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A century of General Motors
Driven by culture: GM's cars take center stage in popular music, movies, TV shows
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Susan Whitall / The Detroit News
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For a century, General Motors Corp. has cast a huge shadow over American popular culture, its cars inspiring songs, movies, cartoons and TV shows.
Images of GM cars abound in American music, folk and visual cultures, dating back to one of the first "car songs": Billy Murray's "In My Merry Oldsmobile" from 1905. That song became a classic recording by Jean Goldkette and his orchestra in 1927 and inspired a somewhat naughty 1932 cartoon by the Fleischer Brothers.
The image of GM's cars in popular culture would alternate between the dangerous glamour of fast cars and wild youth and the more wholesome virtues -- the idea that a Chevy or Buick would deliver you to freedom and escape out on the open road of an expansive, optimistic America.
From the '50s into the '60s, girl-next-door Dinah Shore sang "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" on her popular "Dinah Shore Chevy Show," accompanied by video of the dishy yet demure singer riding in a Chevy convertible full of admirers, or footage of a four-door Chevy motoring along a picturesque Western highway.
"General Motors was always seen as part of the open road, seeing America, becoming one with it," said Michael Marsden, who lectures on the automobile in American culture at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. "Chevrolet was the big identifier because -- but also the Corvette -- it still remains the only true American sports car. There's really an affectionate connection with that car."
Certainly Barbie, the plastic queen of our mythopoetic dreams, doesn't drive a Boxster; she waves coquettishly from a pink Corvette.
The Corvette was always emblematic of summertime and California. The Beach Boys are posing by a Corvette (and a Pontiac GTO) on the cover of their album "Shut Down Vol. 2."
There's a dark side to that iconic imagery. The Corvette symbolized freedom but also wantonness, the idea that cars that fast and sexy could kill. In the 1955 film noir "Kiss Me Deadly," detective Mike Hammer is speeding along a dark highway in a '54 Corvette when he almost kills a hitchhiker played by Cloris Leachman. When a gas station attendant first sees Hammer's new Corvette, which replaced his old Jag, he says: "What's the matter, a Jag not good enough for you?" Hammer replies, "Yeah, the ashtrays got all full."
But the ultimate Corvette of the '60s, the one that haunts Baby Boomer dreams is the baby blue driven by the two restless young wanderers in the 1960-64 TV show "Route 66." Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buzz Murdock drove Stiles' Corvette across America's more picturesque, pre-interstate highways seeking adventure to the sound of a cool, jazzy theme song. The show's top-notch scripts, atmospheric local shoots and array of almost-famous guest stars (a young Robert Redford, a young Suzanne Pleshette) helped keep the show, and its mythic Corvette, rolling. The show's first season came out on DVD in May.
There are mythic GM cars, and then there is Cadillac. There are untold numbers of songs written about Cadillacs, thousands in the BMI database alone. The Cadillac Fleetwood, Coupe de Ville and particularly the El Dorado -- a perfect mythological name-- served as shorthand for success and glamour. Elvis Presley's gold 1961 Cadillac sits in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. When R&B singer Little Willie John returned to Detroit riding high, he drove a two-tone Cadillac to his former high school, Pershing.
Today the Cadillac Escalade is an instant cultural marker of urban success, whether it's thug life success or professional. The arrival of sports stars, rappers or Detroit's embattled mayor has traditionally been marked by black Escalades speeding into view. The late comedian Bernie Mac drove an Escalade, and gang boss Tony Soprano of TV's "The Sopranos" drove a big white Escalade ESV (Paulie Walnuts' ride was a Cadillac CTS).
Hip-hop stars love to customize '50s or '60s GM models. Snoop Dogg commissioned an L.A. Lakers tribute car that began as a '57 Parisienne; there's also a white '66 Cadillac called "Angel Dust" that appeared in a 50 Cent video.
GM's image in the culture today is mixed.
The company was incredibly innovative in the '30s through '50s, before going into creative overdrive in the '60s, Marsden says.
"They really had more classic car designs than any other company -- very forward looking -- with their displays of prototypes, those really bold design changes, at the world's fairs," the professor said. "And they had an image of freeing Americans to try the open road, but now they have the image of a company that's not concerned about the environment -- even though that's not true."
Today Marsden sees signs of that old creative behemoth. "They're reintroducing the new Camaro, that's a beautiful, beautiful car. Despite the pundits, I think GM has quite a future."
Source / FULL Article Link: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080906/AUTO01/809060376/1148
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Driven by culture: GM's cars take center stage in popular music, movies, TV shows
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Susan Whitall / The Detroit News
For a century, General Motors Corp. has cast a huge shadow over American popular culture, its cars inspiring songs, movies, cartoons and TV shows.
