice because _I'm_ basically part of that group" type of deal.

[@dr.quackenbacker5247]

The fact that a cars Pope canonically exists, opens one hell of a worm can.

[@amoureux6502]

Disney please show us the car crucifix

[@meltryllis6239]

@@amoureux6502 I need to see Car Jesus so badly

[@Comuniity_]

@@meltryllis6239 Jesus Chrysler

[@synphilia4776]

Was there a car Moses that split the sea? Was there a car Noah? Are there car angels?? Demons????

[@EmployeeJoe630]

Cars 4: Lightening Goes to Hell

[@connorhealy3562]

I was not expecting “Oops! We accidentally did a eugenics!” to be a legitimate subgenre of children’s movies, but here we are I guess...

[@SeanLaMontagne]

When any media tries to accurately depict a world that feels like real life, it alway highlights the parts of society we often ignore for comfort.

[@2445elijah]

Oops! All eugenics!

[@v8ali8]

"accidentally"

[@obliviousotterI]

@@2445elijah That does not sound tasty

[@noneuklid]

oh man, wait until you examine literally any children's media with a 'special class' like jedi, wizard, demigod, superhero...

[@OnoxOrion]

No wonder they keep talking about "race" in the Cars movies.

[@masicbemester]

Ba dum tss

[@ChunkyAppleCider]

Boo!

[@ridhosamudro2199]

Ah yeah, the racing fans, the racists.

[@sarahgent2674]

Ok so it took a minute for me to get the joke so for a second there I was like "yeah Luigi does only like Ferraris what's up with that"

[@Colleywoodstudios]

Have the cars fight in a big demolition derby race... like twisted metal... CARS 3 RACE WA- wait a second...

[@curiouser-curiouser]

I just realized that Robots had a semi-similar eugenics-based plot. In Robots, the main villain is a rich guy who is purposefully manufacturing expensive new parts that poor robots can’t afford, and making it so that it is impossible for those robots to get the replacement parts they actually need to keep functioning. Also, part of the reason he does this is because his mother runs the scrapyard, and the more “outmoded” robots get scrapped, the more business she gets, creating a vicious cycle that creates profit for him and his elite family. And the hero of the story is a working-class robot who starts fixing other robots for free so they don’t need the expensive new upgrades. And his motto is “see a need, fill a need!” Fuck, was Robots based this whole time and I didn’t notice until now??

[@salam-peace5519]

Yeah Robots did it way better and had a good message about fighting for justice and equality. The topics and metaphors of that movie were pretty dark actually, I mean the villains were literally trying to abduct old rusty robots to throw them into a furnace to melt them into material for new parts, they were basically planning a robot genocide.

[@GuiSmith]

Someone made a great video about how Robots is very anti-capitalist and loaded with trans allegories, I’d suggest watching it

[@deen7530]

Damn I need to rewatch Robots, it was one of those movies everyone saw as a kid but not a lot of people talk about.

[@jenniferdunstan5065]

It's fucking amazing how based the movie "robots" was

[@notsaying7838]

@@GuiSmith Who?

[@Sneakily]

The whole "parts not being made anymore" plotline was something that I remember really upsetting me as a kid, but not from Cars, from Robots. Rodney's dad being "out fitted" but not being wealthy enough for upgrades, and the whole chop shop melting down robots that were too old. I'm really glad that the movie took a clear stance on how all the poorer and older models of robots were just as good, and that they made sure to show that the differences were cool and shouldn't be considered a burden. I never noticed how fucked the plot line of cars 2 really is but wow, yikes tldr I'm really glad I grew up loving Robots bc if I don't always notice fucked up plot messages now that I'm older, I sure as hell didn't back when I was an impressionable kid

[@mckenzie.latham91]

Actually robots is so much better cause they at least also make sure you realize that whether you’re an out-mode or a an upgrade it’s what kind of person you are that matters... Rodney is an out-mode but he’s a caring and thoughtful individual, Ratchet is an upgrade but is a total snobbish elitist monster etc. Cars 2 literally never addresses and or discusses the societal systematic disgust with lemons... it’s literally never addressed...

[@efkastner]

I came to the comment section to just post “Robots!” and run away if no one had. But then I saw your awesome comment that stole all my fun ;)

[@acehealer4212]

Rewatching this Cars video reminded me of Drawpinion Dump’s video on Robots. Really makes me appreciate that movie so much more.

[@jpeachboi3622]

I rewatched Robots with my younger cousins a few years ago and I was just floored by how dystopian the world was, as well as how leftist the themes of the movie are.

[@marnenotmarnie259]

oh man i loved that movie as a kid. sometimes i randomly remember it and am like wtf was that???? i should rewatch it

[@cat_inabasket1510]

"There's only one race, the human race!" *slaps* "WHAT ABOUT NASCAR?"

[@RL.RachelLaurin]

😂😂😂

[@Snazzulk-hs5ro]

Humans are a species, not a race.

[@cat_inabasket1510]

@@Snazzulk-hs5ro my sibling in Christ this is a vine reference from three years ago

[@Snazzulk-hs5ro]

@@cat_inabasket1510 It's more like my sibling in the Chosen.

[@BP-iz2lt]

driving in circles is not a race but an impaired driver

[@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodb7585]

A car having the surname ‘axelrod’ is like having the surname ‘femur’

[@caitlynmcmunn]

“Bones” is a surname, or “Kidney”, or “Head”. It’s pretty common for people to have names after body parts

[@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodb7585]

@@caitlynmcmunn I didn’t know that but I wasn’t trying to prove a point. I was cracking a good one.

[@rhythmandblues_alibi]

​@@caitlynmcmunnreally!? Is there really someone out there called Mr or Miss Kidney!? 😆😆😆

[@DiamondKingStudios]

“Armstrong” is a fairly common and well-known English surname. The first man to land on the moon was named Armstrong. Also I’m sure there’s plenty of folks with a surname like “Whitehead” or something, like some centenarian great-great-aunt of mine.

[@viola83680]

Right? Like a town called "Radiator Springs." As if we had a city called "Liver Pool" or something

[@nemo_of_napa]

Fun fact: the spy car that dies in the beginning of Cars 2 and the gym teacher in Sky High are played by the same actor.

[@penguinstarlette4028]

Also can we talk about all the horrific ways cars died in that movie? Crushed into a cube? Tortured to death? What the fuckkk

[@Appletank8]

@@penguinstarlette4028 mmm, force fed a food that sets you on fire

[@another-person-on-youtube]

@@penguinstarlette4028 For reals. Cars 2 is definitely the second-most violent Pixar movie. Second place to The Incredibles with its lightning round cape death montage and bad guys straight up exploding.

[@TurtleExplosive]

Coach Boomer

[@warmpancaxe]

Are we talking about mother fucking Bruce Campbell

[@ryanammenheuser4788]

So my takeaway from this video is that Mater is a class traitor. Got it.

[@klisterklister2367]

😂😂😂

[@literallyglados]

class mater

[@skyclaw]

If you say it in a rhyme You’ll get the right answer every time.

[@flopsinator5817]

I disagree. I think that Mater in this context is closer to a social worker. I mean, you wouldn't say that an ambulance picking you up from and accident is extorting you.

[@youareaspook5897]

@@flopsinator5817 i mean... depends on the accident and if i get a choice of hospital, Id rather go to my local hospital or even a free clinic for minor injuries as in america medical premiums for injury are insane

[@Tony-rc9jb]

as somebody in a wheelchair who was obsessed with the first cars movie as a kid, when I went o see the second cars movie the eugenics was. very clear to me at the age of like, 12. It was literally saying "hey if you're disabled you're bad if you want things to be better for you" which was. ya know. awesome.

[@jimmyl27]

“Don’t make eugenics propaganda or draw 25” *Disney draws 25*

[@Wertsir]

Gaston is the master race.

[@bitzangubbinzondaleft]

Naah they'd let 3rd world kids draw it for them.

[@universalpower419]

@@bitzangubbinzondaleft Those kids even know how to draw?

[@oswald7716]

Holy shit, why didn't they just make the villains in the movie snobbish elite cars trying to wipe out lemons from existence because they're too costing?

[@Synerco]

probably because "classical liberal" media figures would complain about how that's shoving politics into a kids' movie. isn't it strange how these people only notice left wing subtext?

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@Synerco “Classical liberal” otherwise known as modern libertarian/conservative actually they probably did it because fox news would demonize them as Hollywood attacking rich people, like they did with the Lorax yeah, fox business literally did a segment on the 2012 lorax animated film all about how it showed that Hollywood was demonizing job creators and the rich.

[@juliedurby8333]

They did: it was called Robots

[@anonymousdratini]

Too close to reality, they might upset their shareholders.

[@curiouser-curiouser]

I think that’s the plot of Robots

[@curiositykillingcat3226]

I'm disabled, and I'm kind of not surprised. The 'bitter, disabled villain' is a horribly overdone trope. We're a burden on society and then we're even worse because we're angry about it and become murderers or something. Also I got a bit weird realising that the tow truck character is a perfect analogy for my reliance on taxis. I keep low paid cabbies in business because the buses aren't reliable enough to get me to the hospital in time for my appointments. Yay?

[@amazinggrapes3045]

I personally like the trope. I want people to be afraid of making me into a villain.

[@VitaeLibra]

​@@amazinggrapes3045But... they're not. That's why it's an overdone trope?

[@amazinggrapes3045]

@@VitaeLibra ????????

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

@@amazinggrapes3045 ???????

[@Alresu]

@@amazinggrapes3045 What they said is that people obviously are not affraid of making you (assuming you have a disability) into a villain, since it's done often enough to be a clichee. I suppose you meant to say that you like it when disabled people are the villain, because people are "afraid enough" to do so, instead of "afraid of" doing it?

[@lockerpaint2955]

I have seen the film Cars 2 approximately 150 times. There was a period of six months where it was the only thing my little brother would watch under any circumstances. My parents put it on for him every day. It was constantly playing on my television, and I was not allowed to request a different movie. I can quote nearly every line in the whole script. I can tell you with certainty that only one joke lands in the entire film. When I close my eyes at night, I see Mater and his purple sports-car girlfriend. I can never escape this film, just as I can never forgive my little brother for what he put me through in those six months. It haunts me.

[@krio1267]

I watched Bee Movie hundreds of times, and the only thing I remember is "According to all known laws a bee should not be able to fly"

[@silvercomics3517]

No way, my brother did the same thing but with the first Cars movie. The only reason we stopped watching was because I broke down and cried because I couldn’t handle it anymore.

