RaceCar Lullabies

How I Came to Love My Children's Favorite Movie Even as They Outgrew It

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Several Pixar toy cars including at least 10 Lightning McQueens.

On a cold but sunny January morning, I bundled my seven month old into his snowsuit and headed to the subway. Two train lines and a short walk later we arrived at the Sunshine Cinema. Located on the edge of Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, the Sunshine showed arthouse and independent films. The day’s screening was exclusively for parents with babes in arms. The lights were kept low and with rapt attention I watched “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a beautiful twisted and dark fairytale. 

My son slept through the whole thing and I felt great, maybe even a little smug, because I had managed to get out of the house with a baby and watch a movie. No small feat for a new mother. Never mind that the diaper bag I carried felt weighted down with actual bricks. Never mind that my breasts were becoming engorged because I hadn’t yet mastered breastfeeding in public. But dammit, I made it to the movies, no, a film, and with a baby no less.

On the return trek home we passed multiple ads for the new Pixar movie “Cars.” The anthropomorphic vehicles with their wide-set windshield eyes and mouths made of bumpers and grills compared in no way to the monsters in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” but I still found them unsettling. I was certain that my son’s first movies would include classics like “The Red Balloon,” and the gentle and slow pace of films like “Alamar” or “March of the Penguins.” Following the birth of my son, I went on to have three more children. I could not have known it at the time, but “Pan’s Labyrinth” would be the last R rated film I would see in a theater for almost a decade. 

Now my list of favorite movies is lengthy, ever-evolving and spans many genres. It includes “In the Mood for Love” by Wong Kar Wai, “Black Orpheus” by Marcel Camus, “Daughters of the Dust” by Julie Dash, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Radha Blank’s “The 40-Year-Old Version.” But that list would be incomplete without “Cars.”

For one, I have watched “Cars” more than any movie, in any genre, in my entire life. More even than “The Wizard of Oz.” Analog natives born in the US may recall that the musical used to air on network television right around Easter Sunday from the late ‘50s up until the early 1990s. Despite the fact that we had a black and white television long after color TVs were common, I watched Judy Garland click her ruby slippers every springtime through my early tweens. I never experienced the magic of Dorothy leaving the sepia of Kansas behind. On our 17-inch Zenith, the yellow brick road was just as black, white and gray as it had been before the twister hit. I’ve seen “Cars” so often that whenever actor Owen Wilson opens his mouth all I can hear is Lightning McQueen talking.

On our 17-inch Zenith, the yellow brick road was just as black, white and gray as it had been before the twister hit.

For the uninitiated, “Cars” is about Lightning McQueen, a rookie race car so eager for fame and glory that he neglects to build friendships. After getting lost on the way to a race, McQueen is forced to spend several days in a small town in dogged decline called Radiator Springs. The few cars left behind are a ragtag, close-knit bunch who embody ideals such as hard work, kindness, compassion and loyalty. After his time in Radiator Springs, McQueen comes to understand that building relationships and helping others is more valuable than any racing prize.

Three years after the 2006 premier Lightning McQueen was a rockstar amongst the preschool set but my toddler still had not seen the movie. That all changed after an acquaintance casually mentioned that she, her wife and their son watched “Cars” about once a week. She went on to say that it was practically a perfect movie. It wasn’t scary and there were good lessons about friendship. I thought watching a movie weekly was absurd but I liked this couple and by this time Lightning McQueen was ubiquitous. Lightning McQueen lunch boxes, Lightning McQueen book bags, Lightning McQueen sneakers and Lightning McQueen themed birthday parties abounded. Eventually I understood resistance was futile and I succumbed. 

That weekend we watched “Cars.” Well, he watched with his full attention. I “watched” while attending to a dozen household distractions. When it was over, I was ambivalent but my son was enraptured. So much so that we bought the movie and the soundtrack. I’m embarrassed to admit that on many sleepy nights after countless encores of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” I would softly sing If life is a highway/Then I’m gonna ride it all night long/If you’re going my way/I’m gonna drive it all night long. So yeah, I know the lyrics to a Rascal Flats song by heart and I know exactly what scenes of the movie accompany which tracks on the score.

