In response to dnorto1, the gender roles in the movie Speed Racer was obviously distinct throughout the whole movie. The gender binaries of the superior male and inferior female were greatly stressed. The whole movie plot of the movie revolved around the male characters, while the females were the ones there for comfort and to look good. I found this shocking to witness these clear cut stereotypes in a 2008 movie.

Governments have used popular films as propaganda for many years, dating back to films by Hitler. A lot of times movies speak out ask against the people in power. Documentaries like “Thank You for Smoking,” “Super Size Me,” and “Bowling for Columbine” go against the grain of society and try to open the eyes of many by showing the other side of story and what did not want to tell or show the public. Every once in a while a major movie comes out with a theme and is not faltering to ones in power but they often get cast off as not being very good films, mainly because the ones who are being portrayed can control the critics. After 9/11 a blanket of cinemas came out about national pride and the “American dream.” A motion picture like “Speed Racer” took on the corporate world and their influence on sports and sporting events. These films like to show the audiences a way how to think and perceive the norms of society. King-White states that the “ability for an individual to actually physically experience different communities can be a difficult undertaking (King-White 3.2),”

This film showed that the ones who hold the power are hard to stop. If they want to fix the race they will and if they want to cheat and not get caught they will. The Racer family looks like the1950s all-American family with mom in a nice dress making sandwiches while the men work. They throw in a modern spin with speeds girlfriend and the masculinity of her character. This middle to upper middle class family tries to take on the big corporation, Royalton Industries. Royalton tries to buy the competition and the Racer family helps an organization that attempts to reveal the wrong doings of the capitalist.
Racism and ethnicity played a small role in this picture but the film makers did make a few errors and became more like the conformities of usual films. The “bad guys” in the film where mostly non-Americans, mainly Japanese, which gave the impression that foreigners from other lands are the bad guys. Also after Royalton tells speed that the ’43 Grand Prix was fixed the only driver that speed sees is burns and he asks him about the race, burns tells speed in a unsubtle way that is was fixed. This would have been fine but burns was a black man and once again the black guy is the cheater.

The most apparent attack in the movie is aimed at big corporations and their attack on the little guy. Speed’s father owns and runs a small business which has to do with building race cars. Royalton industries the villain corporation has their hand in just about everything imaginable dominate the economic landscape and force out smaller businesses. When I saw this caricature of a corporation I quickly thought of Wal-Mart. Small businesses fear Wal-Mart coming to their communities because of the cheap prices they offer and the one stop shop that consumers love. By utilizing the low prices Wal-mart can force any business to fail. The same way Royalton industries used their business to force out competitors. Race in Hollywood has always been used to the detriment of the minority. In the movie Speed Racer many of the villains that took bribes from Royalton industries were of a particular minority and besides skin color the minority was portrayed with stereotypes. For instance Togokhan a racer caught in the middle of a Royalton takeover was of Japanese descent. To portray togokhan’s heritage the filmmakers put a dragon on his outfit and made him an expert in karate. Besides these two stereotypes togokhan was also sneaky and manipulative an attitude which has been presented in Hollywood since WWII.

Gender roles. Let us put this topic up in lights. Speed Racer was dripping with gender breakouts. It almost reminder me of an old school movie when it was common place for women to be subservient. There was not a single woman in the movie that was not always dressed to the nines. Meaning they always had their hair done, makeup on, and were prepared to be gazed upon. Which is exactly what happened because no female in the movie had a pronounced voice against anything. Ma Racer was the typical mother that took care of the boys all the time. She made sure everyone was eating, and no one got hurt. She kept the house and played the housewife. She took her “place”. Then there was Trixie. Her name alone was a case study. Of course Trixie was into Speed Racer, she was you typical groupie, except she was trained early. She just wanted to be loved by Speed. She would follow him anywhere as women are “supposed” to do. Her lip gloss was always on and her eyes were always batting. It was rather sickening to watch. She was made out to be a desperate character who could not survive without a man, hence she devoted her life to following and taking care of one. All of the women wore dresses with slits and low backs. Outside of the fight scene in the valley you would not catch any of them wearing casual clothing. It is as if they always had to be ready for a close up. It is amazing that as far as women have come in this day in age that we are still represented this way, and even worse that women are willing to sign up for these roles. As a period piece, it could be viewed in a different light, but as a modern day depiction Speed Racer crossed the line.

Speed Racer was a great movie to end the semester and class on because it touched on so many subjects that we learned about in this class. Some of the subjects touched upon in the movie were the ideas of corporations with big businesses, gender and race, and even class. The movie has tons of examples to back up these ideas and it is funny because before seeing this movie, I had no idea that we could pull this much comparison with topics from class to the movies ideas.
In the beginning the young Speed does not appreciate that he gets no attention after winning a race and has no idea of how to get the media attention he deserves. Just like in real life and in this movie, Sponsors control the media, just as his father says. In today’s society, the media is the strongest and most influential group in my opinion. The many ways that they can play a role in something is a scary thing because of the power that they really have, which many people do not know they have. I am not a fan of big corporations controlling the media as in the case in the movie. A prime example from outside of this movie is Jerry Jones, the Owner of the Dallas Cowboys. He is the corporation and he uses the media like it is a middle man between himself and his team. He rips players and controls who the media interviews and who it does not. Again, money, power, and control of the media are the three dangerous things that people have today. Just like in the movie, corporations or presidents of corporations think that you can buy wins in sports but you can not and some people, like Speed do not buy into their schemes.
The movie hits on social class big time because racing families in society today have money. To be an owner of a racing team or any other sport owner for that matter requires money. In Speed Racer, Speed’s family is a middle class American family, owning their own business. “As such, mediated sporting events, television shows, and Hollywood films have long served to create and define lived spaces and communities under dominant societal ideologies” (King White pp.3). The Corporations are the dominant societal ideologies and they run the community just like Mr. Royalton from Speed Racer runs the racing world in the movie. Speed’s family is different from the many big time corporations who have racing teams in the movie and Speed’s father is different because he does not have the money that these big time business people have. But, they have the sense to not get involved with these kinds of people. Obviously in the movie you can see what money does to and for people. The movie was a great way to end the semester, especially because I was proven wrong about how good the movie was. I actually had my bad expectations proven wrong after I watched the movie. The concepts from the movie to what we covered in class made it very interesting to see just how this class is brought into society and their norms.


