The Fast and Furious Formula: The Role of Family in Meaningful Work

For over twenty years now, The Fast Saga has provided audiences with much more than action-packed car chases and campy dialogue. Beyond the unrealistic stunts and often ridiculous plot twists, the films explore the necessity of family loyalty in reaching one's full potential in achieving meaningful work. Moved by literal and metaphorical races to achieve accomplishments of employment and assert expressions of duty, The Fast Saga blurs the lines between crime and justice, determining family allegiance to be the main differentiator between protagonist and antagonist roles.  Repeatedly, the series reinforces the argument that meaningful work is not determined by the standards set by the majority and/or a country's legalities, but by the recognition of work performed by oneself and for one's family.

Work is the driving factor behind the plot lines of this franchise, and, as sociologist Arlene Kaplan Daniels argues, "the concept of work should include all the work in the private world of the home, the volunteer work in the public sphere, and the emotion work in both public and private worlds."1 Understanding what work means and what makes work meaningful in The Fast Saga requires  "a multidimensional, process-oriented measure of meaningful work that captures the complexity of the construct," of the kind Marjolein Lips-Wiersma and Sarah Wright offer with their Comprehensive Meaningful Work Scale.2  For Lips-Wiersma and Wright, meaningful work can be found in "the dimensions of 'developing the inner self'; 'unity with others'; 'serving others' and 'expressing full potential' and the dynamic tensions between these through items on 'being versus doing' and 'self versus others.'"3 Within this lens, traditional and legal work roles foregrounded in The Fast Saga, like those of cop and shop owner, as well as the nontraditional and illegal work roles of vehicle hijacker and street racer, are positioned in the shadows of the primary role presented throughout the series — that of a Toretto family member (immediate and extended).

The first few films in The Fast Saga demonstrate this positioning through the evolution of Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), an undercover police officer who is struggling to find direction and meaning in his work, as well as the function of integrity in that process. O'Conner's fluctuation between the role of a law enforcer and that of law breaker becomes apparent through his interactions with the Toretto family, as well as his frequent mottos which question the status quo of the American work and law enforcement ethic. For example, O'Conner reinforces his ethos to Dominic (Vin Diesel), the leader of the Toretto family — and himself — by declaring his vision of ethical economics: "I earn my way, every step." Such declarations also prompt viewers to ponder their own journeys regarding meaningful work. How does earning relate to work? What is it that we are really earning? Do we earn for ourselves, or do we earn for others?  O'Conner's actions and dialogue reflect a definition of "earning" which encompasses the capacity for a life purposefully developed beyond traditional economic factors, despite societal expectations and standards.

Fast & Furious (2009), also known as Fast and Furious 4, includes even more deliberate and direct critiques of the dichotomy between legal and illegal work roles both within and beyond the United States. This installment begins in the Dominican Republic as Dom, Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), and their crew are hijacking fuel tankers, then shifts to Los Angeles, where O'Conner has returned to work for the FBI. After reuniting with O'Conner after a five-year separation, Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) utilizes the rhetorical device of chiasmus to capture her frustration and to externalize O'Conner's internal struggle with telling the truth: "Maybe you're not the good guy pretending to be a bad guy. Maybe you're the bad guy pretending to be the good guy. You ever think about that?" To which O'Conner responds, aware of the perpetual contradiction of his bleeding roles: "Every day."4 Another exchange in Fast and Furious 4 which highlights the narrow line between seemingly polarized visions of work takes place between FBI leader, Penning (Jack Conley), and O'Conner: "O'Conner, do you know the difference between a cop and a criminal?" Penning asks. "What?" replies O'Conner, to which Penning replies: "One bad judgment call."5 These types of conversational exchanges enable O'Conner, as well as viewers, to continue down a road in which they repeatedly learn that judgment depends not just (and sometimes not at all) on questions of lawfulness, but on one's understanding of what makes work — and life — meaningful.