[@twotruckslyrics]

what the fuck is it about these movies that causes this?v it was the same for one of my brothers every DAY it was cars 1

[@LuckySketches]

When I was young I watched the Spongebob movie so many times I literally broke the DVD. I still don't know how that's even possible.

[@rosykindbunny1313]

Same with my brother! Also I have to know what the one joke is because I'm drawing a blank.

[@Chimera-man-man]

"Lemon cars eventually need new parts because they're defective and have to resort to shady back alley deals to get those parts when they stop being manufactured lest they depend on others to carry them around for the rest of their lives, and it looks like there's even a profit to be made in that sort of business" Hahaha what the fuck i had no idea this was in a fucking disney kids movie holy shit

[@raycearcher5794]

My question is, if these cars do in fact have fully mechanical innards that they can replace, what's stopping these lemons from just going and getting new transmission builds and LS swaps? Are upgrades and repairs paywalled behind insurance and medical debt like healthcare in the real world? Do sufficiently wealthy cars just live forever as long as they can get parts? Do the oldest, most reliable, profitable cars become de-facto rulers of car society? Like, is there a secret cabal of Model Ts, Willis Jeeps, Original Beetles, and Third Generation Civics who have outlived every other car and lord over the new models as some eldritch illuminatus?

[@Appletank8]

@@raycearcher5794 Cut shorts vaguely imply that the engine is the heart or brain of the car. Otherwise, with constant part replacement you would be hard pressed to die. But they do die. Somehow.

[@darkeimp555]

@@raycearcher5794 well, since they established in the first movie, that the rusty and dented cars are rusty and dented because they're poor, and in the second movie Mater says that one car's 10th tow is "on the house", implying the other tow trips weren't free, it would seem the world of Cars has some system of currency. In that case, I'd think that yes, the reason the lemons don't just go out and get a full overhaul is that they can't pay for it, especially considering it's been established that if you don't function well as a car in their world, you don't make much money.

[@KyrieFortune]

That's literally the plotof Robots

[@chuckbatman5]

Cars 2 is a really strange movie in general, it's a silly cartoony Bond parody starting Mater the Cable Guy but it also tries to have this semi-serious plot with car deaths and alternative fuels and black market dealings

[@thefinalfrontear]

As a disabled person who has quite literally been referred to as a “lemon” before, I can’t tell you how fucking thrilled I am this video exists

[@tarnitthebassist7149]

Jesus, that’s foul

[@STOPSYPHER]

thanks for the input, lemon

[@MarvinHartmann452]

I'm not disabled, but I had a liver transplant 2 years ago, and chronic backpain. Being born in what was called at the time Eastern Germany, or DDR, I've my character for the next car movie involving "lemons", a Trabant. I can even voice it myself, because when I try to speak english, I've an awful German accent.

[@lem860]

​@@STOPSYPHERidk if you're being ironic or not, but ultimately it doesnt matter since you're being very rude

[@STOPSYPHER]

@@lem860 cry about it

[@twood12301]

I also kinda find it weird how this film kinda praises fossil fuels and shows alternative fuels to be dumb. I mean I haven't seen this movie since I was 12 so I could just be misremembering.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

remember the first movie ? mcqueen uses green fuel in the last race

[@ridhosamudro2199]

Well, the other interpretation of that could be "don't believe snake oil salesmen"

[@PogieJoe]

It's actually more confusing than that. They portray it as something good, and then it turns out to be bad but only cause one specific alternative fuel is a hoax, and then one car at the end recommends him better stuff, but he's a hippie who no one takes seriously. So they don't really take a stance on it. Lol

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

Wasn't there a new gas blend wich was mixing in more plant oil then usual and was praised as a greener alternative but turned out to have damaging side-effects on your car? I'm pretty sure they used that as Inspiration (it was called E10 in my country)

[@Dudofall]

Yeah, ethanol even sounds like Allinol.

[@Hellooo134]

Jack you’re absolutely insane these children’s movies are not about eugenics. Edit: nvm I watched the video you’re right

[@T_Bot1]

very good character arc, 10/10

[@melbournemeliodas215]

@@T_Bot1 lul 10/10 would watch again.

[@satqur]

Top 10 anime redemption arcs

[@Mynti_Dragon]

A redemption arc to rival Prince Zuko himself, also it’s a 10

[@seeyouspacecowboy941]

"Maybe I don't want to be the bad guy anymore"

[@Watcher-pt6uq]

Cars is actually fascinating with this because you could actually see the society being structered like a caste system. With "rich" cars at the top; then generalized cars, like minivans or others; specialized cars, race cars, fire trucks, police vehicles, military vehicles, tow trucks; the pities beneath them that work as effectively personal servants; then boats who seem to have a bit more say in society; planes and trains beneath them; and finally construction and farming vehicles that are effectivelly lobotimized into animal-like thinking.

[@ElGato01]

And this is why I don't like to think about the cars universe. Like for example we know WW2 happened in their universe so does that mean that the Holocaust happend and other horrible events happened? Did 9/11 happen in their universe and did someone take the planes hostage or were the planes radicalized? This is why I don't think too hard about Cars.

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@ElGato01 We know there's a car Pope, so that definitely means that the history of the setting extends back to the founding of Judaism at least, and yet cars follow real life models and seem to be about as old as those models are in real life, so what did Cars look like before the oldest vehicles we have in real life? What did car Jesus look like? Also, how did cars do anything without hands before automation? How did they build those machines? Are there also sentient robot factory arms?

[@Maxineewing7501]

@@screamingcactus1753car jesus was just a donkey is a theory i want canonized i mean think abt it we used horses and donkeys for transportation before carriages and cars, and jesus rode into a town on a donkey. Car jesus was a donkey i rest my case

[@jerrymajors8132]

​@@screamingcactus1753"My father was a wheel! The first wheel! And do you know what he transformed into? NOTHING!!" - Jetfire, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

[@Gustoberg]

​@@ElGato01 considering the government activelly wants "lemons" to die (not much unlike the real world) I wouldn't doubt that Carmany won against the Carllies in CWII

[@purplebatdragon]

If you think about the Cars universe for more than two seconds, this is usually what happens.

[@chasedavidson2855]

Car pope

[@Gonbatfire]

Car Hitler

[@theinstitute1324]

The entire universe in Cars really requires a lot of suspension of disbelief to work. I usually just end up thinking of it as being incompatible with a lot of complex analysis and leave it.

[@doktorwyvern2883]

@@theinstitute1324 *suspension* of disbelief? I see what you did there.

[@axolotl_empress4416]

Car military

[@noviatoria2436]

I did not expect "Subpar kids movie actually shows us the flaws in capitalism and modern society" to be such a large subgenre of video essay, but I'm not complaining.

[@genericbassname]

Right? It makes a lot of sense though; a lot of the moral lessons it makes sense to teach kids are things like "hey we shouldn't superficially exclude people" or "helping people is good actually," which run counter to the fundamental nature of capitalism.

[@photogenicBlur]

well, kids tend to be pretty good at spotting injustices, before society crushes their self value into accepting their lot in life. It's easy to use these as motivations, but no one seems to dare to actually question them, let alone offer solutions like as an easy example, bullying in schools is pretty common, and every kid knows it's "wrong" (even those who are bullies!), so naturally, bullies are always antagonists in kids shows. But when was the last time you saw a show adress this? The closest is usually that the bully learns to be a better person, but there's no comentary on how parents, teachers, etc never did anything about it

[@Bluecho4]

It doesn't help that much subpar children's media is produced by big corporations, who have their own agendas and biases that inevitably worm their way into the fiction they produce. The big one being that these corporations are, naturally, pro-capitalism and anti-"anything that disrupts or impedes capitalism". Even when the text of the story obviously shows that the problem is capitalism, the film is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging that fact.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

The easiest way to show your biases is to try to make something you consider inofensive, I guess?

[@GroundThing]

@@pedroscoponi4905 This is, I think, the biggest part of it, TBH. Kids movies can't really be subversive. Even the conservative claims otherwise with stuff like * gasp * a gay character or something like that, ignores the fact that if it risked their profits it wouldn't get in, and so cannot really be subversive, but moreso than that, being subversive generally requires some knowledge and understanding of the way the world works that kids, by and large, don't have the experience to have. As a result, both good kids movies and bad kids movies largely reflect what is inoffensive to society, i.e. the status quo, and may have some equally inoffensive message attached, with a usually less complex narrative than you would find in movies for older audiences, but good kids movies tend to either lack the cognitive dissonance required to lay bare the flaws in said status quo, or are well done enough for the viewer to be able to become absorbed in the content, and not necessarily notice the flaws. A bad kids movie, when viewed with the sufficient experience to understand the status quo being portrayed, doesn't absorb the audience, and the points where the flaws in the status quo are evident are more noticeable.

[@whatthehelliot]

the black market of spare parts in cars reminds me of those groups on Instagram where disabled and chronically ill ppl will distribute spare medical stuff (ostomy bags, feeding tube food, mobility aids etc) bc they're either very hard to find or prohibitively expensive

[@Formoka]

As someone with a disability, it’s pretty common for people to trash talk people like me (usually to my face because my disability is mental and not visible) because they think that since we aren’t “useful” to society, we have less worth.

[@TuesdaysArt]

Conservatives in America often shame people for requiring assistance from the government and devalue those who can't be 110% self sufficient because "boot straps yadda yadda". It's not a particularly healthy mindset to have, especially if you're disabled. Often times, I'm worried about burdening others by asking for assistance and feel as though I'm hopeless because how am I going to make meaningful contributions to society/survive if I find it hard to leave my bed most days? It absolutely sucks and the disability rights movement deserves more attention than it usually gets.

[@enfercesttout]

No one is self sufficient. We come from wombs not lizard eggs.

[@alanamontero4743]

Yep. Same. Also, about me with my chronic health issues (which I have as well as other disabilities): "It must be so nice not to work full time and just sit at home." The implication being that I'm lazy. Because, you know, having greatly reduced capacity and number of hours I can be active is just wonderful, as is being thought of a useless and incompetent because of my reduced capacities. It's practically like a holiday. /s Broke and struggling with lots of things in life because they're not adapted to your needs? Well, maybe you should be less useless and selfish. Ugh. Ask for small accommodations so I can, you know, actually function and participate, and some people react like I'm being ridiculously demanding and selfish. In my experience and observation, it's common for people to mistreat and discriminate against disabled people. So, the presence of it in this movie doesn't surprise me at all.

[@WeedgokuBonerhitler]

It's fun when they do it straight to your face in casual conversation, then like a minute later are like "oh, uh, sorry. I didn't mean, you know." And then people get angry at you when you're like "No, that's not cool."