Andrew Schwartz

Throughout the semester I have leaned many new ways to critically analyze sport and the impact that it has on the world. Through studying recent trends and past events it is possible to see that sports have shaped the world we live in today. By evaluating the roles of characters and the meanings of sport films being produced it is clear to see the way that different societys and cultures different from our own are depicted. Perhaps more apparent than in any other film, Speed Racer takes in to account all the different aspects and impacts sports play in the world today.
The movie Speed Racer, while not being an award winner, covers all the major points that have been exposed this semester in class. From corporate philanthropy to globalization, the ideas and principles examined in this class are well represented throughout the movie. My specific task in evaluating the movie Speed Racer was to focus on the role of neoliberism. As defined by Dr. King-White, neoliberism is, “the dominant socio-economic driving force in our society, and it is characterized by hyper-competition and marketing, deregulation of markets, and an " every person for themselves" attitude which essentially disregards the collective love of others in the United States and elsewhere in exchange for a personal worth gauged on what you can do as a consumer for corporate interests"(King-White, 2007). In spped racer there is one thing or person that comes to mind when analyzing neoliberisms part in the movie and that is the role of Mr. Royalton and his corporation Royalton Industries. The role that this character and his company play in Speed Racer is the antagonist, and his main objective is making money. Throughout the beginning of the movie Mr. Royalton takes Speed and his family on a tour of his state of art facility and training grounds. The idea being to sweep Speed off his feet and use his driving ability as a way of increasing profit. Mr. Royalton does this by using anymeans necessary. In one part of the movie I found to be extremely critical, Mr. Royalton had offered a position to Speed expecting the answer to be without a doubt yes. Upon realizing that Speed is not ready to give him the answer he desires, he retracts his offer and encourages Speed to think over his options. In the end Speed realizes that the corporate environment of racing is something that he wishes not to take part in and to the disappointment Mr. Royalton declines the offer.
Mr. Royalton then goes into telling a story which happens to be my biggest fear with neoliberism and that is the fixing of sporting events. Corporations that take part investing in sports are not doing so to lose money. As we get to a point in time where people with a lot of money desire more we see their need to so by any means necessary. The role of corporations in sports is constantly taking away from the natural lore that we have always felt. When multibillion dollar corporations get involved there is a tendency to break moral codes that otherwise would not be present. Although the actions of Royalton industries to this point remains a stretch of the imagination, if the corporate role in sports continues to increase sadly it may not end up being far from the truth.
Strickman

Handrick motorsports has gotten lucky. Similar to how the yankees got into the playoffs last year. Oh wait, nevermind, they had october off! It is all about Joe Gibbs Racing, they too are big time players in the Nascar world. In the movie it was just Royalton, Hendrick has competitors and if it werent for Jimmy Jay they would be nothing. So Hinch47 you are incorrect

I agree with Hinch 47 in that this movie basically tied in everything that we have learned so far in class. I believe class was an important issue in the movie especially with the rich companies and the not so rich racer company.

The concept of gender played an enormous role throughout the movie Speed Racer, and proved many of the concepts that we have gone over in class. The most glaring of the concepts would be the hegemonic masculinity played by the male characters in the film and on the opposite side of the spectrum the femininity played by the female characters in the film. Within the movie all of the male athletes were portrayed as individuals who looked and acted like male athletes. They were muscular and, in the case of Pa racer, massive individuals who all knew how to fight even though many of them had no training in the matter. Their were times in this movie where the women were also gender stereotyped in a more passive role, and also it showed them in a more aggressive role in other parts. For the passive parts Ma Racer and Trixie were always shown in dresses and make-up. They were also doing feminine tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and attending parent teacher conferences. However there were times during the movie where they did step out of their feminine roles. Trixie mostly could be doing more masculine things like fighting, driving a race car, and flying a helicopter. While Ma Racer aided in the construction of the race car for the Grand Prix. Throughout the movie the role of the women was switched from passive to aggressive. However it was easy to tell the segregation that was occurring within the film

As far as gender goes, this movie stepped over some important lines that usually depict women from the men. Throughout the entire movie, you had two important female characters, Mama Racer and Trixie, Speed's super-cute girlfriend. As a young girl, Trixie, while maintaining tan air of typical obedience and gender submission, defied these norms in a few situations. The most obvious one that I can think of is when she defended Speed as a kid and punched the girl who was making fun of him. "Typical" females, so they so, solve problems by crying and whining and stabbing other girls in the back, while men are the ones who punch each other to solve problems. Trixie crossed over these boundaries and stepped in the norms of masculinity. In addition, at the end of the movie, nobody believed that a girl had it in her to be as good a racer as any man could be. I think this film supports women and their role as a great support system. When women need to be, they can step up and help their men in situations. I think the role that Trixie played was very new wave and flattered her as a female in this situation. While remaining in the stereotypical female roles, women can still behave out of character and remain the backbone of many situations. We like to do things under the radar while maintaining out dignity, and I think Trixie accomplished both of these roles.

i would have to agree with what jgardnerzona22. In the movie it is hard to really tell if the Racer family was upper class, or middle class. All they would show is the dad working on the cars and thats it.

Watching the movie Speed Racer really was a good way to wrap up this course. In this movie were all of the different social issues that we discussed during the semester. First, they represented gender and the different roles that men and women play. Speed was the race car driver, the athelete; while his girlfriend Trixie played the hot girlfriend. Trixie did somewhat transcend the typical female role in this movie when she joined the race at Casa Cristo, but for the most part she played the general female role. Also in the movie was the representation of big business. Royalton Race Company wanted Speed to join their company by becoming a racer for them. Speed thought about the offer because he was offered a lot more money than he was making with his family business, but in the end he chose family loyalty over big business. The attempt that Royalton made in trying to get Speed, was representative of big business trying to monopolize the industry, by buying out and taking over small family businesses. THe movie really dwelled on this, and for the rest of the movie they concentrated on Speed taking down the huge super-company. Another issue present in this movie was the role of sports between the classes. The big race at the end of the movie was representative of upper class sports, the sports that not all of Americans have the money to participate in. Speed had his family business, but they didn't have nearly the amount of money that the rest of the racers in the final race had. Speed represented the middle-class and was looked at as the middle class hero when he won.

