Something I thought about adding into yesterday's post, that I just couldn't decide on a good place for was the drama surrounding the Burns/Stinkleton (Stickleton?) race that is so frequently alluded to in Speed Racer. Speed tells Royalton about some nice memory he has of watching a tape of the amazing finish with his father years ago, and how that memory is why he can't abandon his dad's team to join Royalton. Royalton proceeds to put on his golf shoes and stomp all over that memory, telling Speed the order of finish for the race was predetermined by the rich white industrialists who ran things, meaning theamazing ending was crap, because it was supposed to happen that way. I'm left wondering whether that's true or not.
Pops tells Speed that he shouldn't listen to Royalton because Royalton's a crook, and you should never trust crooks. Well, yes, Royalton's a crook, a scumbag, such a contemptable piece of walking fertlizer it would be hard for me to care if a hand grenade were to go off in his shorts, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was lying. True, he was trying to crush Speed's idealism, to help convince him to forget about loyalty and chase the money, but the truth can do that as easily as a lie*. Speed asked Burns himself after a disastrous race, and as far as he was concerned, got an answer confirming his fears, but let's take a look at that.
Speed, asks Burns if he knew he was going to win, and Burns' response is to comment that everyone always believed he and Stinkleton (Stickleton?) hated each other, and isn't that funny? Well, that doesn't tell us much of anything at all, does it? I imagine if you asked any great athlete whether they knew they were going to win {insert championship-style event}, and they were being honest (as opposed to the usual humble, clcihes about just wanting to give it their best shot), they'd probably say yes**.
As for Burns' comment, what does that tell us, other than that fan perception of what goes on rarely matches reality? Fans often think rivalry on the field of competition must extend off it, but that's not always true. I was reading a piece on Mike D'Antoni on the ESPN website, and he was discussing his time playing in the Italian basketball leagues, and how while they were on the court, teams would go all out, but once the games were over, the teams went out to dinner together. There was a sense of brotherhood between the teams. So if that's the case with Burns and Stickleton, well, so what? What does that have to do with whether the race was fixed? I really hate losing to Alex in, well any video game I play against him, and I play to win accordingly, but that doesn't mean I hate him. He's my friend, and it's more fun to have a serious struggle, makes the victory sweeter.
So it's up in the air to me. I imagine the point is that regardless of how the outcome happened, the important thing is what a person takes from it. It helped Pops rediscover his love for racing, and desigining and building cars, the speed and competition and closeness with his dad helped Speed's love of racing, and helped form that sense of loyalty to his father that so infuriated Royalton. And Royalton took something from the race too, his love of and belief in money***, which made him the greedy, manipulative bastard he is.
* Isn't there some old saying that the best lies have some element of truth to them? That's why we're drawn in by them, because we can believe it, or something to that effect.
** Jordan, for example, I would imagine always thought he was going to win, 'cause, you know, he was really damn good.
*** Really, he thinks money is so great, then spends $3 million on a burnt up car engine to remind himself of this? Geez, dude, save the 3 mil and just buy a cheap plaque that says "Money is really good". Probably cost you 20 dollars.
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