Frontier Nostalgia
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Frontier Nostalgia
Imagine driving alongside with a confidant, in a classic 1950s cherry red Cadillac convertible with plush, leather, tan interior, top-of-the line control center, well-proportioned, circular tires that can withstand any terrain, and stylish wings of steel capable of flying lengths without end, through miles upon miles of flat endless landscapes free from the commotion of the inner city; without a soul in sight but the surrounding elements. The scenery is majestic. As the Cadillac flies through Route 66, there appears to be a town occupied with motels, car stops, gas stations, diners and several other tourists passing through. Sunset approaches, and it is wise to book a motel for the night. Morning comes around and the sun marks the start of a brand new day. It is time to hit the road to continue the enticing adventure, without a restricted destination.
Adventure, long, windy roads, flat plains, and Americana all represent the frontier. Disney/ Pixar animated film, Cars, depicts the traditional 1950s American car trip narrative as a fun-filled, nostalgic adventure before the enactment of the Interstate Freeways. Traditional car trips on the frontier usually do not have a set destination. In Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck describes this as vacilando. “If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere but doesnt greatly care whether or not he gets there although he has no direction” (Steinbeck 63). Road trips are meant to give one a sense of freedom and liberation, and therefore, do not need to have a set destination and/or direction, rather one just goes wherever the road descends. “It seemed like hours since I had passed a car or a house or a store, for this was the country gone back to forest. A desolate loneliness settled on me—almost frightening loneliness” (Steinbeck 60). Steinbeck illustrates another side to what a car trip can be like. The narrator is traveling the countryside with his canine companion, Charley. While driving, the narrator gets lonesome because Charley could fill the void of a human presence. Trips without a human companion can be lonely and quite boring.
Radiator Springs, a fictional location, used to be filled with vibrant travelers making their way through the Mother Road, which is commonly known as Route 66. After the opening of the interstate I-40, the once vibrant town of Radiator Springs transitioned into a ghost town. Though Cars is an animated movie and is based in a fictional town, it was derived from a city actually known as Peach Springs, Arizona. Just as the movie illustrates, Peach Springs was a once populated town on Route 66 before the completion of I-40. Maria, a character in Joan Didions Play It As It Lays, describes her fathers deserted town of Silver Wells, “Paulette ran the restaurant and balled my father and sometimes let me pretend to cashier after school. I say pretend because there were no customers. As it happened the highway my father counted on came nowhere near” (Didion 6). Silver Wells, similar to Peach Springs, was a deserted town that was not able to thrive because there was not a nearby highway to attract travelers. Small, tourist towns depend on highways to lure in tourists. Without tourists, they cannot stay in business.
The idea that “American economy is an endless fertile continent whose boundaries never need to be reached, a domain that could expand in perpetuity, a gigantic playing field that would never run out of room…” (Shames), mirrors the concept frontier. Just as there was a traditional frontier back then, there still remains different variations of the same concept today. Many car manufacturers attempt to incorporate frontier elements into their advertisements, such as Jeep.
Jeep, a sports utility vehicle, is known for its daring off-road performance capabilities. As off-road capabilities are the major selling point for Jeep, its advertisements coincide and exemplify just that. The 2008