Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness

This article interrogates the immense popularity of Fast & Furious (Justin Lin, 2009), the fourth film in the Fast franchise, with US Latino viewers when it was released, exploring both the film industry’s targeting of Latinos in recent years and the potential of and limitations inherent to foregrounding a “bilingual aesthetic” in a franchise known for an ethos of racelessness. Comparisons to the short film Los Bandoleros (Vin Diesel, 2009), included with Fast & Furious on the commercial DVD, highlight borders that still exist when major US studios construct a seemingly multicultural narrative for global audiences.