and he was wearing a watkins glenn jacket over his car print shirt and we asked dave -- we said when did you become interested in cars? and he said when i opened my eyes and realized i was born. [laughter] >> and in many ways that's true for all of us. and my sister, the anthropologist, likes to put it that to humans, culture is like water is to fish. because it surrounds us, it's often quite invisible even though we're in it. and the ideology that supports our car culture is something that is largely invisible to us and that we started to explore fairly early in our research. the images that bombard us daily from the media are quite different than those family snapshots. not quite so comforting but much more exciting. much more glamorous. this poster from 2008's ironman starring robert downey, jr., provides just the kind of car excitement we've come to expect not just from car advertising again but from much of the entertainment that we indulge in that is car centric. and american car ideology like the messages that come to us in many hollywood films is supported by a series of core