Not only does The Fast Saga scrutinize the traditional protagonist/antagonist polarity when exploring the roles of legal versus illegal work in our domestic and global world, but it also incorporates what David Greven has termed a double-protagonist film into this deconstruction. In such a film, there is "the merging of the two central males into one; the males are always complementary halves of a dyad that suggests not two individuals but two warring halves of one consciousness, a psychic doubling."6 Mary Beltrán further develops the metaphorical extension of these halves via the series title, noting the two "vastly different protagonists (Brian is the 'fast' to Dom's 'furious')."7 This duality is verbalized in O'Conner's pronouncement regarding his public role and established boundaries: "So this is where my jurisdiction ends," which is immediately followed by Dom's acknowledgement of his private and unwritten boundaries: "And this is where mine begins."8 Part of the strange fluidity of watching The Fast Saga is due to this revolving and magnetic force of doubleness, the yin and yang of legality (Brian) and loyalty (Dom) in the pursuit of meaningful work.

Beltrán's theory, that "[f]amily and religion clearly motivate the Torettos' actions, with criminal acts undertaken only to preserve their family and freedom,"9 helps to bridge and balance viewers' reception of the worlds of crime and justice, as these typically binary realms become backdrops to the prioritized need to support familial bonds and independence. The preeminence of family preservation is sustained not by following the behaviors listed under legal or illegal categories, but by upholding a determined code of moral ethics. References to this moral code are threaded throughout the films, as demonstrated in Fast and Furious 4, when O'Conner explains to Mia, "You asked me why I let Dom go. I did it, because at that moment, I respected him more than I did myself." This respect is innately tied to a moral code: "One thing I've learned from Dom is that nothing really matters unless you have a code."10 The code is also traditionalized in the multiple family prayer and toast scenes included in the films, whether the setting is at a backyard barbecue or in a garage. Dom's leadership at a sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical table where all members pay tribute and give thanks for "food, family, and friendship" enables moral and familial safeguarding to continue, even amidst the instabilities of character and plot developments.11  O'Conner quickly recognizes that he can only begin to satisfy his desire for meaningful work and identity by following a similar code.

In Furious 6 (2013), the relationship between meaningful work and family is further explored when Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky) admits, at the end of the film: "This is your family. It's who you are," then references her own law enforcement badge to solidify her understanding of the familial and loyalty parallels between legal and illegal work: "This is my family. This is who I am."12 The relationship between family and criminality becomes complicated in Furious 6, as it initially appears that Letty, alive having previously been thought dead, has turned against the Toretto family by aligning with mercenary-for-hire Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Such an act demonstrates not only that, within The Fast Saga's moral universe, there are distinctions between meaningful and non-meaningful work even within the criminal realm, but also what determines those distinctions. The work of Dom and his crew remains meaningful because it is bound to familial preservation as much as it is to currency, whereas Letty's betrayal and Owen's profit-exclusive motivation lacks such meaning. However, even when most of the Toretto family has given up on Letty's redemption, Dom expresses a mantra: "You don't turn your back on family. Even when they do," a foreshadowing of his own future in upcoming films.13

Daniels's, Lips-Wiersma's, and Wright's identification of work as a holistic and emotional concept, versus a mere employment-based definition, provides a route for viewers to reconcile two-dimensional characters and "shamelessly preposterous" plots — as critiqued by reviewers such as Roger Ebert, who labeled 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) "a video game crossed with a buddy movie" — with more developed and thought-provoking societal themes, such as family and ethics.14 This dynamic is especially evident after Paul Walker's ironic and untimely death from a car accident in November 2013, in which the character sequence in the film series shifts to broaden the scope of Dom's evolution within the realm of meaningful work, due to the loss of his "brother" and "other half." In the touching tribute to O'Conner/Walker at the end of Furious 7 (2015), Dom/Diesel pays witness to their bond: "I used to say I lived my life a quarter mile at a time. And I think that's why we were brothers. Because you did, too."15 When O'Conner's image drives away, so does a part of Dom. Dom's public and private selves are now left to navigate a future road which extends beyond "a quarter mile," into an unknown territory where family is redefined by loss.

