We had Daniel J. Metz talk about Speed Racer (2008) and more on Wednesday, March 18th at the Majestic Neighborhood Cinema in Tempe. Read his introduction below!
Thank you all for being here, especially those of you who are students, who I know have finals looming around the corner.
As a current law student taking a civil litigation class, one of my finals is going to grade me on my oral advocacy skills—that is my ability to stand in front of a bunch of people and convince them of something.
Unlike those of you with lives, who are simply here to enjoy a good movie, I’m here to
prepare for finals by sharpening up my oral advocacy skills, and trying to convince you all of something.
I regret to inform you that Speed Racer, the movie that we’re all about to watch, gives a very negative portrayal of lawyers. Shocking I know.
So, to practice my oral advocacy skills, I would like to defend my chosen profession
from these slanderous attacks that Speed Racer has preemptively launched on lawyers everywhere, and convince you all that such attacks are entirely baseless!
So here goes nothing.
**clears throat**
Ladies and Gentleman,
We all know that whenever anyone in our society is faced with a terrible moral dilemma and is looking for guidance, they all ask the same question: What would my lawyer do?
This is because lawyers, of course, serve as society’s great moral exemplars. And we
all know, of course, that lawyers are motivated wholly and solely by a desire to see
justice served under the law.
Yet shockingly, Speed Racer has the absolute gall to portray lawyers as being motivated by a desire to make money! Serving large, evil corporations no less!
In this movie, one such giant and evil corporation uses their lawyers to file a phony
copyright infringement lawsuit against a poor, working class family who refused to work for them. This evil corporation uses the law like a weapon to vindictively punish anyone who dares to defy them.
The movie was directed by sisters Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who are most
famous for directing The Matrix. It might surprise you to hear that the Wachowskis have been sued multiple times for allegedly plagiarizing the Matrix script. Given this history, it serves as no surprise that the directing duo harbor some animosity towards the way law in our country functions: intellectual property law in particular.
The Wachowski’s negative portrayal of lawyers in Speed Racer is clearly their way of
claiming retribution against the entire legal profession. And I stand before you today to
say, WE SHOULDN’T STAND FOR IT!
**pounds table**
So are you convinced?
In all seriousness, it is worth noting that the world of Speed Racer that the Wachowskis create is, lawyers and all, a bleak world. This is easy to overlook, because the film has a futuristic setting that looks like it came straight off a bubblegum wrapper. It’s chock-full of fantastical technologies, slapstick humor, and a bright color-palette. In fact, the movie serves you with such a barrage of exuberant visuals that it becomes almost overwhelming at times.
But underneath the razzle-dazzle is a story about corporate power. Corporate power
that is so immense, so all-encompassing and so malevolent that it seems unfathomable that anyone could stand up to it.
Our hero is Speed Racer. Yes, his first name is Speed and his last name is Racer. He’s an unassuming kid who has always dreamed of driving his car to victory in the racing Grand Prix. He’s the most talented driver in the world, and he naively thinks that’s going to be enough to get him to his goal. But he slowly comes to realize that the world of car racing is dominated by massive companies who don’t much care about how talented any of the drivers are. The companies are interested in boosting their own profits to ever greater heights and they have fixed the outcome of every car race in order to do so.
At first, these companies want to work with Speed Racer. They shower him with
promises of wealth, and gaudy displays of luxury in an attempt to convince him to race under their banner. When he instead elects to remain independent, the corporations lash out. They intentionally get their own drivers to crash into his car on the racetrack, and they attempt to financially ruin his family off of the racetrack. That’s where their lawyers come in.
In many ways, this story is in keeping with themes that are present throughout the
Wachowskis’ filmography. The Matrix portrayed a world where humanity has been
completely subjugated by technology. In another well-known Wachowski film called V
for Vendetta, the public has been ground down under the bootheel of an authoritarian
government.
All of these films have the same fundamental premise. A regular person is helpless
when faced with an institution of tremendous power, whether it’s technology,
government or corporations.
These are three powers that everyone in the modern world is familiar with.
When it comes to technology, we’ve all been watching with a mix of excitement and
nervousness at the rise of generative AI, and its potential to reshape and dominate the economy.
When it comes to government, whether you lean left or right politically, we have all felt, to some extent, the oppressive power of our own government.
When it comes to corporations, we’ve all witnessed the explosive levels of wealth
that are being accumulated by corporations, while the majority of Americans struggle
under an affordability crisis.
More and more, people in our country are starting to get the feeling that, no matter how hard they try, the deck is stacked against them. They aren’t getting a fair shot. Corporate, government and technological powers will always stifle and stymie their
ambitions.
Sports might be the single most beloved institution in our country precisely because
they level the playing field, literally. When two boxers step into the ring to fight, it doesn’t matter which one of them has more political connections, which one of them has a richer father, or a better lawyer. The only thing that matters is which one of them is the better boxer on that day. Nothing else. It’s a pure meritocracy –a contest that is decided right before the eyes of everyone watching, fully transparent, no nonsense.
Yet in Speed Racer, the corporations have managed to subvert even the beloved
institution of sports, by fixing the outcomes of every race.
How does our hero, Speed Racer, handle this?
Like Neo in the Matrix, Speed Racer begins the movie blissfully unaware of the
world’s dark realities. But early in the movie, he experiences the death of his brother,
and then he learns about the insidious forces that stack the deck against working
people like his family.
In a way, Speed Racer’s coming-of-age experience mirrors that of many of us. As
people move into adulthood, we often learn that the world is not all fun and games, the way it might’ve seemed when we were kids. Just as the whimsical races that Speed Racer grew up loving belied a darker reality, there are also darker realities in the real world that we might’ve been shielded from in our youth, be we all have to increasingly grapple with.
This may be reflected in your university experience, where people learn to understand and interact with the world in more complex way than they had previously.
But, remember that while there are lawyers who represent evil corporations, there are
also lawyers around who represent regular people standing up for themselves. While
there are lawyers who help corporations establish monopolies, there are also antitrust
lawyers who fight to break these monopolies apart. While there are lawyers who help
powerful government officials solicit bribes, there are also lawyers who will prosecute
the politicians who accept those bribes. And while there are lawyers who represent the Los Angeles Dodgers, there are also lawyers who represent the Arizona Diamondbacks!
It is possible to stand up to the powerful behemoths, but will standing up be enough?
Will Speed Racer be able to hang on to his love of racing, his devotion to his family, his zest for life—even after seeing all of the ugliness that he didn’t know was there—and triumph in the race of his life? Or will the corporations he’s up against be too strong, and will learning about their unscrupulousness cause him to give up, and fall into hopelessness and bitterness?
Well, let’s find out.
The film was introduced by Daniel J. Metz, a J.D. candidate in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Metz was recently selected to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of the Sports and Entertainment Law Journal. At the time of this event, he was an Associate Editor at the journal. He has worked on litigation and media-related matters involving entertainment, defamation, and copyright.