Speed Racer
This review of Speed Racer is brought to you by our intrepid commenter known only as "d." Enjoy!
Hi There! I thought I would give our mavens of Heroine Content a little breather and review Speed Racer.
When I saw the trailer, besides being completely impressed by the otherworldly visuals, I was struck by an image of one of the women: she was a woman of color with her hair poofed out into what looked like an afro, but it could have been some other tightly curled coif. Why the big deal? While being the scantily clad woman waving the checkered flag (or holding the gun, in her case) is not exactly what I would call heroine content, those women are supposed to be the epitome of what society deems beautiful. And instead of the usual big breasted, tiny-framed blonde, here we have someone who, in this country anyway, would appear to be the exact opposite of that.
And that's what the Wachowski brothers (the film's writer/director team) get right: they have a true multi-ethnic palate. They don't live in a white universe. That woman in the trailer turned out to be a queen, and the way she starts the race is really played up by the pacing and imagery. Now had she been a token, that would've only counted for so much. Thankfully, there are many people of color both as supporting and background characters (the main characters are the Speed family members - can't do much tweaking with that). There are some stereotypes around (like the ninjas dispatched by the villain to take out Speed and his race team), but there are also Asian enemies, Asian friends, and characters who inhabit that grey area of characterization. And this is the case for all ethnic groups in the film. In fact, there were so many people of color - good, bad and indifferent, that I happily lost track, and that's saying a lot for a racing film!
Unfortunately the female portrayals are more problematic.
The story is simple or complex enough, depending on your viewpoint. Here's the gist: Speed Racer & his family, who own a mom & pop race car company, must fend off the greedy advances of Royalton, the corrupt corporate executive who sees their small business as a threat to his carefully grown, and brutally maintained, monopoly. On the complex level, the story is about how you keep a dream from being corrupted when the very foundation of that dream is steeped in corruption. But either way you look at it, it's Speed's story. The two biggest female characters, Mom Racer (yup, the parents are actually named Mom & Pops), and Speed's gal pal/girlfriend Trixie.
Mom's character (played by Susan Sarandon) is your basic, suburban, throwback to the 50's - very traditional. I tend to respect the source material a movie is working from, and I think the Wachowskis do also. So while they seemed to tweak the character here and there (ie. having Pops say he's lucky for marrying his best friend), Mom still doesn't do much more than cheer from the sidelines, and give inspiring talks to Speedy on why he's so special. Still I feel like she's in a lot of the film, despite her passive role.
Trixie (played by Christina Ricci) does a lot of sideline cheering as well, but she also gets to do some cool stuff. While I wished her helicopter flying was a bit more pronounced and technical, she still does fly it; and it does end up playing a fairly important role in one of the races. And in one of the fight scenes...well, she fights! It's cartoon-like (how on the nose was that?!), but then so is everyone's fighting. Speed's fighting doesn't seem to be any better than hers. She does fill that girlfriend role (like getting rescued from a harrowing situation), but it's not as bad as it could have been. And the nice thing about Speed & Trixie's relationship is the sense you get that he genuinely likes who she is, and he did from the outset (not as an afterthought after assessing her looks). Oh, and be prepared: she does wear lots of pink (another throwback to the 60's cartoon the film was based on).
The other supporting characters that seem to do a bit more than stand around are two daredevil female drivers, bribed by the villain to take Speed out, Horuko (played by Yu Nan), a subdued character who plays a vital part in the end, and Minx (played by Nayo Wallace), an engineer who aids Speed in tricking out his car against illegal attacks. [Editors' note: both are women of color.]
I saw this on Saturday and spent the next two days waffling on what to rate this film! It really is on the border between 2 and 3 stars to me. On the one hand, the women only do but so much. The film really does focus a good deal on the relationships between the Speed men. At the same time, unlike other films, I really did get the sense that women didn't factor as highly simply because the story just happened to be about Speed Racer. There is still a level of respect that I felt the movie had for all the female characters. Even Mom Racer didn't seem condescended to...just appreciated. And they even had female race announcers!
So in the end (or at least after my initial viewing), I'd say two stars. So close indeed! The film has very good bones, but it needed one or more really great, solid female scenes for me to bump it to a 3.
Now, if I can only get the Speed Racer theme out of my head!
