What ‘Fast & Furious’ Can Teach Us About Women Who Reclaim Their Power

Letty Ortiz reflects back the best of our hero’s characteristics with fewer of the hang-ups.

I might have inherited my mother’s face, but everyone called me a daddy’s girl growing up. I was my father’s shadow. I refused to wear a purse for years because my father didn’t wear one. I consistently walked so closely behind him that his shoes often had scuff marks from where I’d stepped on the backs. On nights when I had trouble sleeping, I was allowed to sit with him while he watched stand-up comedy or Martin reruns. He laughed until tears ran down the sides of his face, and I laughed because I loved that he was happy.

Because I rarely let him do anything without me, I quickly learned to love his hobbies: talking about superheroes, watching fast-car movies, and playing chess. He taught me to play early. He didn’t teach me moves or strategies, but the names of all the pieces, where they belonged on the board, and how they moved.

I learned by losing. I could take all of his pieces, save the king and a few pawns, and he would still win. I could corner him, put him in check all day, and he would outmaneuver me at the last second. Sometimes, my father would put me in checkmate in five moves or less, just to prove he still could. Every game ended with a measured “Checkmate. Want to go again?”

As I got older, our chess games took longer, which meant I was learning to anticipate his moves, block him, scare him into maneuvering a different way. I still didn’t win if he didn’t let me, but I developed my own opening moves and found the pieces I favored. Eventually, I realized that I might not be able to beat him, but losing to him still made me a sharper chess player in my own right.

At some point, exhausted with years of losing, I finally asked him to teach me to win.

“First, you should be able to win a game no matter what pieces you have left on the board,” he told me.

“And second, you have to remember that the queen is the most powerful player on the board.”

*

To this day, there is an unspoken rule in our home that if any of the Fast & Furious movies are on, that is what we watch. My father can recite entire scenes from any of them and tell me exactly what kind of car we’re looking at on-screen. I ask questions about them as we watch that I sometimes know the answers to because he gets excited when he’s given permission to geek out. I originally absorbed his love of the movies by proximity, but I eventually found my own points of entry.

The queen is the most powerful player on the board.

I logged what spoke to me: the soundtracks, the adventures, a mismatched ensemble cast always ready to ride. The franchise stars Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto, who functions as a morally ambiguous antihero with ironclad loyalty to his chosen family, who stays in and out of trouble with the law as he goes from illusive carjacker to unlikely ally, then close friend, of Brian O’Conner (played by the late Paul Walker), the undercover police officer originally meant to catch him in the act. Though Dom’s near-superheroic feats of strength, daring, and bravery begin as self-serving—ensuring his own safety and protection in the face of the law—he is not above avenging his loved ones or acting on their behalf. Perhaps Dom’s not out to save the world, but his priority is to do as right by his people as he can.

Dom’s characteristic deep respect and loyalty to family extends to the women in his life: his younger sister, Mia, played by Jordana Brewster, who dates Brian over the course of the movies, and his girlfriend, Letty Oritz, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Though I eagerly consumed the Fast & Furious franchise, I identified early that women were in short supply, and the few that did exist oscillated somewhere between states of oversexualized and damsel-in-distress. So I clung to the women as I watched, especially Letty and Mia. If Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner are the (anti)heroes in these unorthodox superhero films, then Letty and Mia are, by extension, superhero girlfriends, though they each fulfilled the role in slightly different ways.

For most of the movies, Mia’s defining characteristics lean toward being pretty and being desired romantically by Brian. Though she mostly stays off the roads and disapproves of the illegal activity, it becomes clear that being a Toretto means she knows her way around a car, notably driving with the team to break Dom out of prison at the end of the fourth movie and taking part in the main heist of the fifth movie. Even so, when Brian and Mia are in a committed relationship and have a son, Mia’s primary role shifts to that of mother and she removes herself from the danger, a move that requires a different sort of power and that takes priority over being a part of the jobs the crew takes on. She chooses a quiet life and wants Brian to be a part of it, but she knows he loves the adventure and rarely stands in his way. It’s a quiet resolution to what she thinks is best for everyone, but it distances her from the people she loves.

The tension between home and adventure matters less to Letty, who is always under the hood of a car, ready to race, and as integral to the success of the mission as anyone else. Her knowledge and handling of cars and motorcycles as a rider and mechanic, her emotional connection with Dom, and her steadfast presence make her a significant part of the team rather than adjacent. Letty slides right into the trope of a superhero girlfriend in that she’s the beautiful, clever partner who often acts a moral mirror to the hero. She reflects back the best of the hero’s characteristics with fewer of the hang-ups.

