Stealing Cars by John A. Heitmann

Author:John A. Heitmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2014-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF VIOLENCE IN THE CITY

A prime example highlighting the connections between violence in an urban environment, race, and auto theft can be found in the 1993 release Menace II Society and Spike Lee’s 1994 New Jersey Drive.25 Without doubt, these two films are by far the most emotionally powerful and realistic of all twentieth-century films that focus on the topic of auto theft. Menace II Society paints an image of what it was like to live in Los Angeles’s Watts neighborhood during the 1990s, including carjacking, auto theft, and drive-by shootings. New Jersey Drive, as it opens, introduces viewers to the central figure in the story, Newark car thief Jason Petty (Sharron Corley), one of a large group of aimless young African Americans who steal cars, in the process making Newark, New Jersey, the car-theft capital of America. They do it to “put on a show”; it “didn’t matter what the car” was. As it turns out, a struggle between young car thieves and the Newark police escalates into a deadly war. The auto-theft squad headed by Lieutenant Emil Roscoe (Saul Stein) brutalizes the young thieves at every opportunity, and the excessive force only exacerbates a volatile situation. The power of this movie goes beyond simply the characterization of auto theft in a major American city; a complex picture of hopelessness, despair, social disintegration, racism, hate, and comradeship quickly emerges.

Lighter, and whiter, the 2000 Gone in Sixty Seconds contains plenty of juvenile humor, but it is set in a time when several contemporary truths concerning auto theft surfaced.26 Unlike Toby Halicki’s 1974 original, this remake contains significant elements of violence, perhaps even violence for violence’s sake. The most significant theme of the film contrasts the practical wisdom of the organized professional with the impulsiveness of the young amateur. At the beginning of the film, a gang of young thieves led by Kip Raines (Giovanni Ribisi) steals a Porsche 911 by throwing a brick through a dealer’s showroom window, opening the key box, and crashing through the showroom glass. Somewhat miraculously, not a scratch appears on the stolen car. A foolish flirtation puts the trio in the sights of the law, and they are followed back to their hideout, where they elude capture but also lose the cars they have stolen. Afterward, these young men are described by a seasoned professional as “little boys in nursery school.” And while the inexperienced young men play a part in the redemptive boosts that follow, lapses in judgment ultimately reduce them to having their “decision-making processes taken away from them.” Kip’s failure leads to the recruitment of his retired expert car-thief brother, Memphis Raines (Nicholas Cage), who, along with former collaborators including Otto (James Duval), is forced by extortion to steal fifty high-end vehicles in four days, with South America as the ultimate destination. These retired pros are now doing things like teaching kids karting and how to restore cars rather than chopping them, and teaching Asian women how to drive. Perhaps

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