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

I’m autistic and my brain is as worthless as shit without pills and it’s particularly useless when I’m around human beings so I study on my own instead of going to class yet it’s those with more shallow knowledge that have bought and paid for a piece of paper that says they learned something that get rewarded for it.

[@screechingcamels9643]

Disney: releases a movie with pro-eugenics themes Jack: how many times do I have to teach you this lesson old man?

[@courtneys.7113]

Toby Ziemke “so ya like makin’ movies about eugenics, do ya? well we’ll show you, old man!”

[@merrittanimation7721]

Disney: "I love young people."

[@someonesilence3731]

@@ethanmcfarland8240 ummmm

[@Lulu_Lime]

@@ethanmcfarland8240 American moment

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@vlc-cosplayer That actually is a mixture All doctors in Iceland are required by law to tell mothers about the available screening that can test for down syndrome in the fetus which makes it totally pro choice and up to the mothers if they wish to abort (as it is for most of the abortion worldwide...a women’s choice) The Iceland government has no mandatory abortion order for any fetus testing positive for down syndrome, nor do they even make the screening mandatory for any expecting mothers. Also Iceland’s standard of living has nothing to do with aborton or down syndrome in any capacity they have the highest standing of icing because they have high wages, high taxes, socialistic policies like medicare 4 all, free education, workers insurance and unemployment, healthy populations, regulated capitalism and business, paid vacations and sick leave to ensure lack of stress and over working to death etc. etc.

[@martinchapman8727]

This was the same idea I got from the first season of Legend of Korra as well - non-benders are second-class citizens, and instead of addressing the bigger and more interesting issue of equity, the plot is just "oh one of them is a terrorist bad guy trying to take our bending" and then they defeat him and move on to the second season

[@error-try-again-later]

Amon suffered from a hilariously obvious case of "the bad guy has a good point"

[@VitaeLibra]

​@@error-try-again-laterI don't remember ANYTHING from when I watch tlok but what I do remember makes it seem even worse. Because Amon did have a gift right? Bloodbending. He was a bender. There's 2 ways to take this. Either the non benders needed a white knight to save them and were too weak to make changes themselves... or when people who are different and thus seen as a burden actually do have a "gift" or some kind of benefit to society, the use of that is outlawed without hesitation. I'm thinking about how much good bloodbending could have done in the universe. How many lives could be saved in the field of medicine and how many good doctors could have been made. But because it's different it's outlawed with no exception. The trope of someone with special powers being forced to keep them hidden rather than learn how to use them to help people, resulting in them one day growing out of control is overdone as all heck. It's literally the premise/plot of Frozen. But it's also just like... "these people are a burden. Oh what's that? Some people proof my poiny wrong by showing how they can do things others can't? Let's make it illegal to do that thing. Now they're back to being useless. Hurray!" Let's be clear, not every autistic person is some kind of mega genius in disguise and that's honestly just as hurtful to think. But when a benefit to something deemed a negative does show, people who have spent years calling "these people" burdens, rather than change their mind just double down and make it impossible for their demonized group to prove them wrong Avatar's logic is basically "benders are good. Non benders are too violent and don't deserve our help. "Special" benders can only be evil". Because it's "blood" bending. You can't have a "blood" mage and make them good. Right? Especially not if they're *born that way*

[@TheWonkyAngle]

​@@VitaeLibra late reply but I feel like this isn't accurate to how TLOK actually presents things? for one thing bloodbending iirc isn't just a genetic "gift" that a minority of people are born with, but rather an ability that any skilled enough waterbender can learn (Katara very briefly uses it in the OG show), and its typically being forbidden has nothing to do with being "different" but rather because that power whenever shown is some kind of horrifying abuse of it used to control people's physical movements (or in Amann's case take people's bending away). it is true that medical uses of bloodbending are never explored but I'm guessing they just aren't discovered yet as their society is still developing in the equivalent to the Industrial Revolution additionally I don't think the show was necessarily trying to other non-benders as lesser than benders; the very second Amann's supporters find out he has bending they all immediately turn on him as they realize all his talk of equity was a front for some kind of empty play for power, and then by the next season Republic City creates the position of a president to represent the people and a non-bender is elected for the position obviously I'm not saying that every single one of these topics is handled the best they possibly could, and tbh it's been a while since I've seen Korra myself so I don't even remember Amann's actual motivations that well or if they even go into them at all, but boiling that arc of the show down to being an unintentional "people who are born a different or societally undesirable way should be othered" message feels like a big stretch to me. it's certainly not comparable to the way Cars 2 handles the topic

[@lucciadelmoira1487]

If you think about it almost ever korra season was (minus 2)

[@pythonjava6228]

My favourite thing. Jack saint pointing out racisms and eugenics in movies I liked as a kid

[@EforEveryone10]

Uh oh, Didney made another fucky wucky

[@titania396]

Me too

[@sobersplash6172]

I was at first like, okay that sounds kinda reaching but then he explained and it made an uncomfortable amount of sense, and then I realized that I forgot about *a lot* of Cars 2

[@sweetpeabee4983]

@@sobersplash6172 some things are best left forgotten, dead and buried down deep. The trauma that was Cars 2 for a lot of us might be one of those things.

[@dildonius]

Ew, you actually LIKED Cars 2?! Or ANY of the Cars movies?! EVER?! At ANY age?! Granted I was 11 or 12 already when Cars 1 came out, 16 or 17 when Cars 2 came out, and 22 or 23 when Cars 3 came out...but still. I *hated* ALL of them from the *second* they came out. Even the first and best one (also the only one that can be considered even REMOTELY close to "a good movie"...also the fist Pixar movie that wasn't fucking amazing, just "meh" at absolute best) looked like a pile of crap and a massive disappointment to 11 or 12 year old me. Especially because I was VERY familiar with Pixar and their repertoire by that point, and held them to the VERY high standards that they had spent 10 years establishing as their precedent. I'm pretty sure that my ages had very little to do with my opinions on those crappy ass crapass films when they were released. I grew up on _Toy Story_ and _A Bug's Life_ and _Toy Story 2_ and _Monsters, Inc._ and _Finding Nemo_ and _The Incredibles_ by that point (and a hell of a lot of other fanTASTIC media too, but we're just talking Pixar here). So look at THAT list of movies, and compare it to fucking _Cars._ Essentially a cheap rehash of the core Toy Story gimmick: "What if [insert thing, cars in this case] were alive like us people folks is?" and VERY little else. Totally forgettable, seemingly rushed trite. But then came _Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up,_ and _Toy Story 3,_ so it seemed like _Cars_ was just a weird fluke. Something to keep busy with because they were burnt out and needed time to recharge their batteries. But then...then _Cars 2_ came and signaled the END of the golden age of Pixar and their descent into ABSOLUTE mediocrity. Afterwards was _Brave,_ which wasn't BAD (certainly better than ANY of the _Cars_ films) but a bit on the bland side. No stakes or consequences or anything to REALLY get you invested in the tale (well unless you're an average 1st world country tweenage or teenage girl currently having mommy issues...or are an average 1st world country mother having issues with your daughter...especially if that 1st world country is Scotland). But then came the ABSOLUTELY SOULLESS AND UNNEEDED OR WANTED _Monsters University._ Then came the bright ray of false hope called _Inside Out._ Which WAS good, great even...but still not as good as stuff like Toy Story or _Monsters, Inc_ or _The Incredibles_ or _WALL-E_ or _Up_ or even _Ratatouille._ And we saw how false that hope was when next came....ugh >shudder< _The Good Dinosaur._ 'Nuff said. Then, just like with _Monsters University,_ the TOTALLY UN-NEEDED AND UNWANTED _Finding_ fucking _Dory._ And then _Cars 3_ of course to put the exclamation point on the statement "THIS IS THE DARK AGE OF PIXAR!" But then a nice, reserved, quaint little film called _Coco_ came and was pretty dang good (well, except for some really nasty, disgusting, kinda racist business with Disney arrogantly trying to file a trademark on the name "Dia de los Muertos," which is just...holy fuck wtf is wrong with you scumbags; that's like when that hack Gene Simmons legitimately tried to trademark the "Metal Horns/Devil Horns" hand gesture...you know 🤘 that). But still. As good as it was, it couldn't QUIIIITE live up to the standards of Pixar's upper echelon. Which seems to be the age _Coco_ has brought us into. Good, maybe even great or close to it, but still not quite at the level of the best Golden Age masterpieces. Because then came _Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4,_ and _Onward._ And we got _Soul_ due out this fall. So it's kinda funny that just as _Cars 2_ represented the beginning of Pixar's true Dark Age, _Cars 3_ represents the conclusion of that Dark Age. And an actually decent film - _Coco_ - represents the beginning of what hopefully will turn out to be a bit of a Pixar Renaissance. And it is interesting that in the original Pixar Golden Age, every single film they put out was an amazing and highly innovative MASTERPIECE of both animation and storytelling....with ONE exception, one horrible black mark that ruined their perfect streak: _Cars._ That golden age ran from 1995 with _Toy Story_ all the way to 2010 with _Toy Story 3_ but then _Cars_ in 2006 just sits there as the *C-C-C-C-C-C-COMBO-BREAKER* that ended a TEN YEAR LONG perfect streak and prevented them from getting a FIFTEEN YEAR LONG PERFECT STREAK! Literally the Cars franchise represents everything BAD about Pixar. Where the Cars franchise goes, it drags Pixar down along with it as much as it can. _Cars_ ruining the golden era's perfect streak, _Cars 2_ ENDING THE GOLDEN AGE ENTIRELY AND BRINGING US INTO THE DARK AGE....hell, the only good thing you can kinda say is that _Cars 3_ represents the conclusion of the Dark Age...but really thats just because of _Coco_ managing to kill that dark age for good finally and usher us into the current age. It certainly wasn't because of anything _Cars 3_ did. Though maybe....maybe _Cars 3_ was SO fucking GODAWFUL that it snapped Pixar out of their pathetic slump and gave them the kick in the pants they needed to finally turn things around for real this time and for good too. And thus, _Coco_ and _The Incredibles 2_ and _Toy Story 4_ and _Onward_ and _Soul_ and FOUR MORE FILMS BETWEEN 2021 AND 2023 THAT DO NOT HAVE ANY OFFICIAL TITLES OR PLOT DETAILS OR ANYTHING REVEALED YET BUT ARE CONFIRMED TO BE IN PRODUCTION OR ABOUT TO BEGIN PRODUCTION?! Well God damn...hell yeah, Pixar is finally back...I hope. Wait a minute...oh...oh GOD *DAMN* IT! You see?! DO YOU *SEE* WHAT YOU MADE ME DO?! You made me RANT and RAMBLE! And for SO LONG too! Omg, just LOOK at how off-the-rails this one got too...Cheese-Bits fuckin Sliced, man. Well tl;dr - CARS BAD AND REPRESENT PIXAR AT THEIR ABSOLUTE WORST AND HOPEFULLY THEY NEVER DO CARS 4 BECAUSE THE ENSUING PLUNGE BACK INTO A CARS-INDUCED PIXAR DARK AGE MIGHT WIND UP KILLING THE COMPANY THIS TIME IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN! THE EMD THANK YOU GO AWAY STOP READING NOW STOP GTFO

[@ilikebirds7748]

Reading "some people are born to be a burden on the rest" filled me with a _visceral_ terror. Like, holy shit I can't believe there was a time in human history where this was accepted en masse.

