Ciara Moloney
On paper, the premise of Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary–released twenty-five years ago this week–might sound niche: it documents a 1995 endurance competition where the last contestant to keep their hands on a Nissan Hardbody pick-up truck wins the truck. But on screen, it’s enthralling, an irresistible salted-caramel treat. It is, somehow, both giddy and grim: at once a bite-sized anthropological study of post-Reagan America and the most exciting sports movie not to feature Rocky Balboa.
A dealership in Longview, Texas has run the Hands on a Hardbody competition for years. The twenty-four contestants are drawn from a raffle because there are so many entrants: you’re only allowed to put your name forward once per day, so prospective hopefuls come back day after day to maximise their chances of being selected. When the selected two dozen arrive on the morning of the competition, the rules are outlined. You must have one hand on the truck. You cannot lean on the truck, or squat; you have to be standing. There is a five-minute break hourly and fifteen-minute break every six hours. The first time I watched it, I thought six hours seemed like a long time.
Like the best documentaries, Hands on a Hardbody makes the viewer incredibly invested in something they didn’t know anything about, and wouldn’t have cared about if they did. The twists and turns are nerve-racking, edge of your seat stuff: who drops out, who gets drowsy, whose legs start to go. Who loses their mind. “It’s mind over matter,” former winner Benny Perkins tells the camera. “It’s mind over mind.”
Benny is one part Matthew McConnaughey wise man, one part Arnold Schwarzenegger in villain mode in Pumping Iron. In talking-head interviews, he talks about the bond between the contestants – the only other people who know what this is like to go through – and the sheer exhilaration of when someone else drops out. He seems a natural nemesis for the other twenty-three contestants: he won before, it wouldn’t be fair for him to win again. Benny says the only real threat to him is if another contestant just got out of the Marines.
Greg Cox just got out of the Marines. There aren’t many ways in civilian life where you can push yourself to the limit, see just how far you can go; the Hands on a Hardbody competition is one of them. Like Rocky, he just wants to go the distance. Like Jake LaMotta, there’s an almost ritual sacrifice element to it. A former contestant who didn’t win nonetheless describes it as the best experience of his life.
But most of the contestants? They really need this truck. Or they really need the money they’d get selling it. Norma Valverde, a devout Christian who listens to religious music on her Walkman, has been praying for a truck, and this is the answer to her prayers. Though none of the other contestants articulate especially religious reasons for participating, the idea of appealing for divine intervention hangs in the air: for so many of these people, having a free truck is a miracle. It is, out of the clear blue sky, a way to some better kind of life, a gleaming signpost that reads, “You are now exiting the relentless grind of poverty and desperation to which you have become accustomed.”
But, of course, it’s not a free truck. They pay for it in blood and sweat. They have to wear gloves so as not to scratch up the paint job, and the material irritates their skin red and raw. Their limbs go numb. Sleep deprived, they start to hallucinate and become delirious. Norma bursts out laughing, and though she says it’s the joy of the Lord running through her, it’s hard not to worry that she’s gone loopy.
The cumulative effect is Squid Game-esque. The contestants are poor, and their best chance at better is to go through this. It’s a Faustian bargain where you don’t get the whole world, but a truck. It’s game show as substitute welfare state.
“Truck make money,” Ronald McCowan says plainly, “Car don’t make money. Truck do.” Ronald shows up in sandals with nothing but Snickers bars to eat. Oh, and he didn’t sleep the night before. He makes the guy who showed up in cowboy boots look prepared.
Hands on a Hardbody is full of those juxtapositions: the horrible clarity that this event could only exist in a capitalist dystopia, and the fun of the game itself. Sizing up each contestant’s tactics. Who’s cheating? Who gets caught? Who will drop out next?
Who will win?