Critiquing the racial issues presented throughout the movie Speed Racer was a little more challenging then the other obvious issues that could be pinpointed, like gender binaries, how social class affects one’s status economically, stereotypical youth representation, and, of course, corporate power in the sports industry. It was clear that all of the “good-guy” characters were all white, while the main minorities presented were the “bad-guys” or the cheaters. For example, the Asian man, Togokahn, deceived Speed and Racer X at Casa Christo, making them think that he was part of their side, meanwhile he set them up to help him win the whole race. Also, Ben Burns, the African American who won the Grand Prix decades ago, was later revealed by Speed that he had only won that race because it was fixed. For some reason, the creator of this film must have thought that using minorities in these roles would better portray the “bad guys”? I honestly do not get it, but whatever works. On the brighter side, Togokahn’s Asian sister provided one of the turning points of the whole movie, secretly giving Speed the invitation to the Grand Prix to inevitably overcome all the obstacles of the powerful corporations and win the entire race. Also, whenever Racer X was shown with a woman, she was of a different race. While on the topic of the women, it was quite entertaining how they presented the gender binary of the “inferior female,” when many of the women, including Racer X’s significant others, were there for just show or said very minimal. -Gincel

First and foremost I’d like to state that Speedracer was indeed a wonderful movie, one that I would have never gotten the chance to see if it wasn’t for this class. While watching this movie my intent was to focus on the neoliebrism aspects of the movie. Though I was a little distracted because I actually enjoyed the movie, neoliebrism did play a huge part of this movie. Throughout the movie one of the major focuses was how people with money had the power to do whatever they wanted, and not play by the rules. While watching the movie, I also noticed that Royalton Industries which was the multibillion dollar corporation that wanted to Speed to become one of their drivers, was only in the game for the money and not the love of the sport as Speed and his family were. A specific scene in the movie that showed Royalton’s true colors, was when he and Speed were in their meeting and he tried his hardest to convince Speed that driving for his company was the way to go, but Speed knew better. As a result of Speed denying his offer Royalton became enraged and let it be known that “Racing had nothing to do about the actual race, it was all about the power and money.”(SpeedRacer,2008)Overall Speedracer shows just how people with money try and manipulate everything in their favor. Some achieve that goal but many do not.

Kadie Bangura

Speed Racer was a good movie that incorporated everything we went over in class (race, youth, gender, economy). The movie depicted race in many ways. The asian racers home was covered in dragons and his buddies were all ninjas. The minoritiy racers also were stereotyped from their dress to their car, furthermore they all attempted cheating. Speed (the white racer) was posting up in a hotel with his family. They briefly cover youth by having the annoying fat kid. I am unaware of the original story line but i suppose he played in somewhere. The kid was best friends with a monkey and had no real interaction with the movie (comic relief as stated above). The girl drivers were dressed in feminine clothes and in stereotypical colors. They also seemed to take orders from the male drivers instead of finding solutions. Like when they got captured at the mountain, the female driver played a "im so defensless" role. Royalton was the wealthy racing company. It was stereotyped right from the name. It showed what "money could buy" through out the movie, symbolizing big corporations. I wouldnt have noticed this though if i hadn't been focused on depicting the movie like such. It was interesting to see how these concepts get looked over by the veiwers. I will be more observant when i watch movies to notice these minor details.

Reading Frank's blog, I realize that I too had never watched a movie and thought about some of the points underly in them. For example the rich villan, or the gender roles portrayed in movies. I agree that, untill this class I had never analyized a movie in that way and I think it will make me think more deeply about plots behind the story in movies now.
erin r

I think that the movie Speed Racer is a movie which sums up this class. One of the issues Speed Racer brought up was the idea of class. In the movie the Racer family is an independent racing company which is struggling to stay in business because of large conglomerate taking over racing. In the movie we see how small business are having a hard time keeping racers in their organization. When Speed goes to look around Royalton he is offered things that he wouldn’t be able to get within the independent organization. We also see the talk about class when Speed is just a young boy. On the playground on of the other students tell Speed that his family is no good because Speed’s father worked for the other students’ dad. Here we see the idea that a blue collar worker is not as respected as a person who might own a company. We also see how class can affect the power politically. When Speed turns down Royalton’s offer to join Royalton Racing, the family business is put in jeopardy. Royalton has Speeds company looked at for fraud and other crimes. This shows the power Royalton had as the big conglomerate; he is able to run the entire city.
I think that this movie was not well received because the message it was trying to send. In this movie we see a company saying that big conglomerates are going to be the down fall of our country. These conglomerates are something that people have come to expect because of the ease they bring to our lives. People that live good lives do not usually like to hear the negative aspects of their lives. Instead they want to keep living they way they are.

Before Speed Racer I was wondering what this movie would have to do with anything about sport and society. The topic I was to focus on was class. In the movie there a lot that had to deal with class. The Racer family owned their own race car, with no sponsors im sure it is not cheap. I guess they could fit into the middle class. Growing up as middle class people Rex and Speed only did what they had known which was racing. They lived breathed and slept racing. After the brothers death you can see the family try to turn away from the racing scene, almost as if the "man" one. Until speed racer decided to take it into his own hands and stick it to the "man". He goes and conquers the class issue and makes the whole racing fanbase go crazy for him because he is a legitimate contender and is actually the best instead of the races being fixed for the rich. He shows the typical triumph of the poor over the rich, even though in our society someone who owns a car lke that would not be poor, but that is how they were portrayed to some extent.

Watching Speed Racer was a fun movie to watch, it was definitely a great movie to watch for our class. So many of the topics we went over in class were in this movie. Gender, race, and the big one corporations, it summed our class up extremely well, I couldn’t think of a better movie that has so much of the stuff we talked and learned about in it. It was like Speed Racer was actually made for our particular class. I am writing this blog on the role that corporations play in this movie. The corporation was the bad guy in the movie. In our class we talked about how corporation have been taking over sports and whether not corporation’s involvement is a good thing or not. Well this movie doesn’t believe so.
Right off the bat not five minutes into the movie we see corporations and their handle on the sports. Everything is an ad in the opening race scene, it’s a very fast pace scene with lots of colors flying by but you can definitely make out all the corporation’s ads like the energy drinks and so on. There are billboards that line the stadium seating and massive signs through out the stadium as a whole. After this race Speed is hassled by different large corporations to sign with them and race for them. Some are calling none stop while others actually fly to Racer residence barring gifts trying to persuade Speed to race in their cars. This man was depicted as a stuck up, full of crap guy. He is trying to relate to the Racer family, a working class family by telling them that his company is no different than theirs, how he used to build cars in the garage of his foster family’s house. And that was the heart of his large company, so really their companies are no different. In a later scene the owner of the company trying to get Speed, tells a story of how the corporations control everything about sports even the winner of the races. The whole thing behind the story was to show how the only importance is making money. We see this in sports today, we accuse our beloved athletes for only caring about money and hate them for signing with other teams or brands. And he threatens Speed saying “if you don’t sign, than you will wont ever win another race again.” It’s here we see the corporations as the bad guys of the movies, they are even referred to as the “devil.