After Walker's death, and O'Conner's removal from the series, Dom takes on the responsibility of being the sole leading protagonist, adopting new roles and emotions to serve and save his family. Dom/Diesel now has more work to do in both diegetic and non-diegetic senses. In the process he meets a new cast of unsavory characters, such as cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron), who push him to question and doubt his own definition and value of work. This doubt prompts him to, ultimately, confirm to himself and viewers that work can only be productive and meaningful when family is the primary motivator. For example, in The Fate of the Furious (2018), after Cipher asks Dom, "What's the best thing in your life?" and Dom decisively answers, "Family," Cipher quickly corrects him: "No it's not. Not if you are being honest. It's the ten seconds between start and finish when you're not thinking about anything. No family. No obligations. Just you . . . being free."16 As Mackenzie Streissguth writes elsewhere in this cluster, Cipher wants Dom to "unlearn [the] redemption" granted him by family, and she means to achieve this by changing the nature and meaning of his work. Dom must embrace undercover deception and work for Cipher in order to protect the safety of his former girlfriend, Elena, and their son. Despite Cipher's entreaties, Dom's value of family continues to determine his decisions: merely pretending to switch "sides," he returns to the Toretto family when his son — whom he will name "Brian" — is safe. Family justifies taking on any form of work, trumping any moral compromise it might involve, for the sake of loyalty.

F9: The Fast Saga (2021) — while arguably the series' most far-fetched film in terms of plot, as the automotive feats now include a rocket car sent into space to destroy a satellite — continues the franchise's longstanding tradition of professing proverbs about the primacy of family loyalty in the search for meaningful work, irrespective of legal or gravitational consequences. The introduction of Dom's estranged younger brother, Jakob (John Cena), in this installment adds complexity to The Fast Saga's definition of meaningful work as contingent on family loyalty, as Dom believes Jakob contributed to the death of their father, Jack, a stock car racer, when both brothers worked on his pit crew. As Dom wrestles with his inner conflict over Jakob, Buddy (Michael Rooker), another former pit crew member of Jack's, reminds Dom that "the worst thing that you can do to a Toretto is take away their family."17 The authors of At the Heart of Work and Family ask a question which nods to this complexity of familial sentiment in relation to work: what would the influence of "emotion work" be if current societal systems "were more conducive to the meshing of work and family?"18) Perhaps that is the question that The Fast Saga is asking its viewers: what might be possible in a world where family guides work, versus work guiding family? Dom illustrates those possibilities when he eventually forgives Jakob — a feat of emotion work that restores meaning to Jakob's life by restoring him to his family.

After two-plus decades, loyal audiences have also found themselves considering such possibilities at the Torettos' familial table, enjoying an escapist tale from a working-class neighborhood and conceptual map and debating their own choices regarding meaningful work and family. The Fast Saga reinforces the notion that work is much more than a paycheck and a set of grueling hours or stunts; it is the aim to uncover non-traditional paths of inner craft and growth, to unify and serve family, and to reach full productivity and potential in those efforts.

The decisions the characters make in picking the courses that will lead to their family's safety dictate the speed and intensity of these pursuits. The Fast and the Furious is an ongoing route, a life-long race charted by drivers who repeatedly work to push the limits of the human condition and the cars that race through them, all in the name of family. Dom achieves no greater feat of "emotion work" than that of forgiving Jakob, reopening the family to him despite what he did to it. A flashback to a younger Dom in F9 leaves viewers with this parting advice: "It's all going to be okay, Jakob. We've got some rough times ahead, but it's going to be okay, because we're family."19 Viewers, like Dom, realize that meaningful work requires the maintenance and constant redefinition of family, as much as it involves loyalty to a shared moral code.

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Katherine Cottle is the author of The Hidden Heart of Charm City (2019), I Remain Yours (2014), Halfway (2010), and My Father's Speech (2007), all published by AH/Loyola University Maryland. She teaches writing at Goucher College and for the Goucher Prison Education Partnership. You can find more information about Katherine and her work at www.katherinecottle.com.

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