Car/Care

The figure of the automobile stands at a unique junction of forces operating at both personal and global scales. In order to underscore the macroeconomic importance of cars it should suffice to recall the dimensions of the 2008 automotive industry crisis which often implied that the car industry was the necessary base of economic activity as such. On the other hand our individual relationships with our cars display many characteristics of organic prostheses or virtual extensions of our bodies—just look at the multitude of ways to “pimp your ride”. The aim of this paper is therefore to explore the role of the car as a site of mediation between libidinal and political economy. While remaining within a general Lacanian psychoanalytic framework my argument draws heavily upon Bernard Stiegler’s conception of technicity as the privileged site of subjectivization or the coemergence of individual and social bodies. I proceed through a close reading of several explicitly car-oriented films produced during the 1970s (Vanishing Point Two-Lane Blacktop) and historicize them through an analysis of films drawn from the last decade (Transformers Drive The Fast and the Furious).