I agree with packattack4507, for the most part. I completely agree with the depiction of Ma Racer. She is a portrait of the "Susie Homemaker" wife. As noted, she was always in makeup, being a busybody around the house, hair done the exact same everyday, with very similar, super feminine dresses. No matter what, she is always there to support the men in her life. Yes, all of this is very feminine and very stereotypical, but it can also be argued that perhaps women always being a support system is a way of showing their strength. Ma was never breaking down, being overly emotional. She, in a way, was the rock, who when times were bad, she was there with the uplifting, intelligent words. I agree with what packattack talked about with Trixie. She had her moments of strength equal to the men in the movie, but then had moments where she could not do it on her own and the men had to bail her out. There are also the female drivers, who were portrayed negatively, perhaps because they were going against the norm and competing in a male dominated sport.

When I heard we were going to watch Speed Racer for the last topic of sport in film, I was honestly confused and not really looking forward to it. However, after watching the first third of it, I found it quite enjoyable. It was definitely an entertaining movie, but at the same time, I found so many outrageous depictions throughout regarding topics discussed this semester. Even though it was not well received by the media and the "powers-that-be," I rather enjoyed it on that fact alone. It was nice to see a film that dealt with issues of gender, class, race, commercialization and others; while at the same time, maintaining the blockbuster, entertaining elements.
I focused my attentions on the topic of race and ethnicity and how these were depicted. The movie began with an action packed race. Before, during, and after the race, commentators had brief moments where they reacted to what was happening. The main three shown were white, hispanic, and asian. They were all men, which is interesting but I am not going to touch on gender. The white man was a common, average looking - stereotypical looking guy. I believe he was wearing a fedora and a plain suit, common to what would have been worn decades ago. The hispanic man had dark complexion and was fast talking as is stereotyped for hispanic men during sporting events when they get excited. The asian man had a plain bowl-cut, always looked and sounded surprised at what was happening, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. During the race, the film cut to one of the opposing teams managers who seemed to be German. He was portrayed to be loud, angry, fast speaking, and somewhat intimidating all around.
The British sponsor, Mr. Royalton, was intelligent, using big words whenever possible, talked quickly as a slick businessman would, and was dressed in very fine looking suits. During another race, there was a hawaiian commentator and an american commentator. The hawaiian was overweight and jolly with light colored, beachy type colored clothes, while the american was in another plain, common suit, with a mustache and serious throughout. The american, again, resembling a commentator or male sports figure from the past.
In the last race, we saw the antagonist, Snake Oiler, who appeared to be a middle european racer. He also had a dark complexion with greased back hair, and a thin mustache. This look being similar to how someone would have been portrayed maybe forty years ago in film. Also, the announcers in the final race, the grand prix, were a white british man and a black man. The british announcer was much more proper in his posture and commentary, using eloquent words and grammar. Meanwhile, the black announcer was much more comfortable in his posture and used modern slang phrases throughout. A couple of his phrases were, "Tear 'em up!" and "It's a whole new world baby ..."
With all these blatant stereotypes used for characters throughout, it is a wonder how it generally goes unnoticed. Our society claims to have made so much progress when it comes to race and ethnicity, but with the blatant stereotyping and even mockery, how far have we actually come?

I agree with packattack4507 in saying that females were secondary in this movie. They were either portrayed as the subordinate female to their male counterpart (Trixie to Speed and Ma Racer to Pa Racer), or at times Trixie was able to beat up multiple male bad guys at one time, drive a race car almost as good as Speed if not better, and help rebuild Speeds car for the Grand Prix. For the most part Ma Racer was stuck in the mother role, always making food, keeping the family together, and being the emotional tie to keep the family together.

For the movie Speed Racer I was assigned to observe how gender played a part in the movie. Overall it seemed that women were just there as either in the sub servant role or in the going against all the rules role. Ma Racer was the motherly stay at home mom who follows all the rules, wears the flowery apron, always had her hair done right, and making food for the working men. Then for Trixie it was very similar except for three parts in the movie. First it was when there was the big fight in the mountains during the Casa Christo Race, she was beating up a lot of guys not getting beaten up like the mechanic. The second part was when she was driving with Speed and Racer X. The bad part about this is during the race they make it so that she has to be saved like she can’t save herself. Then lastly there is when they have to make the car for the biggest race of the year and she helps to build it. Overall the movie was a very masculine based movie with women playing the secondary role in which they aren’t important.

The film “Speed Racer” encounters various issues, all of which we covered in class this semester. The most prominent of these issues in the movie was neoliberal capitalism and commercialized sport. In the beginning of the film, a young Speed asks why his brother wasn’t getting the right media coverage after winning a race. His father responds with “Sponsors control the media”. Right out of the gate your introduced to what the Racer family thinks about racing and the corporations that tie itself to the sport. Some could say that the notion of sponsors controlling what the media puts out there for us to see is true. For example, Disney owns ABC, which owns ESPN. Would ESPN broadcast something that didn’t uphold to the moral standards set by Disney? I would say no and a great example is what happened to the ESPN football drama “Playmakers”. The show was a success critically and brought in big ratings for ESPN. But, the show brought forth depictions of football players doing steroids, breaking the rules, misbehaving off the field, etc. Therefore “Playmakers” was cancelled after one season even though it was a success. Why did ESPN do this? Maybe it was pressure from Disney not to show “edgy” images on their network.
There was another scene in the film that stood out when it comes to neoliberal capitalism. When Royalton was explaining to Speed what racing really was about, the message was obvious. Royalton said, “Racing is about power and the unforeseeable amount of money”. Although, this was just a quote about a race league in the film, it could be applied to real organizations like NASCAR. In stock car racing, the sport is completely revolved around corporate sponsorship. The better you race, the more sponsors you gain ultimately leading to more money. Sponsors pour tons of money into NASCAR and the sport is taking off as one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. This has been made evident by drivers from other racing leagues like the IRL leaving to join NASCAR. Is racing really about winning anymore or just money? Maybe the film is on to something.

