Some motor vehicles are just plain cool. Sports cars, muscle cars, convertibles, trucks, motorcycles.
And then you have this.
In fiction, the Mommy Mobile, typically either a station wagon or a minivan (known in Europe as the estate car and the multi-purpose vehicle respectively), isn't the worst car you can possibly drive from a mechanical standpoint, but it's easily the most embarrassing and humiliating. It's the ultimate Boring, but Practical choice, with emphasis on the Boring. It's a slow, dull, plodding vehicle with no pizzazz, performance capabilities, flair, or sense of cool, having sacrificed all of that on the altar of being the most efficient possible way to get a family of five around town with all their stuff. A rather fitting metaphor, then, for its owners, parents who have long since given up their dreams from the moment they had their first kid and are now resigned to being bland, boring, slowly aging Stepford Suburbanites whose lives revolve around PTA meetings, bake sales and soccer practice. The dad especially is likely to be a Henpecked Husband; while the owner of the Mommy Mobile isn't Always Female, driving one, as the name suggests, is still presented as an effeminate, emasculating endeavor. And don't ask the kids what they think of being shuttled around in one of these in front of their classmates.
It's no wonder why the owner of one will eventually pick up a Mid-Life Crisis Car.
In older versions of this trope from The '50s through The '80s (or Period Pieces set in that time), the car that marked the end of a character's free-spirited youth was usually a station wagon, as the minivan was only invented in the mid-'80s. Characters who had vans for reasons other than work, in fact, typically rested on the exact opposite end of the coolness spectrum, presented as either hippies or hip singles. By The '90s, however, as the station wagon went into decline due to the minivan's greater space and efficiency, the minivan quickly took on the stereotype in addition to its role in the driveways of suburbia, shorthand for everything deemed uncool about the modern suburban lifestyle. In the late '90s and the Turn of the Millennium, the minivan's increasingly dopey connotations led to the rise of the sport utility vehicle, or SUV, as a more rugged and outdoorsy alternative, one that suggested its owners could still live an active lifestyle while raising a family.
Of course, in time the Mommy Mobile stereotype eventually shifted to the SUV itself, especially with the rise in The New '10s of the smaller, more fuel-efficient, but also less rugged "crossover utility vehicle". Many depictions of the Hummer Dinger portray it as a glorified minivan and symbol of suburban banality, typically with the twist that its owners are desperately trying to pretend that they're still cool. The association of this stereotype with SUVs has gotten to the point that minivans and wagons themselves have gotten
a reappraisal from some car enthusiasts as more practical and less try-hard alternatives to such. It helps that, with most of the full-size American station wagons having long since ceased production, most of the wagons sold today are smaller, European "sport wagons" that can genuinely claim to be Cool Cars, while older ones (especially those from before The '70s, be they classic "woodies" or '50s/'60s surf wagons) are old enough to have a retro appeal.
In Japan, the mamachari (roughly translating to "mom's bike"), a bicycle with a basket and sometimes even a seat for child, has a similar reputation, often used for carrying groceries or taking kids around the neighborhood. They have been around since the early '50s and are available as common public means of transportation, and have lately been imported to Africa to serve the same purpose. More recently, cargo bikes designed to carry multiple children have become popular with families in Europe as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to second cars.
A fairly common subversion is for the Mommy Mobile's owners to turn out to be very cool people, precisely because they don't care about looking cool. It could also just as easily turn out to be a sleeper.
A form of Vehicle-Based Characterization, and a common vehicle of choice for the Obnoxious Entitled Housewife. Compare The Alleged Car for when a car is terrible for mechanical reasons. Contrast the Hippie Van and the Shag Wagon for vans that are depicted as cool.
Examples:
- A commercial for the Hyundai Tiburon has a young man die. He ends up going to Hell for being "boring". The Devil shows him the Tiburon he could have been driving to be interesting. After a ride in the car...
Man: Can I drive?Devil: This is Hell, kid. You get the minivan.<Cut to the man driving a minivan>Man: Noooooo!
