Few movies have undermined feminism more than 1994’s Speed, thanks to the infamous scene where Sandra Bullock’s character rams the bus into a stroller filled with empty soda cans. Here’s why American culture’s view of women was never the same after Speed hit theaters.
- It perpetuated stereotypes about women being bad bus drivers
What was the point of this scene if not to take a cheap potshot at female bus drivers? The film goes out of its way to show Sandra Bullock taking her eyes off the road while driving 25 mph over the speed limit on a main road in Los Angeles, and then taking her hands off the wheel after smashing into a baby stroller…it couldn’t be more gratuitous. Speed is to female bus drivers what Jaws is to sharks: If the filmmakers wanted audiences to leave the theater a little more afraid to board a bus driven by a woman, they succeeded with flying colors. Ugh.
- It portrayed single, childless women as hysterical and prone to antisocial behavior
Seriously, what did this movie have against women who’ve chosen to drive buses or collect cans instead of having children? Every single woman featured in this scene is screaming at the top of her lungs while engaging in bizarre, unhinged behavior (i.e. jay-walking a baby stroller full of cans into the middle of oncoming traffic, and smashing said baby stroller with a bus). In this script’s world, if a woman doesn’t give into societal pressures to tie her life to men and homemaking, she’s an emotionally unstable danger to the public. Whoever wrote this needs therapy ASAP.
- The baby stroller filled with empty soda cans is a deeply unsubtle metaphor for women choosing consumerist lifestyles over motherhood
On the nose, much? You can hear women’s suffrage rolling over in its grave when looking at this image.
- The male protagonist completely dismisses the Sandra Bullock character’s concern once he realizes there is no baby in the stroller even though she hasn’t had time to process that yet
“Cans. Cans. There was no baby. It was full of cans,” Keanu Reeves says with a grin, while taking the bus’s wheel as the female driver has a full-on freakout. Hmm. Let’s try that again, without the man dismissing the woman’s feelings: “Hey, I understand you thought you hit a baby. That must’ve been so scary for you, and it’s not my place to assume I know what you’re feeling right now, but I understand why you’d be concerned. Fortunately, there were only empty soda cans in the stroller. I just thought you should know that you didn’t kill a baby with this bus, and that I’m here for you,” Keanu Reeves says, while rerouting the bus to therapy. That wasn’t so hard, was it?!
- The lady pushing the stroller full of cans is one of the least empowering female characters in the history of American cinema
One-dimensional? Check. Shrill? Check. Plays a victim? Check. Featured in a same-sex kiss because male gaze? Check. Pit against another woman in a tense situation that a man put them into? Check.
Given a full character arc? Nope. Even a little character development? Nope. Does anyone acknowledge that her cans are now all over the street, and apologize for the trauma she just endured? Nope.
Without a doubt, this scene set back American women in ways we probably won’t recover from in our lifetime, even with significant therapy. All the women in this country owe Speed a big thanks—for nothing.