Bill Reem

In the movie Speedracer, everything that has been taught in class was summed up in a short 2 hour movie. The various topics such as gender and class and corporations and big businesses were clearly shown throughout this “entertaining” movie. The movie clearly depicted today’s big businesses very well by showing how these businesses believe they can buy their way to a win by purchasing every single “big” athlete within that sport. In Speedracer, Mr. Royalton thought that by buying Speed he would gain more money for his company. Like every big athlete today, Speed had to make the hard decision of either going with Mr. Royalton’s company and earning the large checks, or choosing his family. As most major athletes encounter today, as did Speed, the major corporation/company have a hand in splitting up families or making their lives harder than they need to be. Somehow everything seemed to work out in the end with Speed and his family though, as it does with every movie. Just like the happy ending in every movie, Speed came to the final ultimatum of whether to choose family over his career with Mr. Royalton. What every real life person wishes happened in real life, Speed chose his wealth of family over the materialistic wealth of working for Mr. Royalton.

Over the course of the semester, there have been many lectures that I found very interesting. One of the lectures that really pulled me in was the one on “Embodying the Sporting Nation.” In the Miss America Clip, it showed “within contemporary America, football is the sporting practice that best embodies American national identity.” (King-White, slide 29) I never realized how much sports strongly effected events, even the Miss America Pageant. The very first lecture also was very intriging. Until I sat through this lecture, I never really thought about how companies profit off of their support of causes. After this lecture I went and took a second look at how much money companies did donate to certain organizations. Most of the time at an end of a commercial or at the end of an ad, they would have in small print that they would only be donating up to a certain amount of money and then they’d stop. This lecture made me think again about buying something to help a cause, but instead I could just simply donate my money straight to the cause. There was one lecture that I though wasn’t very beneficial to the class and that was “Sport and Social Class Habitus.” It took me a while to grasp some of the concepts and terms. I understand that this lecture is an important issue and key lecture to the class, but I believe that it could’ve been taught in another way for everyone to better understand.


Kasi Harris

The movie Speed Racer summed up the entire class. I was assigned to talk about how the corporate world has stuck their hand in the sports world. This movie had many examples of this. For the Grand Prix, the race was announced in four different languages, which means the race has gone global. The owner of the race has allowed different countries to join in and announce the game for their home viewers. Also, in the first half of the movie Royalton attempted to buy Speed Racer and have him race for the Royalton team. Previously, the Royalton team had bought the best drivers in the races so their stock would rise. A representative from the Royalton team came out to the Racer house and brought him and his family back for a dinner, some nice new clothes for Speed, and a personal tour of the entire Royalton factory. While in the factory, Pops Racer said “Sponsors control media.” Also, Pops told Speed that “major sponsors are like the devil.” He means that sports players sometimes “sell their soul to the devil”. This is in reference to big time players, or in this case racer, to play for one team; as a modern day example, baseball’s New York Yankee’s. They have recently signed two big named pitchers to huge deals that no one could even come close to. In the movie, Speed had to choose between a big time racing team and his family team. Since Speed had morals and valued his family greatly, he chose his family. This choice is not seen too often in today’s world; whoever is willing to throw the most money at an athlete is the winner usually.

Watching Speed Racer was a great way to end Sport and Society. It was a great film i just wish Rex and Speed would have had a nice hug at the end of the movie. It touched on many topics that were discussed in class, such as race, class, gender and neoliberalism. It was hard to say what social-class the Racer family came from. In the movie, Pops Racer never seemed to have a job except for building cars for his sons, Rex and Speed. However, his independently owned “business” was not sponsored by anyone. Somehow though, the family managed to make enough money to build cars. When Speed was little, school was not even a priority to him or his family. Many people who live in the lower social class tend to not worry about top priority things such as school or health; they do whatever they can to get by. The Racer family, however, did seem very close-knit and cared about staying together when it came to racing. Family was obviously more important than money, and they definitely worked hard in order to be successful in races. This is evident in the fact that Speed turned down a racing contract with Royalton Industries, a multibillion dollar racing corporation, and eventually prevailed without Royalton’s help. However, money does not always mean a lot of power. As we have seen in the United States, many big corporations have abused their power and the money they have and eventually went bankrupt. The same goes for Royalton Industries. He took advantage of the money he had and cheated at the Grand Prix, eventually losing everything he had. With Speed winning the Grand Prix, he was given a lot of attention and publicity that raised his family to a higher social class.

I agree with Scott that every big company thinks that they can buy their way to victory along with buying every big athelete. Speedracer did an excellant job of portraying the attitude of the companies and the people who normally follow the trend of having the biggest and best thing, in this case all the luxuries that came along w becoming part of Royalton's team. When Speed went against the norm he had to compete against this big company. When X racer told speed to race for inner reasons and gave him that pep talk, Speed wanted to race not only for the fun of it and the love of the sport, but also to prove Royalton wrong.

Speed Racer was a great movie to end the semester with because it had so much that we had talked about throughout the year. The main point that sticks out in my mind is the big corporation taking over the racing industry. Mr Royalton tries to bribe Speed into joining his powerful racing team and that he would make him rich. Speed decides to stick to his family values and be loyal to his family instead of choosing money over family. This is a great example in sports because money is such a huge deal to professional athletes and owners. Players will usually choose money over being loyal to a team(family) many days of the week, even if that means they are going to a less talented team. The Yankees are the first team that comes to mind when I think about Mr. Royalton. They are flashy and have all the championships to show off to people. They can convince players to play for them based off of that and their history alone, but it also helps that George Steinbrenner is willing to pay as much as it takes to buy the most talented athletes in the game. It is still true this offseason as he paid a crazy amount of money for two free agent pitchers in CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett. Speed Racer chose family over the money, even though Mr. Royalton tells him the races are fixed and it isn't about winning, but it is about money. As much as we do not want this to be true in professional sports, it honestly is to an extent. Money is the root of all evil and many professional athletes show that they only care about money. There are a few that are loyal to the teams that drafted them or live by their moral, not by who will offer them the most money. The movie also showed a lot of differences that are depicted true in our life in race, gender, class, and age. Looking back on the movie, it was very entertaining and depicted a lot that was talked about in class. It was a great way to end the semester.
Bryan Trotter

