Spectacular Stunts and Digital Detachment: Connecting Effects to Affects in US Car Movies

Car movies—movies that subordinate plot and character to chases and collisions—typically appear in cycles that coincide with breakthroughs in visual effects production, concomitant changes in production cultures, and—not coincidentally—devastating advancements in corporate globalization. Comparing the construction and ideological framing of automotive effects from the 1970s and 2000s US car movie cycles, I demonstrate how digital effects cultures are promoting neoliberal economies of spectacle through the same tropes their predecessors established to critique corporate culture. This analysis refutes prior critical dismissals of spectacle as mere visual stimulation, suggesting that its sensation also inspires political feelings