- Baby Blues: Many a joke is made about how Wanda feels trapped in her dirty, cluttered minivan. One strip collection was even titled "If I'm a Stay-at-Home Mom, Why Am I Always in the Car?"
- The Cars films have Minny and Van, a pair of minivans who serve as recurring characters throughout the series. They are a dorky, bickering, and very Midwestern tourist couple who frequently get lost trying to get where they want to go, with the first film's ending revealing that they drove into the desert and have no idea where they are.
- In The Incredibles, Helen drives a white and gray station wagon when she picks up Dash and Violet from their respective schools. Later, Bob buys her a red station wagon.
- In Brick, the Pin gets chauffeured in his mother's minivan. It's one of the few moments where the film breaks from its dark and gritty Film Noir atmosphere to acknowledge that the main characters are all teenagers, and the Pin in particular as a Basement-Dweller.
- Dude, Where's My Car?: Zoltan and his team of weird ufologists ride around in a minivan. At one point, Zoltan says that it's his mother's minivan, which adds to the funny and awkward portrayal of the group.
- The Fast and the Furious:
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift: Twinkie's "Hulk car" tries to look cool with the green paint, Incredible Hulk decals and the bodywork that makes it look like the Hulk is trying to smash his way out from within, but it still is a green 2005 Volkswagen Touran and is at the very bottom of the "cool" spectrum in a film series loaded to the gills with Cool Cars; a rare Western media example of an Itasha. Sean Boswell even looks at the car, then at Twinkie, in disbelief when he first lays eyes on the van.
- A scene in Furious 7 has Brian revving the engine on the car he's driving and dramatically shifting it into gear... only to then cut to reveal that he's actually driving a Chrysler minivan in front of his son's school, clearly nostalgic for his past adventures and having not yet fully adjusted to life as a family man.
- National Lampoon's Vacation:
- The Wagon Queen Family Truckster is a station wagon example from just before the first minivans debuted. A garish, pea-green hulk of a car covered in way too much fake wood paneling, it's the image of everything ugly about American station wagons in the early '80s, and because it's an American car from the early '80s, it's also The Alleged Car. Clark Griswold gets screwed into buying it by an Honest John's Dealership and spends the rest of the film putting up with its indignities.
- The sequel Vacation, made in 2015, gave the Griswolds an actual minivan, the Tartan Prancer. While more high-tech in its "features", it turns out to be just as hideous to drive as the Family Truckster.
- In Paddington (2014), a flashback shows Mr. and Mrs. Brown driving into hospital on a motorbike while "Born to Be Wild" plays... then leave in a beige, boxy Volvo station wagon after the birth of their first child, reflecting how Mr. Brown has become overprotective almost instantly after they had their kid.
Narrator: But becoming a father does strange things to a man.Mr. Brown: Could you be careful, there's a baby here. Can you step back, there's a baby coming through. Could you keep those flowers away, please? He's too young for pollen.Mrs. Brown: Where's the bike, darling?Mr. Brown: This is our new car.Mrs. Brown: What? So beige, isn't it?Mr. Brown: It's a calm and neutral color. Could you get in?
- Project X (2012): After the Wild Teen Party that destroyed half of the neighborhood and wrecked the house, Thomas' parents punish him by giving him the family minivan as his personal vehicle. Said minivan had been severely damaged by fire and had its doors torn off as collateral to said wild party. Thomas, his friends, and his classmates all think it looks badass.
- In Animorphs, after the group morphs into beavers to build a dam to help the Hork-Bajir colony:
Marco: You know, this mission is seriously important. I'm thinking the morph should be a little more, I don't know, glamorous. I mean, going beaver to save an entire colony of aliens is like putting James Bond behind the wheel of a minivan. With a bumper sticker that says, "World's Greatest Mom." No offense.
- Demon from the Dark: Melanthe has this reaction to being called "Miss Lanthe".