As the semester comes to an end, I could not think of a better way to end the class then to watch a movie that sums up everything we have learnt. Speedracer clearly showed everything that was taught, ranging from gender and class, to corporations and big businesses. As seen in the movie, a lot of big businesses today feel as if they can just buy their way to victory, and purchase every big athlete. Mr. Royalton thought he would be able to buy Speed to make his company worth more money. Speed had to make the decision to either stay with his family, or go with the company and earn money. If you think about it more, Speed had to make the choice of family over money. Even though in the end it worked out for Speed, Mr. Royalton seemed to break up the family by causing arguments and deceiving them into thinking that he was a good man. Then the family as well had to think about what was a better choice for Speed. Even though he is happy with the family, they know that he would be matter a lot more money with Royalton. But one thing that Royalton didn’t have that Speed had were family values. Even though he was making less money with his family, he knew that their loyalty was the best around. During the semester there have been multiple lectures that stuck out in my mind as quite intriguing. One of them being the lecture on how commercials and the media can turn around any athlete’s character, from using them as an example for something good, or as something bad. By watching all the Nike commercials, it made it easier to understand the lesson, rather than just listening to a lecture. Another time that I really enjoyed listening to was the lecture on “Embodying the Sporting Nation” where we talked about how a sport can represent a Nation and how even though you may not enjoy watching the sport, it represents who you are and you always would root for your country, no matter the circumstance. The lecture on “Radicalized Sporting Symbolism” which included the video on University of Illinois really caught my interest. I found it very interesting how a whole educational institution, can allow a mascot like that. Until then, I never even thought at about it or let it cross my mind. When lecture that I think I could do without was the one on “Sport and Social Class Habitus”. Realizing that it is extremely important to what we are learning about, and probably most of the lectures somehow involve class habitus, I feel if it was taught in a different way, I could understand it a bit better. The terms and concepts were a bit challenging to understand and took a couple times reading back to understand the concept.
Scott Rappaport.

No matter what way you look at it this global capitalist expansion has it pros and its cons. Whether you feel globalization is good or bad is completely based on your morals. From the corporate perspective it is an excellent way to make a big gain with just a little investment. When we buy our shoes and clothes we don’t think about how they were made, who made them or where they were made. Plus we don’t know which clothing and shoes were made from global expansion and which from factories here in the U.S. We all buy clothes and shoes all the time but never consider these things. Most of the people who buy clothes from globalization don’t even realize it. You could be completely against globalization and unknowingly be financially endorsing it.
What if you went to your favorite store and picked out some things but when you got to the register the cashier said to you “excuse me sir but we are required to tell you that the things you picked out are from our global expansion collection manufactured from the forced labor of young children making 10 cents a day, 7 days a week overseas. Would you still like to purchase these items?” What would you say? It’s a question of moral. Some wouldn’t care and say yes and others would be shocked and not buy the things. I would say no. Even if I was forced to buy it I wouldn’t use the things knowing how they were made. It would be hard for anyone with morals to purchase the items and actively use them. You can’t help but notice the message you’re putting out if you buy the merchandise. I’m sure most people including myself wouldn’t want to support that. But some people would like the corporate executives who organized it. They obviously wouldn’t mind purchasing the items because this is what they endorse. That is their product.
The other side of the argument would be what would happen if the global capitalist expansion didn’t exist or if it did those children were given the choice of whether they wanted to work or not and were given the same salaries that an adult sewing clothes for them in the U.S. would make. The good news is that those products from your favorite store that you wanted to buy would not be from children forced into labor but the bad news is that it’s going to take more money to pay for those same things. So for those who are against globalization you need to ask yourselves if you feel strongly enough on your position to pay extra when you shop for those children overseas. My position is that I would prefer to have it so that that kind of global expansion ever existed. That way at least I wouldn’t be any disputes about paying more for the same products. I feel that that form or globalization shouldn’t have been allowed to have a start. The profiting of the exploitation of children being forced into labor is wrong no matter what negative results from the morally right alternative.

The role of women in the Speedracer movie were switched numerous time throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie, Ma Racer was the only parent attending the conference with the teacher about Speed's performance in school. Pa Racer was not able to attend the conference because he was working. The two main female characters (Trixie and Ma) were always feminine when it came to the way they dressed especially when the two of them were interacting with the male characteristics. Trixie and Ma always wore makeup and the only time the both of the female charcters showed any masculinity was when both of the women were helping to fix Speed's car for the Grand Prix. Trixie showed masculinity when she took over for Togokahn in the Casa Christo race. Her driving skills were comparable to Speed's and Trixie showed that she could drive just as good as Speed. The women in the Speedracer movie were always the companions of the men in the movie. Ma being Pa's wife and Trixie being Speed's girlfriend. The women were also shown as the main aggressor in most of the races. Especially the first race when the girls seemed like they were tryning to kill Speed. The role of women were switched throughout the movie to show all the different roles of women and how women can be suppressed or too aggressive.

Kierra Palmer

I was assigned to look for the gender aspects in Speed Racer. The women in th film were depicted one of two ways, in a subservient role or in an outrageous exotic lawless role. The Racer women, Ma and Trixie, were often seen as verbally supportive, providing a view of the world that the racer men, possibly, were not capable of seeing. When Ma speaks of the beauty in Speeds driving, you can tell that speed has never thought of it like that, he sees racing as it is, which says something about the depiction of men. The other type of women were depicted in the races. Some of the other racers in the Casa Christo Race were women, saying something about the industry, that only men were racing in major leagues, and women had to race in illegal, dangerous races. In these races, the women are often more viscious than the men because it seems like they need to be in order to survive. Then again, they don’t often last long in any of the races, for Speed takes them out quickly. Trixie braks out of the role sometimes, which to me is a message that all women are not subservieant and that they can do things that men can do. When Trixie stands in for the Japanese racer in the Casa Christo she shows off her driving skills and is shown to be equal to be speed. So the images of women in Speed Racer are numerous, and often contradicting, but who is to say that they cant. Women, like men, are all different from eachother as much as they are different from men.

amg

I agree with Yankee1127 when he mentions that Speed and his family were very out of place when they went to the Royalton’s factory. They seemed to be very confused and “intimidated.” This is how many people in this country must feel when they are offered to be sponsored by these big corporations. I think many people might even be forced into contracts just as the Racer family almost was. These people are afraid of what might happen if they do not sign with them. Frank Olszewski

