When someone says "It's a kids movie" to excuse problems, I'm always baffled at the stupidity. A movie aimed at an impressionable audience who may not be as good at recognizing problems has a responsibility to be extra careful, not a blank check to be as shitty as it wants.

Cars 2 is such a weird movie because they opened Pandora's box by revealing that the Cars universe is messed-up, but they didn't seem to notice the implications at all.

"secret crime family of disabled people" is my new squad name

Even as a kid, I thought it was super problematic that the lemons were depicted as villains

people: you can't have a gay character in a kids movie, that's spreading a wrong message! you're tainting their innocence meanwhile children's movies: **casually displays ableism, sexism, unhealthy relationships, bullying, etc and passes it off as a joke or a norm**

And this is why Robots is a better metaphor for the underprivileged and disabled then the whole cars series because the people behind the movie actually thought about the message

I still find it fascinating that Cars 2 and Robots have like the opposite message.

I remember sitting with my dad and sister as we tried to figure out what the different elements of the cars universe were allegories for. Eg: paint jobs being clothing, tires being shoes, Mia and Tia flashing their headlights at Lightning being actual flashing, and eventually when we came to Lemons I realised "oh shit that me". Also the "good disabled" car at the start angers me so much because the writers clearly realised what they were doing but didn't care enough to change the plot so they added a car to be like "Mater's not ableist, he has a disabled friend his economy directly benefits from the I'll health of!"

Honestly, the bit about using the villain having a personal tow truck as an example of laziness and extravagance to be particularly insulting as having help or aids around should not be seen as lazy. I am a part time dog walker/pet sitter. I am essentially a servant in this job. Most of my clients are rich, but some are disabled. They say don't get a dog if you can't take care of it, and that includes exercise. Well, one of my disabled clients has said she would have chosen a less active breed of dog had she known she'd get in a car wreck. Honestly, hiring someone to do a job for you IS getting it done and being responsible. Whether it's outsourcing a job because you can afford to, or because you want to, or because you have to, all are valid. In my other job, I'm a pastry chef. I chose both my jobs because all i want is flexibility. I am chronically fatigued and talking exhausts me, so i bake and prepare food part time (getting to listen to podcasts about monster lore and true crime because i work in an underground kitchen that was once literal servants quarters) and i walk dogs part time. Both jobs don't even equal full time because I'm gifted in coordinating and multitasking, but it's because i do what would be seen as servant work for the rich that I'm allowed this and still able afford to live. Now, i believe in Universal Basic Income, so that working isn't connected to survival. However, i would still do both of these jobs if i had that because walking dogs helps with my depression, and i take real pride in my pastries and find the work fun and rewarding. Jobs that aid others or just do jobs for them are valid and good and people shouldn't be ashamed of them.

To paraphrase Strong Female Protagonist, "A hero is someone who works to restore the status quo. A villain works to destroy it. We don't have a word in fiction for someone who works to change it." I wonder if part of the reason for the persistence of the disabled villain is that the things real disabled people advocate for require rethinking how we structure society - how we value/measure work, how we provide healthcare, etc. - so much that people can't clearly differentiate between wanting to change/fix things and wanting to "destroy the foundations of civilization" (see every absurd anti-trans statement for the same phenomenon).

I can see the Rusteze product being a strong metaphor America's obsession with dental cosmetics, which is frequently tied to classism. Dental work is expensive and often not covered by health insurance, some have coined the term "luxury bones" to refer to teeth based on this weird and horrible oversight. And often one of the first things people do upon coming into a more comfortable income is "fix their teeth," usually getting important work on cavities, but also braces, veneers, whitening to get them to that celebrity perfect standard, that will keep them from being profiled as poor. And there are so many over the counter products that prey on this class indicator, along with sometimes even people's genuine health problems related to their dental care, fancy toothpastes that claim to reverse cavities and perfect everything, the myth that whiter always means healthier (it definitely doesn't, and whitening can cause serious enamel damage actually!). And meanwhile, the classism in dental care access often leads to people having to ignore their genuinely debilitating health issues like infections, impactions, and misalignments and pains that affect their ability to work, eat, sleep, even risk serious health issues. And there's the imagery of rust and tooth decay aligning well, it happens gradually and degrades a very commonly seen and profiled part of the face. And of course, the tone of the second movie even as a kid, felt so off and icky to me. I didn't get it at the time, but yeah villainising the disabled/undesirables of the society like that, mocking them, even having a slur for them in universe just feels so gross. They're just silly little cars and all, but thinking about the symbolism makes the writing feel really messed up. Another fantastic video, thankyou so much!! I love hearing your analysis of disability representation and learning more about the community.

