Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Car Culture

TV shows shift into low gear in their portrayal of popular vehicles

By Ann Job / Special to The Detroit News

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With the exception of the Pontiac Solstice's recent appearance on NBC's "The Apprentice," vehicles and Hollywood haven't exactly put their best feet -- and tires -- forward on prime time television.

The sloppy portrayal of a Hummer in one TV show made a joke out of the resulting storyline, while the coy positioning of Miatas in another program came off like an adolescent prank.

Hollywood should stop insulting car lovers and be more sensitive to how it portrays vehicles.

Last week's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" on CBS started with a gripping scene -- a Hummer emerging from the darkness to drive over and land atop a small car.

The Hummer was still there when ace crime scene investigator Gil Grissom arrived. The vehicle looked like an H2, which has a starting price of $53,000. But Grissom made a comment that it was a $100,000 vehicle, so I started to figure it was the original Hummer H1.

This was confirmed when Grissom opened the driver door and found blood on the flat-sided, plain H1 door trim.

I was just about certain I had identified the truck correctly when the camera zoomed in on ... a deployed driver airbag.

Duh. There's no airbag in the steering wheel of an H1!

As if this wasn't enough, others in this CSI episode took to calling the vehicle -- be it an H1 or an H2 -- a "Humvee."

Now, vehicle enthusiasts know Humvee is the name for the military version of Hummer, not the civilian vehicle that was in the CSI scenes.

At least I could find some solace in the fact that the Hummer, or Humvee, or whatever it was, ran over a Pontiac Fiero.

It has been awhile since I thought about this ungainly two-seater with plastic body panels that Pontiac introduced in 1984 as a mid-engine commuter car. In fact, I doubt there are many Fieros left out there.

But wouldn't you know that in Hollywood's Hummer-crunches-Fiero stunt, the driver of the Fiero survived?

Yeah, right.

I think I'll switch to watching "CSI: Miami." In this version of the popular TV show, the good guys in the crime lab are the ones who drive a Hummer H2, and they do it more appropriately, like into the Everglades to check out a crime scene.

The Mazda Miata had a different fate on a recent "Will & Grace" episode on NBC.

To hear gay friends in San Francisco tell it, Miatas were parked everywhere in one street scene. This creative backdrop in the sit-com, which features a couple of gay characters, was evidently noted by some in the gay community in California's Bay area, where Miatas are popular.

But for many Miata fans, such typecasting is insensitive. This fun little roadster appeals to anybody -- gay or straight -- who likes driving.

Hollywood, we need a rewrite.

Ann Job is a California-based freelance writer.