Speed racer was a great representation of this class as a whole. It depicted many of the aspects of Sport and Society that we learned this semester. It showed class, race, Neoliberalism, wealth, and youth. All of these subjects played major roles in this film. I found it very interesting to look at a movie from this perspective. During my entire life I have never watched a movie and then thought about how it depicted villains as foreigners or wealthy people. I have never thought back at how the mother was always cooking food and not going to a job or working with the car. Until I got into this class I never had the knowledge to actually look back and realize these things are happening in movies. This movie presented the Racer family as the middle or middle-upper class family. In reality they would have to have some serious money to be able to build their own racecar and not have any sponsors for it. I think this movie skews on reality a little bit because it seems like the family needed money, which is why they were even thinking about joining the other team, but they also had enough funds to support Speed and Rex’s racing careers. Another thing was that the parents of Speed did not really seem to care that he would slack off in school and make racecar pictures and drew Rex on his tests. I think that if these people were actually in the lower class then they would have cared more because they would want these kids to make it through school and then parlay that into a successful work career. I believe that the parent knew that Speed would eventually become a great driver and this would lead to his money. The problem is that the Racer family must have had the funds to support the racing lifestyle. The father was never depicted in the movie as having a job; he almost plays the role of Speed and Rex’s agent even though they both eventually go against his wishes. Frank Olszewski

Speed Racer was a great way for us to end the semester. Before, I was wondering what this movie would have to do with anything about sport and society. Little did I realize just about everything in the movie had something to do with what we went over in the class lectures. The topic I was to focus on was class. In the movie there were all sorts of things in this movie that had to deal with class. The Racer family was pretty wealthy. The Racer family owned their own race car, with no sponsors takes a good amount of money. But I guess they could fit into the middle class. Growing up as middle class people the Racer boys Rex and Speed only did what they had known there whole life which is to be a racecar driver. Royalton, who was huge in the racing industry tried to flatter the Racer family. Sort of like what big corporations do to attract athletes now. Royalton showed them how much he could do to help speed out with becoming an all time great in the racing business. This is basically what Hedrick motorsports do now. A driver from their team has won the championship the last 3 years. He had all the connections and basically owned most of the cars in the circuit and was known for building champion race car drivers. The racer family had always been afraid to be sign on with any big corporation, they like being on there own because they don’t want to be corrupted by a big corporation.

Ending Sport and Society lecture with the movie Speed Racer was fantastic. Next to being cute, it was very entertaining and interesting to watch. Speed Racer included many topics there were discussed in class such as class, race, gender, commercialization and neoliberalism. As told by Dr. King-White, neoliberalism is:
"the dominant socio-economic driving force in our society, and it is characterized by hyper-competition and marketing, deregulation of markets, and an " every person for themselves" attitude which essentially disregards the collective love of others in the United States and elsewhere in exchange for a personal worth gauged on what you can do as a consumer for corporate interests". (King-White, 2007)
In Speed Racer, neoliberalism was very obvious for Royalton Industries was the multibillion dollar corporation that was in the racing scene just to make the big bucks. Although in the movie it seemed as though Royalton himself cared about his drivers, all he did was manipulate every outcome in a race and cheated to hike up his profits (Tucker, 2008). However, in the end, his cheating caught up with him and he ended up going to jail and lost everything he had gained. Royalton had invited Speed to join his team, but luckily Speed was smart and decided to stay with his dad’s small business. Although there are many big corporations that make large amounts of money and eventually lead to a form of corruption, there are also a good number of corporations that are very successful and have loyal customers. An example of this is Wal-Mart. Being at the top of the Fortune 500 list, as well as having a goal like every other big corporation, to make money, Wal-Mart are very kind and responsive to their many customers, and that is why they are so successful. However, in Speed Racer, the small, independent business ended up persevering and prospering, as Speed won the Grand Prix.

i have to disagree with kyle6082 "The racial issue here is that of course the African American is painted as “the bad guy”. " i dont think burn was really depicted as the bad guy, this can be seen when he is comentating at the grand prix. i felt like he was used, and he believed there wasn't anything he could do and that he was controlled by the corporations.

Gender was my topic to be discussed in the blog talking about the film. the roles of females and well as the males were very reminiscent of old 50's shows like " leave it to beaver" and shows simular to that. with the exception that some women did have powerful status such as the queen who upon seeing the light of the sun shot the gun to begin the race, her status coming from being a queen. another example whould be trixy being able to fly a helicoptor as well as driving. now speeds reaction to her driving as being too dangerous for her and not a good idea makes the audiance wonder if he really believes in her and has faith in her skills. even though trixy can fly a helicopter she still serves as a supportive role, she looks out for speed and warns him of danger. just as the father kept saying that his wife saves him from making a fool of himself or just keeps him grounded. mostly all the women except the ocational racer women as well as ones involved in the action of racing, were wearing dress, or very femine outfits. there were no unisex outfits in the film. the men who virtually ran everything were very domineering. typical behaviors that are expected from men were prevalent in the film. especially when the little boys were fighting, to being angry and speed being so aggressive on the track. there weren't many female racers, and i often found myself wondering is there any place for a female racer in that world, like even looking around speeds room there wasn't any great female racers. women in the film just looked like pretty decorations for the men to hold onto. they were just there to me. the only prominant female characters would be the mother, who was the typical great american stay at home mom who was just there to support you with whatever you do and to not really have an opion, trixy who was speeds girlfriend and even though she represents a new generation of women who can still support and do what is expected as well as trescend that and have an opion as well as skills.

I have to agree with eragan1 when he says, "money can buy anything, it can even fix races." As I referred to in my blog, power (money) is intimidating and can ruin what makes America great if abused. In the movie, Speed and his father learned that all the races in the past had been fixed by money. What is scary is that today, we have seen this to be true with officiating in the NBA and Pete Rose in baseball. Abusing power as a result of having money is what makes things in society unfair, not just simply having more money than the next person.