The fact that they could have possibly made the villains be people who want to discontinue or destroy cars who are ‘discontinued’ INSTEAD of the cars being denied access to repairs and basic decency is wild 14:59

The Cars series has probably one of the least thought through worlds I've ever seen, them not seeing the rampant ableism in this movie isn't surprising

As a kid I used to love both of these films, especially the second one, because of the spies. I felt bad for the disfunctional guy at the begining and I cringed at the Matter behaviours, but I didn't notice how screwed up this universe is until somebody pointed out the eugenics in the second movie. Just, hating the bad guys was convinient, becuase spies needed somebody to fight with, right? Thank you for making these and helping me notice and overcome my ableism.

14:50 “we’re not part of a secret union of crime families” oh thank GOD I thought I was the only disabled person who wasn’t rich and evil and wore a monocle

I think a way to fix the ableism in this movie is that 1. make it clear that the lemon cars aren't bad guys, and 2. actually have it where Mater is one of the few cars who doesn't treat them poorly. In the bathroom scene instead of Mater being incredibly rude towards the cars, have where he's actually quite polite to them and there could even be a moment where he corrects himself and apologizes when he uses the word lemon. Later on when Holley is electrocuting that one car for information, instead of Finn being the one who stops her, its Mater who's disgusted with what she done. Later on when Mater infiltrates the meeting, he realizes that the lemons aren't bad guys, in fact they hate what they are doing, but they believe that they have no choice since the leader says its the only way for them to get the help they need, when the leader tells the lemons to kill Lightning the cars are visibly uncomfortable but believing that they had no choice they go though with the plan, with Mater trying to convince them throughout the third act that this isn't right, which causes them to feel even more conflicted. Eventually it's revealed that Axlerod was the one behind the plan, with the added part that he was gonna blame the lemon cars for what happened, which angers the cars who realized that they were used and turn against him While its not perfect I do this will not only make the lemon cars more sympathetic characters, but it could even be a way to condemn those who take advantage of people who are desperate for any help

Oakwyrm, I never noticed Rusteeze as a medicated product. Holy shit, that is soooo fucked up. You explained this really well, people are going to accuse you of ruining the movie or being too sensitive, but you hit the nail on the head with this one. Don't listen to any of the disheartened people, because you aren't the problem for pointing out flaws that already existed.

I remember watching this film with my mom some years ago. She loves cars, so she recognized the makes of the lemons and thought the whole thing was hysterical. I think that might be what Pixar wanted to accomplish: a nod and a wink to real world car enthusiasts. But when she and I talked about the deeper implications of this in a world where cars are people, she agreed with me that it was pretty messed up. Pixar either didn’t think this through or they didn’t care. Great video as always!

oh wow i've never watched Cars 2 but it's wild that they dropped the ball THAT hard on it?? especially weird because i Have watched Cars 3 and it was an unexpectedly poignant narrative that very VERY openly explored privilege and directly incorporated the leading Latina voice actress' personal experience into the story, and that made me frankly OBSESSED with it; so to know these two movies exist alongside each other without any thought given to how the themes very openly clash is. giving me a whiplash.

Every time I see a reference to Pixar's Cars, my mind immediately goes to Blue Sky's Robots, where instances of. I guess... Robot ableism? Are frequently shown only in villainous characters. Who end up bonked at best and dying from their own tools of mass destruction at worst. Which is good, I think we should toss billionaires exploiting and killing people into pits of fire. Not saying the movie is perfect, it definitely has issue, but I think it handled even this better than Cars. Epic.