[@NXTangl]

What the fuck do you mean "was?"

[@coffin1316]

There is no "was." The time in human history where it's accepted en masse is today.

[@Squeezy-db3vv]

I had the exact same reaction, I got physically sick to my stomach immediately

[@viktorthevictor6240]

Let it fill you with anger instead

[@imaymellow]

I used to think this was the way as a kid because I didn't know I was disabled and queer being in the most discriminative enviroments. Now I know I how horrible that train of thought was for me. I deserve to live.

[@L_Aster]

14:50 If there was a food-based slur against disabled people, I (a disabled person) would 1000% serve it as a joke

[@LittleHelperFan]

was the serve it thing an intentional pun

[@L_Aster]

@@LittleHelperFan probably not, but in the year since I made that comment I might’ve gotten just a little less funny

[@leebard9335]

Just a big ol' plate of broccoli.

[@PizzaManager101]

I grow pansies and lavender for a similar reason

[@LuckySketches]

There's "vegetable," but that's a bit more specific. And there's enough veggies out there that people probably wouldn't get the joke unless it was pointed out to them. They'd just think you're a vegan.

[@tedculbertson6320]

I've never seen Cars 2, but this reminds me of watching Detective Pikachu and thinking "Damn, how many times are movies going to do the villain who's evil because they're disabled thing?"

[@franksonatra]

Big mood

[@CentipedeM]

There are two movie genders: -oops accidentally marx -oops accidentally eugenics

[@bonthebunnycat667]

LMFAO

[@kertchu]

**cuts cake** It’s a marxi- **BOOM**

[@rimfire8217]

Bernard Marx. Look it up

[@hi-ougidemonfang]

To be fair I don’t think lightning McQueen should be expected to fix the world wide issues of wage inequality, food insecurity and homelessness.

[@heszedjim9699]

@@hi-ougidemonfang and who made that claim in any way lmao

[@Amani832]

pixar has so many cases of “feel-good oppression” where the situation changes for one character or one town in this case but the overall problem doesn’t change a very similar thing happens in “Coco”

[@JallyJam]

Well it would move up a rating grade if every movie there's a communist-feminist-pro-plus sized revolution every movie

[@Comuniity_]

That's just the classic formula for individualistic capitalist propaganda

[@flurpurr]

@pocahontas

[@Comuniity_]

@@flurpurr fun fact, the nation she was from has many times said to call her Makoaka or Amonute and they don't like the name pocahontas cause of the colonial connotations. She was also like a 11 years old, she was a child who was kidnapped by European colonists and forced to marry John Rolfe, so that story has quite a few more issues

[@kathyl9222]

With Coco it’s more complicated since it’s inspired by old traditional things, and when someone pointed out how messed up that world was, it did offend a lot of Mexican people.

[@MikeDynamoGo]

Starting to think Disney doesn't "Oops" with Eugenics

[@rednebula3503]

You're right.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

Mike Dynamo well two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern so if you find the third one i agree (lets be real it can’t be that hard i’m just lazy)

[@MikeDynamoGo]

Star Wars pretty much counts now right?

[@lostross]

walt disney himself was known to be antisemetic, so i’m not putting this past them

[@naranciagaming]

@@lostross he's also been dead for like 60 years

[@cheer90099]

The fruit was clearly an intentional attempt to reclaim the slur, Jack, get with it. 😤

[@aknopf8173]

If life gives you a lemon, put it on a table and reclaim the slur! - Motivational Poster to be

[@AbsolXGuardian]

Frankly, if there was an irl slur that was also a food, activist groups would probably make a point about ironically serving it at their events.

[@GuiSmith]

@@AbsolXGuardian The gays, we’re those people. We’re known to make fruit jokes.

[@ILikeYourMoxxie]

@@GuiSmith I make the jokes ALL the time. Actually, I have this one shirt that just has lemons on it because I like fruit.

[@yourlocalasshole352]

@@AbsolXGuardian Mexican slur

[@katiefinch9414]

When I was younger, Cars 2 freaking terrified me because I thought it was a metaphor for biological warfare

[@universalpower419]

It kinda is.

[@pokemoncat976]

@@universalpower419 Biological Warfare and Eugenics

[@amazinggrapes3045]

I always thought it was too stupid but maybe that has to do with my age when it came out

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

​​@@amazinggrapes3045 I mean, it's not like it's smart...? I don't think they made it eugenicist on purpose, and all the characters are kind of out of character, and the plot hinges on people not noticing Mater isn't a spy no matter how obviously Mater tells them. And on everyone punishing McQueen for being alive, and for not liking being constantly harassed by Francesco, or Mater humiliating him in public and messing up his chances in a race Mater roped him into. It's not exactly Ibsen.

[@Ingestedbanjo]

Haha, towing "Lemons" is like charging to lift a wheelchair-bound person up a flight of stairs where there is no access ramp.

[@ace0071000]

Considering that "Lemons" are brought in for repairs, towtrucks are more akin to a non-government paid ambulances

[@58209]

i mean, that shit basically happens all the time irl. half the struggle of disability is trying to find the money to afford the necessary accommodations you need to just exist in the world. your subway stop isn't wheelchair accessible, so if you want to go anywhere past a few blocks, you have to hire a specialty cab that's super expensive. so... you just end up not going to those doctor appointmens because you can't afford the transportation. you've been bedridden for months and a motorized scooter would drastically improve your quality of life...but those cost thousands and insurance won't cover it. your apartment doesn't have handrails on the steps and it's a fall hazard, but your landlord is antagonistic, so even if it was safe enough for you to ask him to install some, he'd gripe and moan and drag his feet and never get it done, and the mere act of asking damages your already tenuous relationship and increases your risk of being evicted. to be disabled is this capitalist system that expects us to magic up money for life-saving accommodations while providing us with scarce means of getting that money is...to be exploited

[@6Six6Six6Bruh]

givin me some ideas

[@donotlookherethereisnothing]

I'm more concerned about the possible existence of a car Hitler

[@RocTroller]

Magos The Unworthy what kind of car would he be?

[@khalidbrown743]

@@RocTroller I mean Volkswagen obviously, that's the car he was always riding around in in the pictures

[@jaschabull2365]

@@khalidbrown743 I'd suspect he'd more likely be that plane he's in in Triumph of the Will. Being all high 'n' mighty above everyone else 'n' all.

[@ComatHam]

@@khalidbrown743 No he had a Mercedes. VW was for the plebs.

[@disastermidi1990]

​@@ComatHam Or a BMW

[@aurorarose6678]

tbh as A Disabled™ you’re not overthinking it at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ disabled ppl notice this constantly because it eerily and frustratingly parallels the way people talk & think about us in real life. you did a great job of detailing the exact ways in which it’s kind of weird and creepy!

[@franksonatra]

yeah, this thought process is just baked into us, taught by the ableist world that we must think like this because "that is how the world works and thus world ain't for you, disabled people!" ugh, just had to vent that my visibly physically disabled ass always get harassed by people in uni... and today was bad because I'm not allowed to use an AAC for a presentation. they're just. blocking me from having a voice. whatever. I guess being mute makes me a bad student eVEN THO I WORK SO HARD WHILE HAVING PAIN WITH A 9 OR 10 IN THE PAIN SCALE EVERY DAY. FUCK

[@CheeseThePurpleDragon]

@@franksonatrahope you’re doing well today dude!

[@youraveragegamer8832]

@@franksonatra Sounds like a potential discrimination lawsuit. If you're in the US, you'd have a fair chance at winning

[@juiceboxfromthevoid]

As a disabledTM person aswell, I agree I grew up loving the movie but looking back its just weird-

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

​​@@youraveragegamer8832 So you know a lot of college students (or even most ppl in the US) who can afford a lawyer? It's not that easy.

[@benjaminrobinson7203]

Can we talk about how they’re manufactured? Why they’re manufactured? Who was the first car and who produced them? Did they know that some cars would be disabled? Why would they produce cars that they knew were going to be disabled?

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

They were created by “God” (humans) and God is now dead.

[@jaschabull2365]

@@nuclearcatbaby1131 Though, according to MattPat (I think), the cars are actually the evolved forms of the A Bug's Life bugs, presumably after the humans deserted the Earth in WALL-E. Though that would pretty much definitively imply the humans' attempt to re-people the Earth at the end of WALL-E failed, and ended with them all extinct (or, at best, with them right back where they started, living in space forever).

[@trickedflick6580]

Jesus Chrysler

[@auqustfire]

Replace the cars with children and lemons with diseases/injuries that would cause the child to not live an easy life. A doctor would explain to the parents the child's chances of survival and what their quality of life would be like and then it's up to the parents to decide if they're going to keep the child or abort it. In a lot of circumstances, the parents will keep the child, for any number of reasons. I'd assume the manufacturer kept these cars for similar reasons. At least, that's my take from it, lol.

[@jaschabull2365]

@@auqustfire Interesting thought. Though, in real life, aren't lemons made due to manufacturing companies trying to cut corners in hopes of keeping more of their money and whatnot? They're less the result of an accident of the crapshoot that is biological genetics, and more one of a deliberate business decision. If these manufacturers are essentially manufacturing people rather than products, you'd think any mistakes that led to lemons being made would be pretty quickly corrected, and there wouldn't be so many of them. And if it did continue, it seems said company would be ripe for suing, even moreso than an actual car company would. In short, cars are crafted, not grown, meaning defects in them are easier to trace the cause of, and thus prevent, making failure to prevent the mistakes that led to them a deliberate decision on part of the manufacturer.

