The culture we live in today is diverse, vibrant, and constantly changing. However, one factor in today’s culture that has not changed for many decades is the idealization of automobiles. Car culture may not seem as if it affects the overall society to many people, yet it practically defines modern transportation and is a major part of all of our lives. Our society cannot effectively move forward with the idea of public transportation while car culture is fully immersed in our everyday routines. The support behind the car dependent civilization is often not even noticeable because it is seen as such a constant in society today. Meanwhile, many people are advocating public transit as the most sound mode of transportation yet they cannot overcome the advertising, idealism, and media support that goes along with cars in today’s world. It appears as if our society is caught in a type of “catch 22” where we know it is best for our lifestyles to expand public transportation but we are being held back by our very own culture.
Imagine carpooling to work and, while sitting in traffic, you hear in the background an advertisement on the radio that describes a luxurious new car, but you aren’t fully paying attention to the ad because you’re talking to your friend about the awful traffic jam and how somebody needs to do something about it. Then while pulling off the highway, there is a billboard for your favorite movie, depicting the main characters smiling in their car. This reality is not far off of what many Americans face nearly everyday and that is before they even reach their workplace. It’s not that most Americans don’t see that automobiles are an issue; it’s merely that they cannot change anything about it while sitting in their cars. That is not to say that everyday Americans are to blame. The majority of city infrastructures do not allow for there to be another reasonable alternative for the mass amounts of people driving. That has to do with the idea of our cultures, or cities, literally being built around the mobility of cars. Over the years, cars have become more and more idealized and much of this can be attributed to the public media. Movies and TV shows have long been showing and, on occasion, exaggerating the benefits of owing a car. As discussed by Schiller in Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning, and Implementation: “With or without formal encouragement from the auto industry, on film and in its lifestyle, glamorized and romanticized the automobile” (36). Cars have been a kind of status symbol for as long as they have existed; when people see their favorite movie star driving around in a new car they will automatically want a car for themselves. This idolization of cars is shown in other types of media as well, such as TV commercials, pop music, radio ads, and more. Our society has fenced itself in and prevented itself from successfully expanding our public transportation and therefore benefitting our community by exploiting the appeal of the automobile.
So how should advocates of public transit get their point across to those who idealize cars? This is a major problem and there does not seem to be any clear-cut answer. The population that these people need to reach is that which drives to work in traffic, wasting hours of valuable time and polluting the air, yet those residents in their cars do not have time to listen to supporters of public transit and if the supporters tried to advertise via car radio then they are pushing the line of hypocrites. This leaves our society in an unchanging and detrimental path. In the end, something has to change. Whether is be the way people are promoting public transit or the way in which cars are romanticizes to the general public or both, action needs to be taken so that our communities can have the opportunity to grow and thrive freely without being held back by our past with automobiles.
Works Cited
Schiller, Preston, Eric C. Bruun, and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy. Introduction to Sustainable
Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation. London: Earthscan, 2010.
Sarah, I love the focus of your blog post. I think it has been a great idea to discuss your view and the general view of car advertising as a definition of our culture. I completely agree that it is nearly impossible to avoid the exciting billboards selling car and the luxurious car in a tv commercial. The point your made reminded me of how much my taste for cars has been influenced by the soap operas I watched. I think one of the biggest issues is that people are not aware of the great rhetoric used by the media.
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