Images of GM cars abound in American music, folk and visual cultures, dating back to one of the first "car songs": Billy Murray's "In My Merry Oldsmobile" from 1905. That song became a classic recording by Jean Goldkette and his orchestra in 1927 and inspired a somewhat naughty 1932 cartoon by the Fleischer Brothers.
The image of GM's cars in popular culture would alternate between the dangerous glamour of fast cars and wild youth and the more wholesome virtues -- the idea that a Chevy or Buick would deliver you to freedom and escape out on the open road of an expansive, optimistic America.
From the '50s into the '60s, girl-next-door Dinah Shore sang "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" on her popular "Dinah Shore Chevy Show," accompanied by video of the dishy yet demure singer riding in a Chevy convertible full of admirers, or footage of a four-door Chevy motoring along a picturesque Western highway.
"General Motors was always seen as part of the open road, seeing America, becoming one with it," said Michael Marsden, who lectures on the automobile in American culture at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. "Chevrolet was the big identifier because -- but also the Corvette -- it still remains the only true American sports car. There's really an affectionate connection with that car."
Certainly Barbie, the plastic queen of our mythopoetic dreams, doesn't drive a Boxster; she waves coquettishly from a pink Corvette.
The Corvette was always emblematic of summertime and California. The Beach Boys are posing by a Corvette (and a Pontiac GTO) on the cover of their album "Shut Down Vol. 2."
There's a dark side to that iconic imagery. The Corvette symbolized freedom but also wantonness, the idea that cars that fast and sexy could kill. In the 1955 film noir "Kiss Me Deadly," detective Mike Hammer is speeding along a dark highway in a '54 Corvette when he almost kills a hitchhiker played by Cloris Leachman. When a gas station attendant first sees Hammer's new Corvette, which replaced his old Jag, he says: "What's the matter, a Jag not good enough for you?" Hammer replies, "Yeah, the ashtrays got all full."
But the ultimate Corvette of the '60s, the one that haunts Baby Boomer dreams is the baby blue driven by the two restless young wanderers in the 1960-64 TV show "Route 66." Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buzz Murdock drove Stiles' Corvette across America's more picturesque, pre-interstate highways seeking adventure to the sound of a cool, jazzy theme song. The show's top-notch scripts, atmospheric local shoots and array of almost-famous guest stars (a young Robert Redford, a young Suzanne Pleshette) helped keep the show, and its mythic Corvette, rolling. The show's first season came out on DVD in May.
There are mythic GM cars, and then there is Cadillac. There are untold numbers of songs written about Cadillacs, thousands in the BMI database alone. The Cadillac Fleetwood, Coupe de Ville and particularly the El Dorado -- a perfect mythological name-- served as shorthand for success and glamour. Elvis Presley's gold 1961 Cadillac sits in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. When R&B singer Little Willie John returned to Detroit riding high, he drove a two-tone Cadillac to his former high school, Pershing.
Today the Cadillac Escalade is an instant cultural marker of urban success, whether it's thug life success or professional. The arrival of sports stars, rappers or Detroit's embattled mayor has traditionally been marked by black Escalades speeding into view. The late comedian Bernie Mac drove an Escalade, and gang boss Tony Soprano of TV's "The Sopranos" drove a big white Escalade ESV (Paulie Walnuts' ride was a Cadillac CTS).
Hip-hop stars love to customize '50s or '60s GM models. Snoop Dogg commissioned an L.A. Lakers tribute car that began as a '57 Parisienne; there's also a white '66 Cadillac called "Angel Dust" that appeared in a 50 Cent video.
GM's image in the culture today is mixed.
The company was incredibly innovative in the '30s through '50s, before going into creative overdrive in the '60s, Marsden says.
"They really had more classic car designs than any other company -- very forward looking -- with their displays of prototypes, those really bold design changes, at the world's fairs," the professor said. "And they had an image of freeing Americans to try the open road, but now they have the image of a company that's not concerned about the environment -- even though that's not true."
Today Marsden sees signs of that old creative behemoth. "They're reintroducing the new Camaro, that's a beautiful, beautiful car. Despite the pundits, I think GM has quite a future."
Source / FULL Article Link: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080906/AUTO01/809060376/1148
How could you be a Smallville watcher and miss the Yaris? Even if you miss Chloe say "Let's get in my Yaris," about 10 times during the season you'd have to notice the Yaris infested virtual comic strip thing they run during commercials! 