[@CaptJosmy]

I can assure you no one has ever put as much thought into the Cars movies as you have. Now I finally get why the villains in that second movie made me so uncomfortable and uneasy. The movie wants me to side with the system abusing disabled people instead of with the disabled people pushed to commit crimes due to the awful situation they're left in and have no power over. YIKES.

[@wispisang]

Not gonna lie, from what I remember as a kid I didn't understand the who twist villain stuff in cars. Like that whole scene with the lemons just kind of confused me, and now I can kind of understand why. Also ironic cause I’m disabled myself lol. Looking at that scene now feels so god damn icky…

[@theodorec1882]

The Todoroki example blows my mind. Like the entire crux of Todoroki's tragic backstory rests on the fact that his father did a eugenics, and through this *deeply traumatized Todoroki, his mother and all his siblings*. HOW can you look at that and be like "see MHA isn't anti-eugenics actually"

[@aquamarinerose5405]

I will play a bit of devil's advocate that one could argue that Todoroki still benefits from the results of that eugenics even WITH the personal trauma. Endeavour was right that Todoroki's combination of Fire and Ice Emitter powers makes him a far better superhero than either of his parents could have been.

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@aquamarinerose5405 That's another example of is vs ought though.

[@pokemoncat976]

@@aquamarinerose5405 But as a result, it only took the main character to say it's not his father's power

[@darthmaltodextrin1899]

Fun fact: the Japanese racecar in Cars 2 is named Shu Todoroki.

[@krio1267]

​@@darthmaltodextrin1899I actually confused MHA Todoroki and Shu Todoroki there

[@fatimagic1365]

as a disabled viewer, i have to say, i did not expect a video about something as stupid as the cars franchise to make me as angry as it did. it goes to show that, even if pixar didn't set out to make a film villainizing disabled people (which i'm like 99.9% sure they didn't), these biases are so tightly woven into the fabric of our society that it's easy for anyone to "accidentally" include it in even a film for kids. and given that currently a shit ton of accommodations are being made for all of us (i.e. stimulus checks, virtual doctor visits, etc.) that disabled people have been asking for, or been demonized for receiving under non-pandemic circumstances, it also goes to show how easy making these accommodations are but how literally the only reason they aren't normalized is because the world isn't built with disabled people in mind.

[@franksonatra]

i agree op, that is so true. also in this damn cars 2 movie, my disabled ass got so angry that the disabled people are made villains, as happens so often in spy fiction, but us banding together for accommodation (that we need but ableds find it hard to give us until the pandemic makes ableds need them, because they suck) is painted as evil, like the mafia. what gives? (I know the lemons don't band for accommodation but to take down the "abled cars", but to ruin their lives... but it's more fascist than ableist propaganda specifically - i.e. the minority is too weak and yet controls the world at the same time.)

[@badbeardbill9956]

Yeah. We live in a world where you’re only considered valuable if you can provide some corporation or business with surplus value. If you’re disabled you’re basically fucked.

[@aurorarose6678]

it’s kind of like wall-e tbh. i love wall-e but as a fat person trying to fight weight stigma the fact that the last half hour of the movie is just “HAHA THEYRE LAZY SO NOW THEYRE FAT. ISNT THIS FUNNY?????? THIS IS FUNNY LAUGH” really takes a giant shit on the gorgeous rest of the movie

[@mckenzie.latham91]

And the worst is this wasn’t even necessary if they wanted to show how “bad” the criminal organization is they could have just made their goals to boost their own wealth and power by demonizing alternative fuel after sabotaging it instead the film goes out if it’s way to show that the lemon’s are actually justified by the fact that the film at every turn points out how lemons are viewed as outdated inferior scum that should be purged they don’t even make car parts for them anymore which is a direct threat to their existence and basically implies that the intention is to allow them to die off they aren’t greedy for the sake of greed, they're trying to boost their wealth and power over society to ensure that they have value in the society that says and believes they don’t deserve or should have any they literally subconsciously just to have a lemon car joke make the villains of their film the actual good guys.

[@kaydwessie296]

YUP 100%

[@sunnydaze905]

Hey there Jack! The lemons on the table are a reference to The Godfather, and the movie's habit of showing oranges before someone is killed

[@RocTroller]

Colton Nelson I thought it was a lemon party joke

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

@@RocTroller Wouldn't be a lemon party without old Dick!

[@DeathnoteBB]

Is that true? Because that still seems weird. I can see it being reclamation of a slur in real life, but this was a kids movie that I don’t think even floated that idea

[@kimifw58]

Wow! Kids will get that!

[@jenniferdunstan5065]

@@kimifw58 yeah but it was probably a joke for the adults being forced to watch the movie

[@callumsparrow4379]

Media equating humans to personified machinery and solely viewing their characters’ existences on how “useful” they are to an ultra-strict status quo has honestly creeped me out for the longest time; it’s the same reason why Thomas The Tank Engine has made my skin crawl subconsciously ever since I dropped interest in it by the age of 7.

[@an8strengthkobold360]

Smelting yard, they work under threat of death.

[@panzersusmander3728]

shed 17

[@valritz1489]

If you ever find the need to go looking, Victor Tanzig has done a pretty great job reworking the source material into a much more reasonable society, with actual rights protections for these obviously living things.

[@evelienheerens2879]

Kind of like when 2 months ago, my government decided that people like me (disabled) who are a drain on society (or like the elderly) need to be completely de-prioritized when it comes to hospital care in the corona virus. If I ever wind up in a hospital I will always be on the bottom of the waiting list for a respirator, and will be continuously moved down said list to make room for 'productive' members of society. It made me sick and cold in my stomach to hear this, and yes, that is eugenics. Pointing out that there is a difference between young healthy people, and disabled, chronically ill and or elderly people and then proceeding to let the latter groups die and solely saving the lives of the former. It's disgusting and wrong.

[@jaschabull2365]

o_0 what country are you from? I think I have a list of "places to never ever move to" to add to right now >_>

[@cloroker2058]

@@jaschabull2365 I do believe this is the good ol' US of A (or I guess more than one place has this policy)

[@Immafraid]

@@cloroker2058 I believe this actually happened in the UK. A "do not resuscitate" order for disabled people.

[@apolloandwarrior_3229]

@@Immafraid wait what!?

[@batwolfy7044]

That's really nasty.

[@roosterboots4684]

Lightning is a master at racing. Something of a... Master Racecar

[@riley8385]

Is he a PC?

[@thebrutusmars]

Not funny, laughed still.

[@roosterboots4684]

@@riley8385 No you misheard me. I said master racecar not masturbator

[@mathieuleader8601]

Oswald Mosley is the driver behind the wheel

[@epelly3]

I think the takeaway they were going for is the ends don't justify the means, and pointing to the "lemons" who don't turn to evil to reach equality, but like the first movie the ending remains depressing when you really think about it because it just means the lemons have to just suffer until a solution is found, if at all

[@shinohidanzetsu]

We're almost there everyone! The ROBOTS video is almost here!

[@daltonwilliams1723]

Kaari McBride I just recently watched robots and wow, there’s a lot to unpack in that film for this channel

[@shinohidanzetsu]

@@daltonwilliams1723 Yeah when he was explaining the villains plan I was thinking, the guy who wrote this definitely say Robots, it's like the same thing almost.

[@Mecharnie_Dobbs]

In Robots, spare parts are no longer manufactured, because of the villain. In Cars, spare parts are no longer manufactured, because... they're just not.

[@GiulianaBruna]

Its like, the inverse concept. Robots said "No one is obsolete"

[@magnafoxodyssey2127]

@@GiulianaBruna Robot's ultimate message is that capitalism will save the sick and disabled once we get the bad capitalists out of power. But hooboy, that movie is A Lot.

[@sheepewe4505]

That Dawkins tweet is such garbage. Purebred domestic animals have far more genetic health problems than wild or feral animals, as a result of being bred with a singular purpose. A wild horse has to be smart, strong, sound and fast in order to pass on its genes, while a racehorse only has to be fast. Also, purebred animals are, or were, bred in order to provide something useful to humanity- dairy cows, guard dogs, carriage horses. Other breeds were produced in order to amuse humans- miniature horses, toy dogs etc. Is Dawkins suggesting we use eugenics similarly to selectively breed humans for utilitarian or entertainment functions?

[@im_learning_bicth]

Someone, quick! Reply that tweet with this. And all this time I thought they were naturally conceived like munchkins for cats and etc. oof

[@quicksilverchaos4122]

@@im_learning_bicth your name as the start of this reply really threw me off XD Unfortunately munchkin cats aren't naturally conceived either. The first one, maybe, but due to breeding (inbreeding, essentially, to produce more munchkins), they are purebreds and suffer from a lot of health defects. :( They also can't really survive on their own because their tiny legs won't facilitate hunting, meaning that if someone throws them out on the street (as many cats are), they'll likely die.

[@Jordan64852]

I don’t understand anyone who has spent any time with a pug constantly struggling to breath due to genetic deformities advocates for it I wonder how they feel about the Habsburg family?

[@juandelacruz4679]

He didn't suggest it at all. He just said that some characteristics could be selected from people exactly as your example of useful bred animals, do you want faster or taller people? just pass it down, it would work. He also said however, that we shouldn't try to do it because it's wrong. I don't know what triggered his initial tweet and surely it didn't serve any useful purpose at all, but that doesn't give a free pass to lie about what he said.

[@krombopulos_michael]

I don't think he's suggesting doing it, but pretty much all eugenics comes from an idea of breeding humans for utilitarian functions.

[@casl8840]

"This is where the Nazis come in-" Me, not fully paying attention to the video before this statement: WAIT WHAT

[@twotruckslyrics]

LITERALLY ME LMAO

[@fefeman2856]

"why would these cars ironically serve a food item referencing a slur they clearly find hurtful?" Why would cars serve food? They eat fuel, why would they need any kind of food? You're asking the wrong questions here.

[@peterprime2140]

They need fuel to drive but not to live, and they don't eat the fuel either.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

@@peterprime2140 technically they do eat, the only "restaurant" in radiator springs was a gas station, they just don't require gas to live, but i bet they need batteries

[@DolanDuking]

Lemon fuel

[@AnnekeOosterink]

@@peterprime2140 So it's decoration, which makes even less sense, decorating your meeting with the very thing with the same name of a slur you hate. Like, why?

[@ThexDynastxQueen]

This is the stuff that stops me from fully watching let alone getting to the Eugenics part of the Cars franchise. I keep seeing clearly human creations in a clearly human created world yet am told not to ever ask where the humans are or why the cars are continuing to have items only humans would need/create if they don't exist anymore.

[@veero7575]

“Whoopsie Doopsie it’s eugenics” is a genre of video essays at this point

[@yltraviole]

Oops! All Eugenics!