Letty, like Dom, is adventurous and loyal to a fault. She never gives up on a loved one, even when everyone else has. But she has access to a great amount of power, and she has the ability to wield it, with or without her proximity to the superhero—a display that Mia doesn’t often get to share in. Letty showcases a type of superhero girlfriend who is part of the team, well acquainted with power, and demonstrates skill such that outside protection is never necessary.

I never wavered in my love for Letty as a character. I remained attached as she went through it over the course of several movies—losing Dom when he disappeared to the Dominican Republic, apparently dying (only to reappear in a later movie), losing her memory, and having to stand up for Dom when it appears he’s turned on the whole team—because when challenged, Letty does not give up. She is steadfast and constant, a reliable fixture, and I rooted for her happiness, whatever that looked like for her. Only by the eighth movie have things calmed down enough for Letty and Dom to settle comfortably back into their relationship. It’s only then that Letty begins to rediscover her own personal power.

*

The pandemic had melted time for about a year and a half by the time that F9, the ninth and latest film in the Fast & Furious saga, was released. It was the first opening weekend since I was a teenager that my father and I weren’t able to enjoy in theaters. He asked me daily when the film would be available to stream, and when I could finally find it for him, several weeks after the theater release, I made myself a pallet of blankets and pillows on the floor next to my parents’ bed so that we could watch it together.

I needed to know that I had room to be every version of myself.

I was instantly enthralled with Letty’s characterization in F9. Instead of driving her own cars—or riding shotgun with Dom when that wasn’t an option—like she had in the previous films, Letty drove a motorcycle for the majority of the ninth film. It was bold to put her on a motorcycle, a move which made her seem both vulnerable and independent. Always more involved than Mia, more handy than expected of a car girl, up until F9, I still felt the space Letty occupied would be all she had in the movies. But she’s the one who decides to head off with part of the crew when they come looking for her and Dom after the events of the eighth movie. Letty reminds Dom that family was never just the two of them and his son, Brian; it was always the people they chose to surround themselves with.

She doesn’t wait for Dom to cede. Letty makes the move she needs to in order to do what’s right for her and takes off on her Harley, this time leading Dom to adventure instead of the other way around.

Watching Letty being given the space to try something new and daring on-screen reminded me of being with my father. Throughout my life, he’d also intentionally made space for me. His love and respect for me meant that he would never stand in my way, even when the path I wanted to walk was untrodden ground. He could have taught me to mimic his own behaviors and his path, encouraged me to become an engineer and stay close to home—but, as he did when he taught me to play chess, he preferred to let me develop my signature power moves on my own.

I rode to the airport for transcontinental adventures in the back seat of his car. He remains my first audience for any speech or presentation. I never lacked for the tools I needed to become any of the various versions of myself I envisioned: future concert pianist, jet-setting diplomat, award-winning author. At the barest mention of help, he would be there in a heartbeat, but after, my father stepped back and watched with interest to see what I would make for myself. Growing into myself has felt much like learning to ride a bike with no training wheels—terrifying, but I learn to embrace the rush of it becoming easier, and I feel secure knowing my father follows behind. Always along for the ride.

Letty’s motorcycle makes her vulnerable in instances where she needs to evade gunfire, with no layer of protection from glass or the car’s metal frame. It allows her a bit of distance from Dom, positioning her as someone who makes her own decisions according to her own tastes, rather than a woman version of Dom. And it screams of power, something viewers have no doubt she can handle with ease.

Mia’s defining role is being the pretty, untouchable partner, but Letty has always been the definition of ride or die, deep in the trenches but still physically near Dom. To have Letty ride with Dom, or in a car next to him, feels safe. Years of watching and loving these movies had nothing on the moment I saw Letty on her motorcycle for the first time. Dom trusts Letty more than anyone in Fast & Furious and exhibits that trust in subtle ways. It’s an unspoken agreement that he will not expect her to blindly follow him; he will not impede on her ability to contribute. Instead, he will give her space. Letty, like the queen on a chessboard, is capable of making strong moves.

The trick is being able to stand back and give her space to make them.

My personal power has never been about the strength of the move. My father taught me that it’s always about the strategy behind it and the belief that I’d made a series of choices that made sense for me—where I would go to college, what I would do after, deciding to step out on faith and follow the path on which my words would take me. I never wanted to win; I only wanted to make decisions I was proud of, to craft a life full of work that I was passionate about and people I loved, with a little adventure and wonder built in. But I needed to be given the space to fail, to bump my head, to make mistakes. I needed to know that I had room to be every version of myself—even the versions that broke from who I’d always been and who my parents, especially my father, thought I would be.

He trusted that I had the basics, but it was my job to decide on moves that would create a life that I loved.