Heavy Traffic

A white dropout attempts to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him while still living in a rundown apartment with his middle‑aged parents—an Italian father described as oafish and a Jewish mother portrayed as ditzy. He is ridiculed and looked down upon by friends who are involved with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, as well as by a shallow Black woman who works downtown among pimps and drug dealers. The cartoonist receives an opportunity to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul; however, the proposed story—a far‑future Earth depleted by war and pollution in which a mutant antihero challenges and kills God—is considered too outrageous.