[@peterprime2140]

@@yltraviole Captain Crunch but he's a British Colonialist.

[@AmunDeus]

Peter Prime What a vile cereal

[@loridragon1118]

Want a better version of Cars 2? Robots. It's kind of a goofy movie but such a huge part of the plot was the stopped production of parts for older models. Similar to Cars 2... Except the upper-class corporations causing that planned obsolescence of "outmodes" are explicitly the bad guys, and said older models are explicitly the good guys who save the day, and the message is that 'you should be able to both afford and access the repairs you need, and you really DON'T need the uber-expensive upgrades the big corporations say you need'

[@loridragon1118]

Along with of course the kid's movie message of 'be yourself', only it actually walks that message.

[@McKeelix]

IQ isn't a measurement of how smart you are; it's a measurement of how well you take the IQ test.

[@goldensloth7]

yup, i got a high one apparently and i'm a total goddamn idiot who lies in bed drinking and watching anime all day. i don't think this even counts as a humblebrag.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

because it is not a measure of how smart you are, it is about how intelligent you are, if a person use that intelligence to learn stupid things that is on them, i am probably above the average and i did learn everything easily in school, but later i used all my intelligence to learn about anime because i now find anime more interesting than history or biology, that were my favorite subjects in school people are dumb because they care about dumb things i could be worse, i could like Instagram , soccer or sensationalist news, at least i know anime are fictional but have enough knowledge about history to see where they take inspiration in reality, while some people are trying to prove the earth is flat and don't try to replicate a test made 3000 years ago that is now trivial because telephones exist

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

@@goldensloth7 i would say the difference is like people that watch one piece and claim the fishmen are not an allegory for black people or people that are inspired by kira

[@alexs3290]

I have a """"genius""""" I.q. but I cant reliably tell b and d apart while printing

[@ridhosamudro2199]

@@alexs3290 I mean you could just have bad vision or dyslexia

[@chloewapelhorst2404]

A lot of kids movies I watched when I was little seemed off at the time, and as I got older, I slowly started to realize that the reason they were like that were the Capitalist/Eugenicist/Conservative lines of thinking taken for granted as "apolitical" in our society. Videos like Jack's don't really "ruin" children's movies for me, they help me articulate why said children's content often seems so complacent in the first place. Glad I found your channel, my dude

[@Raven-2000]

Hey @@mortemssoul6342 your grammar is terrible.

[@maxieprimo2758]

"Capitalist/Eugenicist/Conservative" Christ, man.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

@@maxieprimo2758 He didn't mention how often Christian morals are the baseline for what is right and wrong in these movies or how they often subtly push a Christian narrative. Thanks for pointing that out m'dude.

[@BierBart12]

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 That sounds like something that'd only happen in American movies. Also explains why I could always immediately distinguish American movies from everything else, even as a kid. Those "Christian morals" are such a foreign and uncomfortable concept to me

[@58209]

@@BierBart12 as someone from the US, who is also an ex-christian atheist the bible belt, the concept of popular media not explicitly pushing a christian-centric narrative is so wildly foreign to me i can't even imagine it. it sounds amazing.

[@justlola417]

What's funny is that actual race cars are made with specialised parts, constantly break and change during a season, and are made from scratch every season. So Lightning McQueen would only last about a year before being replaced by a new model, and nobody would make his parts anymore because they're so specific

[@Phished123]

It pained me that you scripted and said "the society of Cars specifically GEARS itself around the privileging of one group" without any acknowledgement of it.

[@ya9ya10]

The Cars Universe completely falls apart and makes absolutely no sense under even the slightest scrutiny.

[@ljesak]

the cars universe is literally just people

[@ya9ya10]

but the question is, why? how?

[@noireisbest6786]

Cars is like a pandora's box of increasingly wild questions. How do cars reproduce? How do cars go to war? How did Car Jesus did for your sins? Do cars play video games? If so, how does Mario, Halo, and Pokemon look like and play like with all cars? How do cars masturbate? Like, you could have a whole genre of KZbin videos devoted to these millions and millions of questions. I can't think of any other media that opens up so many questions like Cars does.

[@f3z087]

Lol yah who would’ve thought

[@ljesak]

@@ya9ya10 why does it matter though

[@axolotlking1072]

As a disabled person; yes. And it’s very blatant and easy to notice if you’re someone who’s constantly watching for ableist dogwhistles. Thanks for this video, very accurately summed up the topic.

[@achildnamedhotchick1739]

lmao boo hoo . why tf would you want to be “someone whose constantly watching for ableist dog whistles” 😂 you gain nothing from that except victim points

[@teallineart8805]

And boy is there a shit ton of those dog whistles in real life. Most people don’t even notice when they use them themselves, because ableism and making fun of people with disabilities is scarily common.

[@macobus6743]

What's wrong with being ableist? Like actually. Discriminating based on ability is foundational to society and is how we ever get anything done. You always favor the people who are best at something.

[@savstinks6847]

​@@macobus6743You answered your own question. Discrimination of abilities allow people in power to take advantage of people that are "useful", ableism supports this and is exactly why it's harmful to the individuals. It only seems like an integral part of society because it's part of its predatory system.

[@Jules2439.5]

Nobody’s value should be determined by their usefulness. Utter garbage take. Biologically, humans are collective, social beings that rely on community to survive-throws the concept of ableism out the window. We are predisposed to protect and provide for our own, no matter anyone’s ability to provide for themselves. We’ve just as a society created structures prioritizing money and production that we can’t even think back to basics. Wolves don’t even act so disdainfully to their elders or wounded.

[@lemmythetrash-goblin8291]

Man, even more accidentaly euginistic comedies! Really, as a fan, I'm spoiled

[@HiVoltag3R]

Haha yeah accidentally

[@aswertyuiol]

As a fan of eugenics or as a fan of comedies?

[@gammabytez]

not gonna lie, once you started talking about part manufacturing and the cars that were breaking down my mind instantly went to robots 2005

[@trevingrayek8292]

That movies so good

[@DatBoi-mo9vc]

At least that movie was cool and rebellious, and not like, nazis

[@trucetruce335]

That’s a fukin bomb you just set off in my memory

[@DeathnoteBB]

And didn’t Robots actually make the manufacturers the villains?

[@deeznoots6241]

DeathnoteBB yep, because they wanted to scrap all the old robots into new parts for the rich.

[@samundef3500]

“Cmon there’s no way cars is about genetics” “So did you ever realize cars 2” “Ohhhhhhh that makes sense”

[@lunab541]

Am I the only one who kinda likes having their "childhood ruined" by film analysis? Specifically because it shows me that even the pieces of media I hold dearest in my heart can be improved upon, and fundamentally changing society can produce better stories in the future.

[@NA-AN]

I love those, and others do. Why do think videos like these get a lot of like?

[@lunab541]

@@NA-AN yeah I know these are popular, but there are different reasons why people like them

[@jaschabull2365]

I'd say if Cars was your childhood, it was ruined from the get-go.

[@games_on_phone89]

@@jaschabull2365 why tho dude

[@rainworldfan7757]

honestly i dont get the whole "childhood is ruined" phenomenon. i dont really hold anything in my life sacred though so i guess that may just be me

[@rattyeely]

I actually really like your take on Cars 1. I always saw it as a fundamentally conservative movie because of it's focus on "the good old days" when Route 66 was popular, but I never even realized how clear it is that Lighting is basically just a rich Nascar (driver?) who's grosses out by his poor hick fans and then learns to appreciate working class people and their struggles

[@Skarix]

Cars 2 is in my “bad movies that I like” category. As a kid, I hadn’t been exposed to secret agent stuff so I really enjoyed discovering this film. Sure, it made me scared of cameras for a whole year, but I still rewatch it from time to time and have a blast. All this to say, I will never be able to enjoy this film ever again. Thank you, Jack! Cheers ❤

[@Wildtalon71]

The eugenics is just barely hinted at in the first movie, too, tho! In the cow-tipping scene, Mater is incredulous at McQueen's lack of rearview mirrors. Racecars are not built with mirrors. This, combined with the fact that they are apparently chauffeured everywhere, and essentially kept in a gilded cage, heavily implies that the racecars are a designated class that exists purely because the Manufacturers, the cars that literally control every resource that is available in the Cars Universe, designed them for entertainment purposes.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

Charlie part of the point was the difference between “is” and “ought” statements, remember? the fact that mcqueen doesn’t have rearview mirrors when mater does isn’t eugenics. it’s just something they made note of, in this case *specifically to highlight their differences and mcqueen’s privileged position.* pointing out that there are genetic (or design i guess) differences between two groups is not doing a eugenics, labeling one set of traits as desirable or undesirable is.

[@aurora5481]

@@Hazel-xl8in Yeah, in another world, Lightning McQueen's lack of mirrors could make him the "lemon" that's unuseful to society. The society of Cars has, however, decided this type of genetic difference is beneficial thanks to the auto racing industry, and thus goes above and beyond to accommodate him (Lightning being seemingly born into a position of privilege contributes). Meanwhile poorer cars, those without a designated set of other features to make them exceptional, are buying replacement mirrors from the illegal street vendors as their lack of it, born or not, is seen as a failing. Who knew rearview mirrors could be used as an allegory for the "gifted neuroatypical".

[@miimiiandco]

@@aurora5481 It's even more interesting since Lightning wasn't just randomly not given rear-view mirrors. He was *built* to not have them.

[@Kjf365]

The cars universe isn't about eugenics or classism, it's about the whims of a cruel manufacturer who made them with a purpose and then proceeded to give them sentience to carry out those purposes.

[@lunaris69]

@@aurora5481 this is a really good comment, i think it highlights the issue in a better way since it shows that while the issues are vaguely bad, its how much the negatives of the trait are highlighted to show them as being a sign of objective badness that makes it, and how those are somewhat arbitrarily chosen

[@midgematic8659]

Feeding into the idea of “Lemon” cars having lemons on the table for a reason more than just a gag; Reclaimed slurs are a thing irl as well, with communities using words that were historically used against them as a term for empowerment to that community and taking power away from that word. However, when a person not part from that community uses that word its still considered a harmful slur. I know that seems redundant in concept but using it in context see the N-word and youll get the jist of it

[@radiatorbacon5239]

@@epion660 imagine not understanding that something is a complex issue and instead summing it up to racism against you because you're mad that a black person can say the n word when it's discouraged for white people to say it. You can say the n word as a white person, but you won't have any friends because it's a shitty thing to do. It's the exact reason that a straight person can't call an lgbtqia person a queer. It's because the word isnt for you.