My second-born wanted to watch “Cars” simply because his brother loved it. Unsurprisingly, “Cars” became his favorite movie too. Don’t get me wrong, they watched other things including lots of PBS Kids, “Yo Gabba Gabba,” “The Backyardigans” and every. single. episode. of “Mighty Machines.” Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” and the documentary “Microcosmos” both got a lot of play but “Cars” was what they asked to watch most often. And so they did.

So when did I go from ambivalent at best to bonafide fangirl, going so far as to low-key DisneyBound in Cars Land on a family visit to the theme park? My best guess is that things began to shift after my second-born lost a bright green car with a Tom Selleck mustache called Chick Hicks at the beach. He dug dozens of holes to find his car, but of course, it was gone forever. He soon forgot the Chick Hickscident but I was troubled. A week later, I went halfsies with a friend on an eBay lot of “Cars” cars to replenish the ones left behind at playgrounds or gone off to wherever it is lost socks go when staying with a mate gets too hard.

Around this time, it occurred to me that I’d never actually watched “Cars” all the way through. My oldest was probably seven by this time. When he was younger he rarely left home without two toy cars in his pocket; one to race and one to share with a friend. Around the age of four, he’d developed this habit of turning sideways whenever he ran just as he got close to Point B from his starting Point A before slowing to a staggered stop. After watching this curious move a number of times it finally dawned on me that he was trying to emulate Doc Hudson’s graceful turn on a curving dirt road. But those days were done. He no longer carried cars in his pocket and the fastest way to Point A from Point B for a human being does not include a staggered stop. He abandoned the move soon after he’d mastered it. He now preferred shows like “Ninjago” and “Survivor Man.”

Suddenly I could see that the movie was a marker for the passage of time and my children growing older. 

By my calculations I’ve watched “Cars,” oh maybe two hundred gazillion times. Each time I watch, I notice something new. Kind of like watching “The Godfather” and discovering that oranges are a precursor to death. (Spoilers ahead.) In “Cars,” I can’t help but chuckle when Mac the tractor trailer exclaims, “Thank the Manufacturer, you’re alive!” instead of “Thank God, you’re alive!” I ended up googling ‘Serpentine! Serpentine!’ which McQueen yells when he mistakenly thinks bullets are being fired at him by the Sheriff during a chase scene. Turns out it’s a line from a 1979 movie called “The In-Laws.” I love that Tom and Ray Magliozzi aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, with the broad Boston accents from the NPR show “Car Talk,” make an appearance as McQueen's sponsors. I marvel at the tiny blue Volkswagen Beetle bugs flitting across the screen as McQueen and Sally explore the outskirts of Radiator Springs. I get teary at the end when McQueen realizes winning a race isn’t more important than helping an injured competitor. I love that Doc Hudson, played by the late actor Paul Newman, returns to the race track to be McQueen’s crew chief, and in that act, affirms the values of humility, learning from our mistakes, showing up for friends and doing the right thing. 

…each time I watch it, I notice something new, kind of like watching “The Godfather” and discovering that oranges are a precursor to death.

Long after his older brothers had moved on from “Cars,” my youngest son would ask to watch “Racecars,” as he called it. And I indulged him often, pulling him onto my lap and burying my nose in the soft curls on top of his head. I knew I had only a year or two before he deemed it too babyish. Soon I would have no more little ones about asking me for racecar lullabies before I kissed them goodnight.

My twins are ten now. Their older brothers are 13 and 16. They’re all on the tail-end of the Disney/Pixar movie stage. There are exceptions of course. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has been on repeat ad infinitum in my house since “Encanto” was released last year. But recently, in a sentimental mood, I suggested we watch “Cars” together as a family. To my astonishment, the grumbling was minimal. (May you never know the fresh hell that is trying to select a movie that the younger ones will enjoy that won’t bore the older ones to tears.)

The opening credits rolled and before I knew it, three out of four were reciting the opening lines, “Okay, here we go. Focus. Speed. I am speed.” My children watched with rapt attention but I found myself distracted. I barely looked at the screen. I turned away from it frequently to look at them instead. And it really was the sweetest thing. Ka-chow!

TELL ME:

What are some of your unexpected favorite movies? More importantly, am I the only adult who loves “Cars”? 🏎️ 🤔

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