Oooh these are really neat takes, man! It's fun to review past favorites in the franchise. I'm curious though since you listed the main films, do you have any overall thoughts of any of the Maters Tall Tales shorts, the Radiator Springs shorts, or the new Cars on the Road series?
As well (just in my own little lane here lol) I hope you don't mind this, but I was really curious about your Dusty thoughts here, and the takes on it piqued my interest, and I have been absolutely itching to make some of that debate-y, topic delving content again. So I just wanted to like, add some takes on top of your takes and kind of paint up Dusty as a character.
And...side note this is really, really long.
Like seriously, get a snack. Stretch a little and get cozy somewhere. Or like, use the bathroom. I uh. I went ham on this one...it's late, and I had time to lol
So Dusty, right? He's been a particularly interesting character for me to see people's reactions to, mostly because of the fact that a lot of people are very 50/50 on responses; either they love him, or they could not care less about him. Both valid of course, but I always find it so interesting how the two sides divide, almost entirely one side or the other with very few in between. You could argue it's because "eh" isn't the same as "hated" but then again, this is the whole WoC fandom I'm talking about, people here rarely seem to full on hate very specific characters.
Except Dipper but she's another can of worms
So what's there to say on the divide?
On the one side, you have people that love Dusty's sheer charisma, sort of this naive, selfless passion for things, and a kind of dorkability that fans love to toy with. He's small-town, which I guess gives him this natural desire to want to go out of his way to help other folks (ie Bulldog, Mayday) when he sees them in need. Now this does - and has - gotten him into a LOT of trouble, but the fact he has made these sacrifices and promises and tried his damnedest to ensure them even if it doesn't benefit (or worse, breaks) him, makes me believe these types of actions are truly genuine ones. He makes actions with good intentions, he's just...also a knucklehead, who has selective hearing and mule stubbornness in his model genes, apparently.
The other side of the divide is the ones who perceived those aforementioned traits more along the lines of the Mary Sue tropes; opportunity basically falls in his lap and he stubbornly does it his own way until it works, or he breaks and causes hell, then it works, and he doesn't have much residual "what have we learned from this" or time for reflection. He is undeniably one-sided for a main protagonist, and his flaws stretch pretty far margins for the damage they do, and yet don't seem to get him much further than a broken body and an eventual pat on the back (er...no, I guess it's still "back"-).
In all fairness, both sides have fair points. His intentions are well tuned but his flaws are vast and relatively without major consequence, which makes for an ill-fitted and not very fulfilling ending to his two stories.
I actually was gonna make a post comparing Dusty with Lightning, given they have both some similar qualities and some polar opposite takes, but I scrapped the idea simply because I didn't want to compare characters that, altogether, are more different than they are alike. But for the sake of this like...analysis thingy, I do kinda wanna compare and contrast these two stories, so, humor me for a moment lol!
One thing I always find interesting about the argument (or, preference really, who argues about these things-) over Dusty lovers and Dusty eh-ers, is their additional 'love vs eh' opinions as they surround Lightning. Most people I've seen that really really like one character aren't super into the other one, for whatever reasonings, usually it's different, sometimes it's just small preferences etc. But I do find it interesting, because he's in a similar, yet altogether opposite position:
From the getgo, Lightning has been possibly one of Pixar's least initially likable main characters. His biggest flaw, across the franchise, has been his insistence on blaming others around him over himself. You see this a LOT actually: first film, he kinda was just mad at everybody for making him stay and do community stuff, etc; in Cars 2, his big thing was accusing Mater of being too silly; in Cars 3 when he keeps waffling over how he wants to train, and then blaming Cruz when his plan goes wrong. He has actually gotten WAY better about this, though! Across the films and especially into the new Disney+ series, his behaviour around other people (er cars) has improved massively. He actively notices when he's getting salty over shit and makes effort to owe up to it. Which is HUGE!
But this is also why I get a little confused when people say they love and root for Lightning tons, but don't seem to give much credit towards Dusty's predicament, which is...sorta in line, but not??
Lightning was a somebody, who learned to appreciate being humble and living for the moment. Dusty was a nobody, who wanted to prove himself and just get out there, away from the monotony of farm life and live a life he wanted to live.
Lightning's beginnings as a character are intentionally unlikable: he's selfish, crabby, a little snobbish at times and rude, until he learns the ways of the humbler life and really starts making connections; Dusty begins as sort of a kid that never got to leave home, overly excited about this "big dream" he'd never really done but really wanted to do, and evolved into two pieces: the piece of him that fell in love with what he did now, and the piece of him that fought with having to give it up.
Which brings me to like, the one redeeming quality of Dusty in particular that I always personally liked seeing depicted is how they handle grief. (but also, I'm a sadist, and characters breaking character for the sake of stakes is just. So hot. God damn.)
In Lightning's situation, it is not that he can't do it at all, it's that he can't do it well enough anymore. He has done it for long enough that another crowd of newbies has overrun him, and his "time as a racer" is somewhat faded out and closed.
Dusty is still pretty much in his prime when his gearbox fails him. Maybe the age Lightning was during Cars 2, somewhere around there. He has canonically only been racing for three years, and now that entire dream has all but ripped itself away from him. He acts like a dick a lot in the movie because of the fact this whole overarching theme is grief, it's sitting in a doctor's office knowing you basically just got diagnosed with a disability and it feels like your entire life is just. Over.
And I dunno, I just really resonated with that one, personally. Trauma is...ugly. And it'll fuck you over for a lifetime. And it's a mess to get through, and the stages of grief are more like a muddled up tangled spiral of emotions you can't keep contained.
Lightning went through it too, it's partly why he has his main flaw as well. Stress and loss make monsters out of people sometimes. And that's kinda the main reason I always like, rooted for Dusty in the films. He had this chance to do something, but then he lost it, and he had to learn how to be okay with that.
And he almost fucking was until they botched a kiddie ending but THATS another can of worms for...probably another post
I'm done!! I'm done! Look, I'm finished! So say thank you and I'll be on my way, that's all you gotta say-
No but seriously I apologize for the obscene length of this ramble, I saw a little flicker of inspiration in mine heart and I chased it down the rabbit hole like the madman I am known to be.
Hopefully you enjoyed this though, I really just wanted to get to ramble about the cool comparisons and developments of my childhood favorite talking vehicles. All in good fun, no harm or argument intended! I will now recede into my coffin until the dawn, recharging for the next spiel about...whatever the hell I get on about next...
Someone else feel free to add to this too by the way, here's my passing the "free coupon for one long ramble about your favorite things" ticket. Be fwee fwom youwr howwible mental prisons!
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