[@epion660]

@@radiatorbacon5239 "Isn't for you" Hey look, discrimination!

[@epion660]

​@@radiatorbacon5239 You know, saying the "n-word" as a white person can get you beat up. Guess sitting at the back of the bus wasn't racist either then.

[@sydneym5595]

epion660 local man compares him not being able to say the n word to jim crow, thinks he made a good point. more at 6

[@jessicagiori6518]

epion660 sorry pal. The point is not “this isn’t for a you”. The N word, as every word used to describe the LGBT community, can be used by said community only. That’s all. I am not black, and never in my whole life I felt the need to use a word that for many centuries had been used for the only purpose of discrimination. White people have never gone trough the same amount of discrimination as minorities.The N word is not a cool way to call a black person, it is racial slur, because it has been used since roman times to describe black slaves. The point in the black community using it is that it takes power out of that word when used in a controlled environment. I had straight people calling me a fag (the Italian female oriented version of it) and I never was offended because they were my friends and I knew where the world came from, but a stranger using that word at me... I wouldn’t care if it came from a good place, I would still be pissed. There’s nothing racist in the black community in not wanting white people to use the Nword. That’s something only them are allowed and we shouldn’t act like kindergarteners about it.

[@ndawn90]

12:40 - for what it's worth, they have made a human version of "Cars" with the exact same plot, just with people. It's called "Doc Hollywood" starring the one and only Michael J Fox. Like, literally the exact same plot. Hotshot Hollywood doctor crashes his car in a small Southern town, is forced into community service for his crimes, falls in love with a beautiful local, tries to save the town, even a grizzled older male character who teaches him the ropes.

[@daraghokane4236]

Now they need to make cars two a bunch of disabled people that can't afford healthcare try some terrorist attacks to raise awareness

[@irrisorie7]

i feel like if i had watched this movie, i would have immediately noticed the eugenics. i'm physically disabled and it's difficult not to notice how often people openly wish to throw away the lives of disabled people because we're an inconvenience to them. now i'm just kind of depressed that i know this movie exists in the world.

[@rednebula3503]

When I watched this movie as a kid I noticed it.

[@GinaMazzola]

Sending you a random hug a year later. I am sorry people make you feel that way.

[@joshuafrendomenendez]

I am sorry this trash fire movie exists. You are very loved my friend ❤️

[@WasabiKitCat]

FUN FACT: Back in elementary school one of my friends wasn't allowed to come with my other friends and I to watch Cars 2 in theaters because his mom said, I shit you not, "it has guns in it and he's too young to watch a movie with violence." This isn't really related to the video, it's just that you saying "there's not much to be offended by" reminded me of how I knew someone who actually thought Cars 2 was too mature for an elementary schooler.

[@bardw.3204]

I have a friend who wasn't allowed to see Toy Story as a boy because it has scenes of "toy torture".

[@lucyandecember2843]

i wasn't allowed to watch carebears when i was a kid cause it had spiritism in it o.o some parents are just kinda "overprotective" i guess

[@mattwolf7698]

I was in a private school so for field trips moms would use their cars to take the students places. I rode in one persons minivan and we had a selection of DVD's to watch, The mom didn't let us watch The Incredibles though because she was afraid some other kids mom would get mad over the violence in it. Granted that is more violent than these other movies but I still thought that was both annoying and funny at the sametime.

[@chhomic15]

You should do a video on Disney’s Z-O-M-B-I-E which accidentally argues for segregation.

[@TheStarBot]

As a black person, can you go in depth?

[@cakecinema9385]

@@TheStarBotwell, the zombies are forced to live in their own town, literally called ‘zombie town’ and the whole plot centres on the social issues happening in a high school to have both zombie and human students… There’s an human-zombie couple who are mistreated by the town. The zombies are divided into brackets. And a major beat of the plot is a human girl showing she has naturally white hair, something her family has forced her to hide. I feel a reading of that being about segregation is by no means a stretch. As far as I can tell from the Wikipedia page, the zombies and humans remain separated by the end of the story… which yeah in the context of this reading isn’t… great.

[@AshleyG24601fan]

@TheStarBot The first ZOMBIES movie is about racism (specifically zombies are a stand-in for black people), the second movie is about indigenous people/werewolves, and the third is about immigrants/aliens. The first one has zombies going to school in the basement, not allowed to interact with regular students, they have a curfew, regular people are rude to them, they're required to wear these prison jumpsuits...its a pretty clear segregation metaphor. And the main character, a cheerleading white girl, has naturally white hair and compares that to being like every "othered" group, constantly trying to identify with other groups. It's weird. They try to justify it by having the town hate anything "different" so she feels embarrassed about her hair and always wears a blonde wig, but it comes across as silly. It's also dumb because of the obvious ZOMBIES EAT PEOPLE aspect that is NOT a good metaphor for black people. The town had good reason to fear them. The movie had all the zombies wear these tech wristbands that kept them in check, but without them they'd be monsters. And one zombie character hits his wristband accidentally and the thing breaks, causing him to go feral, so those bands are horrible anyway. Everyone in that town is actually DUMB for having the zombies there. The whole thing is stupid, but the movies were popular.

[@Dawg347]

Why did I misread this as z-mobile

[@charlesflexavier6341]

The only thing I actually took away from Cars was "Life is a Highway"

[@valeriae6053]

An absolute bop if I do say so myself

[@worlddictionary9954]

true that

[@BababooeyGooey]

I'm more partial to the OG version by Tom Cochrane, but the Flatts one is pretty good.

[@cuckmulligan7602]

thanks for making me flash back to having to perform that with choreography in 10th grade show choir

[@Dudofall]

Great song.

[@goth_twink]

When jack starts off comparing a shit tier Disney movie to Marx you know it's a good video

[@cheezorger]

unironically made me want to rewatch cars again in 14 years

[@pyrojack8230]

Which is ironic because one is an abomination and affront to humanity that legitimately changed the course of human history for the worse and the other is Marx

[@valeriarossini543]

@Django Fett ratatouille still slaps

[@fraudulentfem7322]

It's kinda shit, yes, but it isn't a Disney movie, it's a Pixar movie

[@littlemoth4956]

Cars isn't shit tier what

[@hammondmane6026]

Back in the day I was friends with a white nationalist on a comics & cartoons board who clued into both these readings and believed it to be a reason thar Cars 2 was good actually

[@idi0tsanswich379]

That had to be an interesting friend to harbour! This is such an old comment but did they ever give any other funny takes on kids media?

[@PygmyGoat3]

I think the main thing we all need to remember in relation to this is, Ben Queen's son max is a very talentid baseball player.

[@aguywhodoesstuff1116]

very talentid. very.

[@diduforgeturyellowbird]

based

[@aldabraika1836]

But Jack it's like you said, the Cars universe mirrors our own very closely. Of course they marginalize certain individuals and profit off of their misfortune, that's America baybee!

[@kalkuttadrop6371]

Just FYI, as someone who knows way too much about the films, the Lemons are effectively being used as grunts. Axelrod has his own motives for doing this. Axelrod has a shell company controlling the worlds largest oil fields, but the rise of alternate fuels and pollution concerns is going to kill it's value in the long term. He's basically sacrificing his own public good reputation to take Alternate Fuel with him for at least a generation. The best and most beloved fuel company with the popular and famous leader makes a alternate fuel they promise is safe and it gets several famous cars killed or maimed on live TV. Alternate Fuel loses the favor of the people and the media, and the other companies working on genuine alternate fuels will abandon them because the public no longer wants them and there's no longer money in it. Oil prices shoot up and are safe for another generation, Axelrod get's Rockefeller levels of wealthy. Of course he needs manpower, both to protect his interests from spies and to actually do the dirty work and sabotage on the ground he can't be anywhere near. So he's basically hiring a lemon terror group run by that German guy to help him in exchange for him basically ensuring them a place in his new world order amongst the leadership and letting them torture and murder a bunch of regular functioning and 'super' cars for the funsies in the process.

[@mgroesbeck4503]

It's creepy how often in media aimed at young audiences the attempt to make a protagonist who feels "special" is (lazily) written as implying that certain people (always "us", not "them") are just naturally superior and more important. I may or may not now be stocking up on copies of *Un Lun Dun* -- which goes for the exact opposite -- to give to my nieces and nephews.

[@explosion9815]

Yes!!!! I love that book!

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

My childhood was full of cartoons about kids with a secret superhero identity.

[@mgroesbeck4503]

@@nuclearcatbaby1131 "Secret superhero identity" can go different ways -- "any of us has the potential to be a superhero" is different from "people born with certain talents are superior and everyone else should know their place" (a.k.a. the *Incredibles* approach).

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

M Groesbeck Well my mom picked my dad for eugenic reasons (must have been his IQ because he was otherwise an unimpressive human being) and she ended up with autistic children. I think genius may just be the heterozygote advantage of carrying the autism gene.

[@jasonmartin4775]

@@nuclearcatbaby1131 That's the power of autism. Overcoming bigots' expectations since ???? BC.

[@brandonbernard1570]

It almost seems like they knew they messed up considering 3 was about a car succeeding in a field they weren’t specifically built for. (I know the allegory they were trying to make was about women but it can kinda work as damage control for this movie as well.)

[@im19ice3]

that sounds messy af

[@austincde]

There was a cars three??? Thought it was "Planes"

[@trevingrayek8292]

@@austincde That’s what we call a Spinoff

[@AnnekeOosterink]

It really sounds even worse as a metaphor for women though, yeah so we all know women REALLY are literally evolved for housework and baby making/rearing, but we'll graciously allow you to also do other things. Yikes. With disabilities you could argue (vaguely, and badly, but okay) that if someone's legs don't work they can do something else sort of? It's still super yikes.

[@srbrant5391]

"Uh Oh Eugenics" sounds like the world's least popular breakfast cereal.

[@deceseze]

cars 2 cut that censors every instance of the word "lemon"

[@NA-AN]

Lol.

[@scratch2086]

Well that's just erasing history without fixing the problems XD

[@sacreddeer9711]

L*mons

[@fugyfruit]

Now I'm imagining a version of the movie with it bleeping every time it's said and that movie seems super racist

[@deceseze]

@@fugyfruit that's the joke

[@MLPGamer44]

Cars 2 said: “no way to prevent this, very sad, very sad”

[@joshraid1550]

It would be so easy to make this story not eugenicist due to the simple fact that Mater would probably be a lemon if the plot made sense. Like, imagine how much more interesting this story would be if Mater was a lemon himself. In first film he’s directly compared to the old rusty cars, but now he’s different from them?

