May 14, 2008 02:36 PM
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San Francisco, 3:23 PM
Tue Feb 9
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Why are audiences swooning over Iron Man's shiny suit but not over Speed Racer's sleek car? I mean, what the hell is going on when people have already spent nearly $200 million on watching lameass Iron Man get revenge in Afghanistan, but only about $20 million watching the awesome Speed zoom with sparkly CGI pizzazz across all those finish lines? Analysts have speculated that Speed Racer's death by box office might have been caused by a boring and confusing plot, or early negative reviews. But I know the real reason. Speed Racer is freaking people out because it's just too gay. Here are ten reasons why.
10. Most of the colors in Speed Racer are sparkly pastels, not the hard reds and butch "gold titanium alloy" of Iron Man. What is this? Queer Eye for the action hero?
9. Speed Racer dresses in a shiny purple suit at one point, and in a scarf at another. He wears a lot of white, and is just as pretty as Trixie, his girlfriend who drives a helicopter and repairs engines in the shop. Gender bending in an action movie not directed by Ridley "G.I. Jane" Scott? Not allowed.
8. Monkeys are gay.
7. When there's a ninja fight, Racer X pulls the ninja's pants off and we see that he's wearing big white boxers with a cute pattern on them. What kind of counter-ninja pulls off the ninja's pants? And what kind of ninja wears big white boxers?
6. One of the semi-good guys, Taejo (Rain), dresses up like a woman as part of an elaborate scheme for revenge. And he looks seriously hot in lady clothes.
5. Which reminds me of director Larry Wachowski, long rumored to be fond of lady clothes himself — or perhaps even on the road to becoming a woman. I can't believe how many people writing about Speed Racer have mentioned Larry's gender. Who the fuck cares about whether Larry is a he or a she or a bug person? Unless you are worried that this movie is too GAY for you.
4. One of the bad guys wears fake snakeskin and yells "ooohhhh!" a lot.
3. Several other bad guys are giant hairy men dressed in furs and Viking helmets. I think some of them might even have been centerfolds in Bear magazine.
2. Trixie's outfit matches her helicopter.
1. Speed loves his mother and is super-nice to his girlfriend. Obviously a homo! A true straight dude would be like Iron Man, obsessing over his dead dad and abusing every woman in his life.
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
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