Speed Racer was a very good movie for younger teens or children and was entertaining to watch for even me. The best overall concept of the movie was that it really hit most if not all of the important concepts we discussed in class like social class, commericialization, youth, and most importantly neoliberalism's power in sporting events. One of the progressive things about the movie was that it pointed out what really does go on in the world and analyzes it. A regressive aspect is that it rarely, if ever works out the way the ending did-big bad Mr. Royalton gets thrown in the slammer and the small Racer family triumphs- a sense of false hope for America's youth. However, overall this movie did point out what I have stayed true to this entire semester in all of my bloggings which is the 100% support of upward social mobility; rags to riches if you will. The racer family had racing in their heart and the desire to the best which is the most important thing. When touring the Royalton facility, it was easy to see how out of place Speed and his family seemed and how out of place they showed the viewing audience by using the word 'intimidated.' Power is very intimidating especially when in our society today, that power is used by major corporations- perhaps in sports- like in one of the lectures we learned, to possibly influence an event one way or another. Nevertheless, Speed turned down the offer and decided to win the right way and acheive upward social mobility the way he knew he could. Another great example that shows that upward social mobility is possible for anyone is the movie Rocky IV. In the movies leading up to Rocky IV, Rocky started out as nothing and often referred to as a 'bum.' But deep down inside of Rocky was the will to win and the ability to stand in front of opponents who had more strength by a hundred times over- Mr. Royalton's company- and take them down. Rocky proved that even though he was "the poor son of an Italian Immigrant, Rocky's rags to riches proves that America is the 'land of opportunity' (King-White, week 12, slide 13)."

This movie pointed out many aspects of the course and was a great way to sum up everything we learned by still encouraging us as a class to think abstractly about the perils of society.

.The media obviously has a lot of influence of what the public believes. Since everyone conforms to popular opinion, it would be no surprise that the public listens to the media about what is hot and what is not. That means if a movie has a bad review by the media, it is not watched by many viewers, and if the media gives a good movie review, people will be lining up at the theaters. To end this semester, the movie Speed Racer was a perfect choice for a film which thoroughly depicted the course material. This movie was given bad reviews and rated as being terrible. Critics said things like, “a film disappoints on its brazenly philistine terms,” and “action seems redolent of pinball machines” and “puppet-like characters.” For a film that got such horrible reviews I thought it was funny and creative. It captured topics of neoliberal capitalism and corporatization and as Professor King-White said, the film still showed regressive themes along gender, class, race, and youth identity lines.
The topic that I mainly would like to focus on is the film’s portrayal of sport and class. Considered the middle- working class family was the Speed family which had an independent racing company. No poor class families were shown in the film because racing is a sport that entails money. Mr. Royalton was the rich man with the big racing company who basically owned the city with all the power he had. When Royalton offered Speed a home with his team of racers Speed declines. The Racers are obviously conscious of the power that corporations have over their lives but when Speed turns down Royalton’s offer, they find out just how much control he has in the racing world. Money can buy anything, it can even fix races. When Speed finds out that many of the great races he remembers were fixed, he tries to change the industry by taking matters into his own hands.
In this class I learned more than I expected to. I never realized all the interconnections between sport and society. There was not any thing I particularly did not like in the lectures. The clips and videos that illustrated points from the lecture were funny and they help get the point across. I especially enjoyed learning about commercialization and corporatization. As we came to different topics of sport and society I realized that they all were connected but this specific topic really opened my eyes to sport and what it is comprised of. There is a lot of money that goes into sports and come out of them, through the sponsorship, the branding, and the marketing. The model of corporate sport shows how capitalism is uses in our society to grow and profit.
Erin Ragan

Speedracer did an excellent job bringing the semester to the close. The topics we focused on were all very apparant in the film including race, gender, class, youth, and commercialization. While watching the film I concentrated on the commericalization aspect of Speedracer. First and definately the largest topic of the whole movie was the impact that large companies and corporations had to sport and on individual's sporting experience, in this case both Speed and Rex Racer. A prime example, when Speed is meeting with Mr. Royalton, Mr. Royalton points out that racing is not about the sport, having fun, or even winning. He says that is it about money and power. This ties into what we have been talking about semester in that corporations are taking the fun out of sport and changing the sporting experience. The corporations controlled not only sponsers and the media, but even aspects as extreme as the outcome of the race. Also, during Speed's tour of the company he sees how money and power can aid in training and preparation for the race. However, when he turns down Mr. Royalton's offer, Royalton makes it very clear that Speed and his family will suffer if Speed does not join the team. This is exactly what Speed's father predicted. When asked if he was intimated by everything he say, he replied by saying he was scared because when there is alot of money involved, people play by different rules. Racing in this movie is a prime example of corporate sport which is "a highly regulated, controlled, and predictable mass entertainment product, deisgned to generate maximum profit across numerous revenue streams" (King-White, slide 121). Overall, Speedracer showed the negative aspect of the commericialization of sport and how it really does affect and change it. Speed, Rex, and his family have racing "in their blood" and Speedracer did an excellant job of showing how, if individuals do not let the companys and such get the best of you, the recognizable sporting experience can be what you make of it.

For our final lecture we had the pleasure of watching the visually mind blowing Speed Racer. As the professor mentioned the movie did not garner all of the hype and received bad reviews not because of the movies’ substance but because the movie clearly and boldly criticizes corporations who have their money hungry fingers on everything. If big corporations are blatantly being attacked then of course they pay off the media outlets to print up a negative review. I would give the movie two thumbs way up. Not only were the visuals spectacular but the storyline was one that both a family and teenagers could enjoy.
The issue in which I was assigned to look for in the movie was racial representation. Speed and his father were fascinated with the iconic African American driver Ben Burns who drove and won the 1943 Grand Prix. After finding out Rex had died, Speeds’ father never really felt the racing passion until experiencing Burns’ win with young Speed at his side. Mr. Royalton later reveals to Speed that Burns knew he was going to win the race just like every Grand Prix was fixed. The racial issue here is that of course the African American is painted as “the bad guy”. It is a classic case of sending the little guy to do the big guys job. “Race matters; it is a seductive myth which continues to influence our life experiences and life chances” (King-White-2008-E, Slide 11). On an ethnic minority note, Togokahn, a Japanese driver, needed help to escape the grip Mr. Royalton had on him. Speed and Racer X agreed to team up with Togokahn in order for him to win the race at Casa Cristo. Little did Speed know that Togokahn used Speed and Racer X to increase his fathers’ stock worth. According to King-White (2008), “one major pedagogical challenge is to assess how dominant ideas that are repeated over time in these films and that are reinforced through other popular cultural texts can be taken as referents for engaging children in defining themselves within such representations” (p. 98). The racial/ethnic minority did not always receive a bad rap in the movie, seeing that without Togokahn’s sister, Speed would have never been able to race in the Grand Prix. I can say without any regret that the movie was a great feature film not only because it was an entertaining plot but because it incorporated all of the issues that we have discussed in class.