[@macobus6743]

The thing is he's rusty, but he's actually fucking useful for something

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

Well that first replier was unnecessarily ableist and aggro abt it lol and over Cars 2 characters He's rusty but his engine and cable still work and nothing needs replacement except the exterior. But I agree, that would have likely made a much better story.

[@kapitankapital6580]

"Maybe poor people aren't complete scum after all" is hardly a Marxist message.

[@FumbleBee1312]

Hardly a capitalist one, I don’t think Marxism says "fuck poor people" in a more concise way than capitalism ever will.

[@Synerco]

no, but saying people are generally not poor due to innate character flaws but because of the social and economic positions into which they were born is a little marxish

[@interrexclamacion]

@@FumbleBee1312 ?

[@M50A1]

Living is hardly a communist or socialist message

[@dakedres]

Communism is an attempt at a economic model that enforces Marxist beliefs, how it ended up actually working in many cases is completely seperate from the ideas that he originally proposed, not that they'd probably ever work.

[@zeppelopod]

I always thought the "elaborate lemon arrangements on the tables" was their way of reclaiming a slur.

[@comradegarrett1202]

Ah! the old "woops! the villain's motive was too understandable, they have to inexplicably go way too far so we can quash them and have it be unproblematic"

[@princessazunyan7537]

It's interesting that we have the doctile and kind token good disabled character Mater helps at the beginning, as a contrast to the baddies. Through the lens of Cars 2, the only place of the disabled is subservience... We can see the same dynamic in many pieces of media; the Good Disabled Person (such as the deaf girl from A Silent Voice) is shown to be passive and innocent, rarely aware of or concerned with fighting against bigotry or to improve their material conditions. The message to the assumed able-bodied audience is clear: the purpose of disabled people is to balloon up your ego and acknowledge you as the rightful 'superior' - and those who will not play this game are to be feared and/or ridiculed.

[@anywherebuthere91]

I liked A Silent Voice up until the one main character guy finally confronts the other kids about their shittiness, and rather than them having any sort of realization the main character girl gets upset with him instead, if I remember correctly. I was so annoyed because I really felt like the other kids used the main character guy, and he had a right to be angry on his own behalf too. IDK, I've been bullied and teased by hyper dudes who wanted my attention, or just attention in general, and I don't really hold it against them any more. A lot of times those kids have stuff like ADHD, or they're acting out because of a home situation, and maybe aren't thinking too deeply, and I can understand. If I was ever alone with them, they'd be fine actually. But the kind of kid who would use that to their advantage and then cry and pretend they haven't done anything wrong, or deflect their behaviour on to others who were more "obvious", not to mention being straight up cold, that I can't stand. Or suddenly come along one day and act like my friend out of no where and be like "wow, that one guy was really mean to you back then wasn't he?" as though they weren't laughing and egging him on. Personally for me it was a lot harder to get over the treatment of the ones who weren't "acting out" and quietly treated me like I was worthless. I couldn't understand why the main girl character would want to be friends with the girls without any kind of conversation. All in all I have complicated feelings about that movie but also liked it at the same time?

[@lucyandecember2843]

@@anywherebuthere91 well now i really wanna watch this movie o.o

[@anywherebuthere91]

It's actually quite good in many ways, but that one scene was frustrating.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

But even then I found myself siding with the lemon’s after the film goes out if its way to show how despised lemons are in the car society where even their existence is considered disgusting and inferior. After that i see the bad guys as less bad guys and more like marginalized and oppressed people pushed to extreme if the movie just wanted to show “bad guys” then they could have made it solely about increasing their personal wealth and control in society by disgracing alternative fuel instead their desire to boost their wealth and power now looks more like them trying to ensure they have some value in a society that thinks they have none it actually makes the bad guys victims and more the good guys then the actual good guys.

[@MortVaanderwaal]

PragerU sees “eugenics” in the title and immediately hits me with an ad. Not surprised

[@callumsparrow4379]

It’s almost like the directors of the ‘Cars’ franchise prioritised a cool-looking gimmick first, and then placed everything else needed to make a substantial movie as late tertiary priorities, mostly to boost up as many potential toy sales as possible... Oh wait, that’s exactly what happened, if the insane sales figures ‘Cars’ merch has created for Pixar over the past 15 years is anything to go by.

[@tokuyou3811]

yeah its not like media made to be toys has any political or interpretive meaning behind it. just look at transformers and gi joe, just media with the intent to sell toys. its almost like we have unintended biases that can play a part in how we perceive the world and the messages we make. hp lovecraft made alienating and horror inducing work about the other, because for a large portion of his life he did fear the other. it may have been explicit in some works more than others of course. the same can be said for cars 2. you might say then hp lovecraft explicitly states his ideas about the other, the people who made cars 2 never said they hate disabled people outside of the media they created. to which i say, we live in a world that favors able bodied people. much like back in the day hp lovecraft lived in a world that disliked other people of color. they dont have to explicitly say anything when their then current way of life allowed for that kind of expression.

[@anna-flora999]

@@tokuyou3811 these messages being there unintentionally doesn't mean they're not there, though

[@tokuyou3811]

@@anna-flora999 yeah thats what i meant when i wrote this comment a year ago. unintentionally creating meaning, even if you as a creator say there is no meaning to the work or say its a different meaning than you had intended. art speaks for itself at times.

[@severalowls]

Part of me thinks the "disabled people are the villains" thing was originally written in as part of the "obvious bond parody" schtick of the movie, since early bond villains almost universally being scarred/deformed/disabled was a pretty major Problematic trope, but as the movie progressed through development and reworks and rewrites they ended up leaning into it so hard that it dropped all sense of intent and parody and they just became exactly what they set out to draw attention to through humour?

[@wmooring]

I think it's more the result of trying to take a bunch of jokes about shittily-made cars, which are usually at the expense of greedy/incompetent auto manufacturers and shady car dealers, and applying them to what are effectively *actual people*.

[@faeb.8597]

I... actually really didn't realize the implications of the car models in cars until now. I was thinking of them as actual cars, because IRL cars are not people and some cars are just genuinely shitty machines. But in Cars, they're *people*, so thinking of them as static objects isn't correct.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

15:08 this quote would seem like the “Manufacturer” (see also Mack: “Thank the Manufacturer!” from the first film), the apparent monotheistic deity/Supreme Being of this universe, has also turned his back on the cars. The lemons are given a theological condemnation in this, which opens a whole can of worms.

[@cirlu_bd]

"The first Cars movie is *genetic differences* , the second Cars movie is *eugenics* " that's a quote i'll keep using in the future !

[@DimiShimi]

Cars 1 basically boils down to Ayn Rand style libertarian-ism, where the exceptional individual elevates the plebs around them, out of their apparent incompetence.

[@daraghokane4236]

No there town cut cut off when a new highway came. What anoyed me at that film the guy won the race everyone booed him and he lost his fans he didn't cheat or do anything wrong

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@daraghokane4236 "What anoyed me at that film the guy won the race everyone booed him and he lost his fans he didn't cheat or do anything wrong” He literally intentionally smashed another driver and caused him to wreck Chick even stated he wasn't going to let the king pass or beat him again and then hits him intentionally in the rear causing him to massively crash so bad he’s crippled for the rest of the race.

[@jadecoolness101]

@@daraghokane4236 "he didn't cheat or do anything wrong" He literally almost killed a man. Yes, bumping in racing is technically allowed, but it is a VERY shameful and cowardly way of winning. No one idolizes it because it is the epitome of bad sportsmanship and narcissism. Also he didn't even really win. McQueen won. McQueen was the fastest and got to the finish line first, but he stopped and helped the King finish his last race. Everyone WATCHED McQueen throw away his win to help the King. Chick Hicks ONLY won because McQueen has honor and morals, NOT because he was the better racer. McQueen could've passed the finish line and taken first, and no one would fault him for it, but he made the choice to send a stronger message and help the King.

[@universalpower419]

@@daraghokane4236 He literally almost murdered another car.

[@shreknskrubgaming7248]

@@jadecoolness101 to add to your point, the chances of serious injury or even death are probably far more likely in Cars than say NASCAR, because they are racing with their own physical bodies. Crashes are much more accepted in NASCAR because of safety improvements making accidents (or I guess, sometimes, "on purposes,") much less likely to result in anything more serious (I believe Dale Earnhardt was the last fatality in NASCAR, but maybe I'm wrong,) than replacing some parts and maybe a hospital visit and some recovery time. I'm not going to count other series like F1 into this because intentionally wrecking another driver in that series would a) be incredibly stupid and probably take yourself out as well, and b) may cause serious harm, and end the career or even the life of another competitor (look at Romain Grosjean or Jules Bianchi.) There's a reason why we see sometimes very violent or intentional crashes in NASCAR, but a crash in Cars is like a crash in an Olympic marathon. What Chick Hicks did wasn't "rubbin's racin" it was basically attempted murder.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

“Hurrr durrr don’t read into the movie, it’s silly!” God I hate this argument. It actively flies in the face of the very concept of words and ideas having fucking meaning.

[@aguywhodoesstuff1116]

idc about that but this is a kids movie and this is what you learn to do

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

​​@@aguywhodoesstuff1116 lol there are weirdos who get defensive abt ppl pointing out ableism even in cars 2 hi buddy why'd you click on this video then 😂 is this bugging you

[@Jenniferrr2014]

as someone who is in multiple communities of movie franchises that literally have most of the people saying this exact thing, its upsetting

[@matthewmcneany]

Are you saying that lightening was re-educated through labour?

[@johnsmith-qc3zl]

Oh my fucking god xD Cars being, straight up, pro-maoist re-education would have ruled.

[@NA-AN]

Yes.

[@saulitix]

Disney: *exists* Jack Saint: Is this eugenics? (Jk, love your content)

[@scottylilacleona9193]

Walt: why yes!

[@bendym7001]

And turns out, it is! Crazy stuff

[@Ultra04channel]

As a person who's always lived in a tiny, dying town with barely any jobs and only losing more, the original Cars sort of spoke to me. It didn't make me like this place, but it did show me as a kid, that people aren't so different, regardless of where they're from. They're all just... Human. Or in this case, vehicles. Cars 2 on the other hand is "WELCOME TO WARFARE AND EUGENICS, KID, WANNA SEE THIS AGENT'S ENGINE EXPLODE!?" "Oops, we did eugenics" should be considered a genere at this point. Magneto with his mutants, The Incredibles with their superheroes, even Tolkein-esque fantasy settings with their elves that are just humans but better. It's amazing how common that is.