Meanwhile your life sucks if you happen to be born a train

The rust remover seems closer to a pain reliever like how real world NASCAR drivers sell migraine medicine which is still pretty dang predatory

My oldest sister has brittle bones "disease" and has never been able to walk in her whole life. She has never been able to have even a single day when people just stare at her like she isn't even human and there's been plenty of times ignorant people have said some really insensitive stuff to her or my family and refused to back down or apologize. One time we were going to go out for dinner for my birthday and the woman who was supposed to show us to our table said "so that's 5 people and a wheelchair then?" And when we dared correcting her saying there are 6 people, one of whom uses a wheelchair she got really defensive and started insulting us and she even told her manager we were attacking her for "no reason". We had enough and ended up going somewhere else but I'll never forget that night. Some people are honestly disgusting and need to grow up

So a major contributing factor to the plot in Cars 1 is that Lightning doesn't have headlights, which is similar to humans having bad low-light vision. He also doesn't have rear view mirrors, which is the car equivalent to peripheral vision. That combination mirrors a lot of visually impaired humans, which I think is kind of interesting.

I think Lemon, in the Cars universe, is similar to the R slur, where people aren’t educated on the fact that is IS an ableist slur for so long that people in the community it’s meant to be against use it for people including those in their own community so the people that DO know it’s an ableist slur have to fight against a MASSIVE majority of people, including people in their own community because the slur has been so normalized.

I keep thinking that the third cars movie is the second one and that this one just doesn’t exist and I honestly don’t remember anything about it other than Mater becomes a spy

I always interpreted the rusty cars as “lepers”, with how they are affected by rust and how McQueen treats being touched by them

People do not deserve harassment for talking about disability representation in media. Any media aimed at kids should be talked about on how it handles disability.

this caught my attention IMMEDIATELY.

I think you really make a good point about the hints of ableism in the first movie. It's easy to miss with the trash fire that the second movie is. I also was intrigued by the point that the demonization of disabled people was meant to divert attention from those who profit from fossil fuel use. Honestly, it's great to hear another disabled person bring this up. When I brought this up in my conservative-ass family, they thought I was reading too much into it and am too easily offended. For anyone who wants more content on this, Jack Saint also did an excellent video on this topic called "Oops, Disney's Cars Did Eugenics."

is it me or does the axel villain look and sound like a car version of elon musk, like I can't be the only one seeing this right

I really liked cars 1, so cars 2 was a big let down to me, and i can add this to the list as to why

Congratulations, you've given Schaff ANOTHER reason to have this as his most hated Pixar movie

I used to like the film because I like spy movies but as I got older I started to realise how yikes it actually was.

As a kid, I thought the lemons were all just supposed to be old people since, well, old cars. I never picked up on the ableism in the movies... and dang, is it rampant. Thank you for your informative video!

I was never a fan of the Cars movies due to never really being a cars person, and this is even more reason to not watch these movies. 3:11 I have had the issue of applying real world issues to ficitional species not working annoy me in several movies. the most recent was Elementals. The message was good, but not liking the fire people because they will literly set anything flamable they touch on fire and the fire people not liking the water people because they can seriously injure (and maybe even kill if it wasn't a kids movie) without even trying, the racism doesn't work as well.

Uh, content warning for venting about medical issues and ableism?? This review sparked one hell of a fire in me listening. The job thing hit me hard. I'm not able to work full-time, and my current part time job is hell on my body and my boss is extremely ableist and claims she's worked with autistic kids (keynote, KIDS, at a daycare center that didn't specialize with special needs kids) and ergo every issue I have is me 'imagining' it, or 'exaggerating' and she frequently makes comments about "adding that to your long list of issues" because God forbid that any condition, no matter how 'mild' a disability seems, actually is disabling and not some quirky, slightly inconvenient thing. I fully informed her that I am not able to go to the hospital (working class, we can't even afford to drive down to the beach for a weekend to put our finances into perspective) and she sTILL INSISTS on me going to get stuff checked out "If its really as bad as you're saying." Of course someone who regularly flies down to Florida, goes to see operas and ballets (Genuinely something she does, she's rich) would say that. I bring up the issue that I don't even get paid a living wage ($100 every two weeks, not counting the insanely inconsistent tip money I get at the end of the night, which often than not is between $7 and $10) and she insists on me working more days, even though day 2 out of 3 working, my back is *busted.* I've also pulled so many back and neck muscles with this job that it sent me to the ER because I was having stroke-like symptoms (whole side of my face went numb) and instead of acknowledging that heyy, my disability is a major factor in addition to the work being overwhelmingly physical, that, "Oh you just overdid yourself" and told me to my face that she "knew" I was just having an anxiety attack and that's why my face went numb. I also have issues with my reproductive organs (not yet diagnosed, my first and only trip to a gyno was traumatizing despite my files and I informing them that I was a survivor of assault) and she also piles this into the "WOW you can't have ALL these issues" and it makes me want to curb-stomp her into the concrete, and she insists that "its impossible to overdose on tylenol" when I told her I already took the max limit for my last time of the month and my intense cramping did NOT let up. its impossible for me to find work since I can't even drive. I try places like indeed to find work before I gotten this job, and the only other job I can feasibly get is not only a really exhausting full time one I've had before, but the reason why I quit in the first place is still very much a present issue over there. It just feels hopeless. I know that in the future I'm going to be homeless because there's no way I can keep up with anything, and if homelessness won't kill me, my body going 'screw you' and being in a country with one of the worst health care systems ever will.

