Vanishing Point

Exploitation films generally feature sexual content, violence, drugs, gore, rebellion and a general disobedence to the "man". The reading states, "the film combines the familiar stock characteristics of many such movies, including a disaffected protagonist, automotive destruction, drug taking, hippies, bigoted police officers and small-town thugs..." This type of film making became popular in the 60s and 70s which makes sense for this film to be made. Vanishing Point has everything an exploitation film may need except say for this; true violence. You see the main character Cowalsky taking drugs and driving his car fast to get where he needs to go but never truly hurts anyone. He actually helps those who are in need of it and makes sure those who fall get back up. For example, he saved a girl from being raped in the back of a car and was fired from his job. During the entire cop chase cop cars were going off the road every second. Cowalsky would stop his car and wait to see if the officers were okay and then continue on his merry way again. He has the opposite characteristics of the antihero in exploitation films.
Yes, I do believe that by racing his car at 160 miles an hour and outrunning the police was his way of sticking it to the man and owning up to his freedom. However, I do not believe he was doing so in a mennacing way. He never had a sour disposition in fact, he always seemed to have a smile on his face even on his way to his certain death into the tractors.
Honestly, this film is a complete contradiction. You have a hero that is supposed to be a misfit/ lawbreaking deviant however in truth he is only trying to drive fast much like he was trained to do. Then you have this notion of freedom. Like discussed in class you see Cowalsky just taking what America is supposidly about, freedom. However, you can only have so much freedom according to the government. They say Life, Liberty and Persuit of happiness, yeah as long as you obey their rules you can have that. It's like dangling a steak in front of a dog running on a treadmill. You can only have so much but not the whole thing. It is much like a tease. Like brought up in the reading the highways are for speedier travel and freedom. But if you think about it highways were built by government during the time of the Cold War like we discussed in class to transport prisoners and troops in a timely fashion due to the threat of communism. So, have you freedom on the road but you have to abide by all these driving rules, don't drive to fast, stay in right lane except to pass, pay your tolls etc...