Melanthe: Why don't you just buy me a minivan, zip me into mom jeans, and shoot me in the face?
- Quentin's parents in Paper Towns gift him a minivan as his first car, much to his great embarrassment. He and his friends wind up using it for their road trip to find Margo.
Quentin: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower!
- In Snow Crash, while deuteragonist Y.T. is skateboarding through a "burbclave" and using a magnetic harpoon to tow herself from one, there is an extended reflection on minivans. It discusses that "bimbo boxes", as they are known in-universe, are generally driven by two kinds of people: suburban moms, and their hyped-up teenage sons who believe they're more badass than they really are. One of the latter tries to shake Y.T. loose but overestimates his skill and crashes into a stone sign while she skates away.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The episode "Band Candy" (in which adults are magically regressed to teenagers) includes a brief gag of two suburban dads drag racing in Volvo station wagons.note
- Cobra Kai: Johnny goes through a few cars over the course of the show but eventually winds up with a minivan, albeit with an Eagle Fang logo awkwardly painted on the side. This happens to coincide with him growing out of his Disco Dan personality and putting more emphasis on family obligations.
- Orphan Black: Alison actively tries to fit the stereotypical image of a middle-class suburban housewife, which includes driving her kids to extracurricular activities in an unassuming minivan. When Sarah (who was cloned from the same woman Alison was) first sees her, she's shocked to see a woman who looks identical to her as a soccer mom.
- Yellowjackets: The Sadeckis get carjacked at gunpoint. Jeff quickly surrenders the keys to their minivan but Shauna fights back, getting the gun off the guy. She justifies it by saying her purse and her daughter's old toy were still in the van. She later goes to a garage to recover the van and threatens the owner, who had mistaken her for a simple suburban housewife, with the gun. The guy gives in, saying the van is "rusted to shit".
- Young Sheldon: In "An Ugly Car, an Affair and Some Kickass Football", Georgie trades in his Cool Car for a station wagon, as it is easier to fit a baby seat in it. Later, when he starts dating Amber, she is surprised to see his car, asking if he "wanted to look like a soccer mom"; he then tells her about being the father of Mandy's child.
- Everclear's "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom" is about a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who becomes a suburban housewife, symbolized by her transition to driving a Volvo station wagon.
- The Oak Ridge Boys' "It's Hard to Be Cool (In a Minivan)". The singer enjoys his life as a dad, but sorely misses the souped-up hotrod he traded in for an uncool minivan.
'Cause it's hard to be cool when you're behind the wheelOf an eight-passenger automobileIn a big bubble, cruisin' down the streetWith Barney blarin' and a baby seatHey, it can be done, but I'm tellin' you manIt's hard to be cool in a minivan!
- The song "1985", originally by SR-71 and later Covered Up by Bowling for Soup, is about a suburban mom whose life has been a far cry from the hip adulthood she was expecting as a teenager in The '80s. She treats her yellow SUV as one of these, calling it "the enemy" and a symbol of her mediocre life.
- Full Throttle: Malcolm Corley is the owner of Corley Motors, a company that manufactures motorcycles. He is very angry that his business partner Adrian wants to change the production into constructing minivans instead of bikes.
Malcolm Corley: He wants to take over Corley Motors, Ben! Sell it off to foreigners, lay off workers, start making minivans... You understand me!? MINIVANS!!
- Referenced in Epic Rap Battles of History in the battle between Jeff Bezos and Mansa Musa, where Bezos makes a pun on the Dodge Grand Caravan (a popular minivan) and the caravans that Malian traders would take across the Sahara:
Bezos: You rap like a soccer mom, that's why you roll with caravans!
- Futurama: A spaceship variation of the trope occurs in "2D Blacktop" when the old Planet Express ship is destroyed and Leela gets a new spaceship, which resembles a minivan. Not only is it overly safe, resembling a grey box, and having no way to view the grandeur of space, but it causes Leela to start acting like a stereotypical soccer mom, taking it out for groceries and sending Bender and Fry to karate practice.
