The Problem With Fast Car
Is that the protagonist is a professional victim. When she claims her mother left her useless drunken husband and she quit school to take care of her father, all she did was enable his self destructive behavior.
If she had stayed in school and not given in to her drunken father, he would've been forced to stand on his own two feet and she could have had a better life. Yet we're supposed to feel sorry for this person who thinks victimization is a profession one should aspire to?
Then she repeats the behaviour with her boyfriend/husband and again, we are left wondering if she'll just leave in the fast car like her own mother did. Now not only is she a self indulgent cry baby but she is potentially a horrible person too.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | June 26, 2018 1:27 PM
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You've really thought about this, haven't you OP?
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | June 20, 2018 10:30 AM
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30 years ago this summer. I remember like it was yesterday.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | June 20, 2018 10:56 AM
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Mandela - seems a lifetime ago.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 20, 2018 11:06 AM
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No, I don't think we're supposed to feel sorry for the protagonist. I think it's quite obvious that she had got herself into another mess by trying to run away from her problems. At the end, though, she says "I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere". It's the boyfriend/husband who will take off, she's going to stay and pick up the pieces.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | June 20, 2018 12:04 PM
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The boyfriend/husband she was singing about did indeed leave her, as indicated by the split screen. So sad.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | June 21, 2018 1:47 PM
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Whatever happened to Tracye Chapman?
Wait... I don't really care, now that I think about it.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | June 21, 2018 1:48 PM
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And she was seriously mistaken if she thought she was going to be promoted from check-out girl. I guess she wasn't educated enough to know a dead-end job when she saw one. And just how did she think she was going to afford a Fast Car anyway? Not on a cashier's salary, certainly.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | June 21, 2018 2:00 PM
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I just discovered on youtube that in the 1980s Chapman was having a relationship with the novelist Alice Walker, who is 20 years older than she is.
I did not know that.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | June 21, 2018 2:22 PM
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R10 she wrote "Telling Stories" about Alice Walker, apparently.
I thought the whole point of Fast Car was that the American Dream is a total pipe dream for most Americans?
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | June 21, 2018 2:30 PM
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R7, one of Bryan Singer’s protégés should do a Weird Al version of “Fast Car”. “I am a teen boy/ I dream of acting and going far/ A creepy old guy said to me/ “I can make you a superstar/ Just come to my party/ Drink, do drugs, swim in my pool/ Then we’ll go to my bedroom/ Everything will be real cool”...
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | June 21, 2018 4:37 PM
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I loved the song when it came out. No different than a lot of songs about escaping a small town for dreams of a better life. Bruce Springsteen is a billionaire because of he was able to tap into that angst. You would think gays of a certain age (DL's core demo) would understand that longing better than anyone.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | June 21, 2018 5:25 PM
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R11, pretty much, and perhaps also that the American Dream isn't the panacea it seems.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | June 21, 2018 7:26 PM
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This album was a smash hit. Why hasn’t it been remastered and reissued? Even minor hit albums from the 80s get the deluxe reissue treatment.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | June 21, 2018 7:33 PM
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OP also thinks Luka should have just packed his shit and left the second floor after his parents hit him the first time.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | June 26, 2018 1:27 PM
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