yet another good example of why your channel is important. one might look at the title of this video and in a knee-jerk reaction think it ridiculous, its cars its fundamentally ridiculous, but if one gives what you're saying a shot.. holy shit you're right, the cars sequel really had a secret crime syndicate of disabled vehicles including the good ol trope of ignoring every good point the villain has because god forbid a kids movie have moral ambiguity. I said it before in a previous comment but im glad you arent scared to call disabled characters disabled, its a level of honesty people really need. its too easy to get swept up in a fantasy setting and forget that just because a character doesnt display trope-y disability doesnt mean they cant be called disabled. like of course a living car so rusted that its falling apart is disabled it makes so much sense once its pointed out

“It’s just a kids movie” it’s the most annoying thing to hear. It completely justifies the ignorance some people have when putting messages in media and also means that media for family or a younger demographic isn’t taken seriously, even with heavy themes, because it’s “just for kids”

I remember one of the scenes where one of the cars leaked, and, yeah, the joke was that it pissed itself. It's not even a bit funny when you think it at the light of disabled person being mocked for not having control over their body functions.

As a kid I never remembered the plot and erased the movie from my memory

This now provokes a thought about Mator being a child and seeing other cars regularly make fun of dysfunctional cars and openly use slurs as "normal" or "just a joke" and it... breaks my heart.

Good video. it is good you pointed out 'comedy' can be problematic thinking in disguise. It is sad that so much of what we laugh at is people 'lower' than us.

Can u do nimona since its the best animated movie so far this year and deals with incredibly heavy topics, plus you know queer men, and the fact nimona shapeshifting is an allegory for genderfluid, oh! And one of the good guys is missing an arm, that isn't "fixed" by the end, and has a scar on his face.

I always love to see your videos, nobody really talks about topics like this, and when they do, it's never from experience. So thank you! ❤❤

My dyslexia went crazy and i thought i was clicking on a video essay about how cars2 is aetheist

As someone who grew up with a grandma on QVC and got all kinds of weird “medical” magazines? Rust-eze is more of a commentary on that. They have a big star who was probably never sick, or had wrinkles, show how good they look now that they use this. And a certain part of America falls for it hook line and sinker. Selling snake oil is such a common market, most people don’t bat an eye at it. As long as it’s not hurting anyone in any place other than they’re wallet. I saw Cars as a kid and… yeah. Recognized these guys right away. Lol. I see them less now, but they’re still everywhere. I think the scene was trying to set up the class commentary, and in these communities? A snake oil spokesperson is probably the best place to start if you want to show that disconnect. I definitely don’t agree with the practice, but I’m also not surprised the Rust-eze guys are the type you’d go out on the back porch and have a beer with. Maybe even say “oh you got me good you no good cheater! Pass the beer” it’s a weird culture. I don’t pretend to understand it all the time.

Cars is possibly the most bizarre series of films I've ever seen in my life and I love analysing it for some reason.

Mater was so fucking annoying in this movie, i find it hard to believe that they expected us to empathize with him. throughout the entire movie, he kept messing things up, almost on purpose, and being rude or obnoxious. that sequence where he is tied to that bell tower thing and starts agonizing about how stupid he is legit made me laugh, i dont know how that was supposed to be an emotional revelation where we feel bad for him. Lightning was justified in getting annoyed with Mater, and Mater needed some real character development. also, i know you mostly talk about movies and shows but I'd love it if you could do a video on the Six of Crows duology. the protagonist is disabled, multiple characters are heavily implied to be neurodivergent (Wylan is dyslexic and Jesper is ADHD-coded), and three of the characters are queer as well. i personally found all the characters to be realistic, well-rounded and capable in their own ways, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

The fact cars/planes can get upgrades but lemons can’t for some reason? And they stop manufacturing parts just because

I never really thought about the disability in cars 2. I got distracted by the spy stuff

My brother and I used to love these films when we where younger and I did legit use to perfer the second film to the first when I was little mostly because I thought the spy cars were cool I dunno up until like legit a couple years I had no taste.

