There is little doubt that the automobile is an important part of the American cultural ethos. So what about people who don’t have cars?

Tom Vanderbilt, author of the fascinating Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), argues at Slate that Hollywood tends to portray those without cars as losers. In different ways, Vanderbilt claims that the fact that characters do not have cars is often made to be symbolic of other failings in their lives.