Media Bites – Cars and Freedom

In this week’s Media Bites we take a look at a recent commercial from the Dodge car company. The ad wants viewers to equate their vehicles with political freedom and use a re-creation of a battle from the Revolutionary War to illustrate this point.

The big difference with this battle scene is that George Washington is driving a Dodge Charger instead of a horse. The reality is that car dependency in this country has not really brought us more freedom. The social, political and ecological consequences have been devastating.

However, it is important that people understand that the shift away from mass transit systems in the 1920s was due mostly to an effort by General Motors and the Firestone Company to buy up urban trolley systems as is well documented in the film Taken for a Ride.