I thought rust was intended to represent aging and rust-eze was an anti-aging cream

im not like mocking this video, but "Ableism in Cars 2" is a wild video title to stumble across

I honestly don't even see anyone using the "It's just a kids movie" argument here. This is one of those few times where it is pretty universally understood that a movie is hot garbage. Most people just choose to ignore its existence, and that includes the writers of the third film.

I always thought Rusteze was like a skin care comparison. Like how some elders will try to look younger even if already old and “rusty”

cars 2 is just robots if we weren’t on the side of rodney and big weld

2:52 I believe a big criticism of this could be changed by viewing it as more of an “anti aging cream” rather than acne or something. It still applies for the predatory effect, but it does change the context

As a mechanical engineer, I can see where you're coming from. We're dealing with a world of sapient machines that can have parts replaced at will - McQueen himself had his painted-on headlights (like real-life NASCAR cars) replaced with real ones. By all logic, it should be possible to engineer replacement parts which don't have the crippling design flaws that these cars are living with, and actually produce them for all the cars who'd need them. Hell, Mater exhibited mechanical knowledge of his own - if he were so inclined, he could make a healthy living helping "dysfunctional cars" as you call them live normal lives instead of profiting off of them trying and failing to do so.

I love how that one car said Mater is the only one to treat them with any respect and then he just…exclusively calls them slurs throughout the movie.

Even as a child this movie made me so uncomfortable. I saw it once as an adult to see if it was really as bad as I remembered. It was even worse. The "lemons" are both rich and powerful *and* too weak and poor to effectively fight their marginalisation. Total conspiracy thinking

Not related to the point of ableism. I thought it was neat that Fillmore recognised the fake alternative fuel for what it was and enlisted help from Sarge to replace it with actual alternative fuel.

Hello, Oakwyrm! I came to your channel because of tma videos but stayed for disability reviews. There are no people in my life who are disabled, so it wasn't a thing that I really thought about. But your videos about disability tropes really helped me to see another point of view, get rid of stereotypes that I had and be more mindful about things that I say. Thank you so much for your work!

It's always wild when someone just describes the plot of cars 2. Jack Saint did a fantastic video on Cars 2 as well, about an hour of tackling it from every angle you can, bringing up a lot of good points most people usually don't when discussing Cars 2.

The longer this movie exists, the worse it seems to get.

Another example of a story where the villain has a point but the creators couldnt work in the right nuances so woops lets just make them do something irredeemably evil like blow others up.

If I had a nickel for every time someone talks about the ableism in cars 2, I'd have 2 nickels. It isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

You probably won’t see this… but would you want to talk about disability rep in My Little Pony? They do it really well with some characters, but I think with other characters it could have been done better. Some of the first ones that come to my mind: 1. There is a character named Kerfuffle from one of the specials that has a prosthetic leg(or pegged leg, I can’t remember) and her disability is never addressed or brought to your attention. The main characters interact with her throughout the special, and he just exists as a disabled person without her disability even being mentioned. 2. There’s a background character in one of the episodes that briefly interacts with the main cast, and he uses a wheelchair. Again, it’s not addressed or mentioned at all, and the characters just respect him as they would anyone else. 3. One of the main characters(not the main six characters, but an “adopted” sister of one of those six) named Scootaloo is a pegasus who can’t fly due to her underdeveloped wings. Since she is young, she thinks she’s a late bloomer and works hard to try to learn. Throughout the series, she realizes that she never will be able to fly(meaning that she won’t be able to control the weather like the rest of the pegasi, and she can’t access the city of the pegasi-located in the clouds-without being carried by another pegasus or taking some other form of accessible aerial transport there). She accepts this about herself after feeling insecure about it for a long time due to other people teasing her about it. In the last episode, we see how she looks as an adult; wings are still tiny and underdeveloped, and she still can’t fly. She was never “fixed” and I think that’s such a good thing for representation. 4. This is the one that I think could be handled a lot better, but I want to hear your perspective as a physically disabled person(I’m an able-bodied person). In the My Little Pony Movie, the main antagonist (named Tempest Shadow) is a unicorn whose horn was cut off in an encounter with a monster… and that’s the basis of her villain origin story. She tries to make a deal so her horn can be healed, but she fails, and at the end of the movie, she doesn’t end up being healed and learns to accept her disability. I don’t really know what to think about this one. I think there are some other examples of representation in this show, but these are the first ones I could think of. There is also a lot of unconfirmed mental disability representation as well as physical disability representation(for example, there are quite a few probably autistic characters in different places on the spectrum, many of which are in the main character group, and there’s a character that seems to have Down syndrome), but that list could go on for a long while. These are the first examples of physical disability rep that I could think of

