I know this commercial is for "last year’s" L.A. County Fair, but they’re using the same one this year and there’s no expiration date on Cartoon Tuesday pieces.

In what I’m choosing to view as an indictment of car-culture, our three heroines have a little bit of trouble at the fair’s bumper cars.  The whole mess of a commercial is a gigantic spectacle, and I’ve never been entirely comfortable with a children’s game that encourages young people that it’s fun to hit each other with their cars; but I’m convinced the people that wrote the advertisement are on our side and are using the fair’s megaphone to spread our message that car dependence can have some awful side effects.  I could easily re-post this video with a "This is your brain on cars" tagline.

And for anyone bothered that Streetsblog would feature an advertisement with such blatantly sexist undertones, the advertisement would be just as powerful if they replaced the Valley Girls with some random male stereotype.  And, I hope you know that I have nothing but the strongest respect for the smart, powerful, amazing trailblazers that happen to be women that are a part of the Livable Streets movement in Los Angeles.