I have always considered rusting as the Cars universe equivalent for leprosy. If that is a case with the Cars movies, the context and the jokes of the scenes featuring rusting cars are much worse. At least Aardman Animation acknowledged the problematic aspect with the leprosy joke in the trailer for The Pirates! and rewrote the joke for the finished movie.

It felt weird watching the bad guys be often old cars, my family has always driven a very old car and we love it and care for it even when it costs a lot to keep it running. Because of it's age no new parts are being made. And all the other points in this video

I use a cane and, with the news about increasing pain from peripheral neuropathy, I'm considering getting a wheelchair to assist with my day to day life. I'm only 24 and I actually look far younger, as such I tend to get unpleasant stares and rude comments about using a cane."freeloader", "leech" and "parasite" are thrown around a lot because I receive disability income... seeing this movie, not just as a travesty of filmmaking but as a very malicious allegory makes me inclined to rethink my views on the world and gives me genuine fear about the notion of using a wheelchair.

when i watched cars 2 for the first time as a 9 year old the message that the movie seemed to be giving gave me a bad feeling in my stomach. i was just like, they can’t possibly be saying that the “lemon” cars are in the wrong for not wanting to be treated like shit, right?

No wonder why this sequel gets so many hate, even from the fans and non-fans of Cars too. Its ableist!

Cars 2: literally showing that cars are not only sentient but understand the concept of death by being blown up! Kid watching the Disney film: "cool! Splosion!"

I feel like a better movie would've examined the lemons motivation and place in soceity, making Mater question his actions and the spy organization in general, given his wealth of experience with rusty cars. That could make for some cool conflict with the spy cars, who may or may not have troubles with killing many cars. Making Miles Axelrod a rich guy exploiting lemons on a false idea of reclaimation, when he really only cares about his oil business, could be cool. Making the underlings sympathetic could make for some good drama. Especially with the actual murder the spies comit.

Some info on Otis for non Americans- Otis in CARS 2 is a reference to Otis Campbell the town drunk a recurring character from The Andy Griffith Show the running joke being After a binge, Otis will usually lock himself in the town jail until he is sober

I can certainly sympathize with the "lemons" of Cars 2 and the discrimination/mistreatment they face, but I do believe that the villains did need to be stopped. The many problems the lemons face are used by the villains not as problems that need to be reversed/solved but as justification for their actions. None of the plans that are implemented make life any better for "lemons" around the world, they just make them very wealthy. I find a parallel between the plot of Cars 2 and the real life stories of the American mafia; immigrants coming to the U.S., be they Irish, Jewish, or Italian would face discrimination by the "natives" and be forced to live in substandard housing and recieve substandard services. This led to the rise in mafia families in New York and accross the country, leading to a few of these immigrant families becoming very wealthy, but rarely did they use their influence to make life better for other immigrant families, rather consolidating power for themselves. The mistreatment for the mafia isn't something to be stopped, but a justification for their actions.

I was thinking about the slur thing, it could be in reference to how people use the r-word in everyday life. Which that does suck btw but, it's the sad reality

If you think about it, the third movie is the story of Lightning recovering from a traumatic injury that basically ends his career.

I just finished nimona and let me tell you I SOBBED I think you'd have a field day making a video about this gorgeous movie, with the queerness(bez telling nimona to just be a girl and nimona insisting that she's just nimona SCREAMS trans)and what felt to me like nimona being super autistic (shape shifting can be interpreted as stimming 100%) and bez trying to get her to mask. also nobody really caring about Bez losing an arm apart from jokes felt weird. anywho I could probably make my own video about it but I'd love to see your views on it

I'm pretty sure that the rusty cars in the first movie are supposed to represent the elderly

When I was little I thought lemon was a synonym for villain.

Something I realized is Mater possibly neurodivergent? In the second cars he gets mocked for being different and socially awkward, as a autistic/ADHD person I can’t help but relate to that. I loved the first Cars (probably because I live in New Mexico near Route 66 and I’m a NASCAR fan), but I can’t stand the second one because of it felt like some odd mater fanfic meant to sell toys, also the mocking of “lemons” just seems off Additionally as an Italian-American I find it interesting that they name a character “Guido” (which is a Ethnic Slur towards Italian males), on the otherhand I’d take the Cars characters like Luigi and Guido (two devoted Italian immigrants) over another stereotypical mafia character (don’t get me started on how much I hate Sharktale (which is a bunch of racial stereotypes put on fish and somehow a kids movie)

I've always loved mater in Cars 2 as a disability metaphor, but honestly with the "Lemons" and stuff it's pretty ableist looking back on it

I relate to your point about injury due to someone else's carelessness presented as comedy. From my experience, a lot of kids just kind of accept that kind of thing as 'humor' because of how normalized it is, but over time, the bad taste left by those kinds of 'gags' starts setting in.

this is like the robot racism problem. its a metaphor collapsing in on its self because the writers didnt think that hard about it but the slur thing was definitely to far.

Heres what I think they originally had in mind Cars 2 is meant to be about lightning accepting Mater for who he is, because hes different from most people. Now what I think they had in mind was to draw a comparison between Mater and the villains. Theyre both outcasts of society, theyre not "normal" in their own ways. I think thats what they were originally planning and thinking about when making movie, of course they failed miserably in every aspect of all of this and it still has disturbing subtext as a result of this failure, but I dont think they originally intended to be ableist. I think they just wanted to show the villains and Mater arent tok different, and what seperates them is how they deal with their differences. Ithink that was their original intentions, but it was lost due to how little effort they put into thinking it through.

I wish I could watch this video on how one of the worst pixar movies (never seen it, but the internet keeps saying it, so it must be true-) is ableist. But it's literally 12 am.

The beginning scene would have been a good scene if it had been there to show that mator is a jack@$$ in need of character growth. Imagine if the point of the broken down cars as "villians" was that mator eventually realizes that he's part of the problem and should be treating them better. It would lead great into cars 3 where lightning mcqueen gets injured and is scared he won't be able to work anymore

Man, I am so glad that out of all the movies from my childhood, this was the one I remember next to nothing about. Literally, what were they thinking with this movie.

i just thought it was bad, i didnt know it was BAD

@Oakwyrm actually love your videos and I’m some one who deals with autism just like you do and I love the cool community you were able to set up.

Rust- eaz is a medicated bumper cream.... It's hemroid cream . For the elderly. That's why they are falling apart , they are old. Presumably old rednecks McQueen is mentioned a number of times in the 1st movie to not have actual headlights. They are stickers and his lack of night time vision dose cause problems afew times. So I think it's supposed to show him being arrogant and ungrateful because he's embarrassed about being in commercials about butt cream rather than being grateful they decide to back a racer with bad eyesight.

One of my friends noticed his vision was deteriorating after he ran into a lampost after watching Cars 2 So I'd say... Yeah Cars 2 is Ableist

yay another video!! I love watching your videos because they're so informative and they tell me which movies/shows to avoid I sometimes find myself just looking on your channel and waiting for a new video or scrolling through to find a video I haven't seen yet

Yesss! Oakwyrm posted! I love your videos

Does this mean that if my theory of Cars 2 not being canon is correct, that really means that Mater just made up a story of how he beat up dysfunctional cars to come out on top as a believable hero? I’m starting to think that Mater isn’t much of a good guy at all!

Thank you for putting subtitles on your videos. This makes it more accessible for me (who has troubles sometimes lining up the audio to actual thoughts) and my girlfriend who is deaf. I really appreciate it.

I watched this thing with it in the background so I completely missed the fact they were disabled and it was fine. It works just as well, they could’ve kept the same plot removing the disabled part and it would’ve been fine.

I feel like it'd be super easy to fix this movie, or at least fix it a little- by having mater at the end say something like "yknow, axelrod and his posse mayve been bad apples....but seein the way they all had to struggle made me think." Push for green fuel, Otis gets the aid he actually needs with no shame, etc. It definitely wouldn't be perfect but it'd at least be SOMETHING