Essay on "Crash Movie"

Essay 5 pages (1616 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Crash Movie

Crash -- a crash case in cinematic racism?

The 2005 Academy Award-winning movie Crash was widely praised for its groundbreaking condemnation of American urban racism. The film portrays a series of interracial conflicts and interactions, some of which are literal car crashes (a frequent occurrence in urban Los Angeles where the film is set) the other of which are cultural clashes or crashes of miscommunication and misunderstanding. The film evolves in a series of tangentially interconnected narratives that are meant to reveal the racism that is at the core of the American, perhaps the human consciousness. It was seen as objective by many critics, in that it did not portray any one race as worse or as guiltier than other races of the crime of prejudice. Over the course of Crash, Middle Easterners view Hispanics with horror, African-Americans view Asian drivers with disgust, just as whites see all brown skinned people as potential terrorists and whites persecute blacks. No one emerges unscathed or merely a victim, regardless of the history of their interest group within American society. Even African-American young men who complain about how they are always viewed as criminals in the media turn out to be criminals, showing how even cultural critics 'undo' the force of their argument by embodying stereotypes, however unconsciously.

According to the typology of Donileen R. Loseke, the film evolves in a series of classifications of different types of people, contrasting white with black, brown with brown, in a way that reinforces social norms rather than genuinely challenges such social constructions. The most problematic aspect of the film's plot is when the racist Officer Ryan, played by Matt Dylan, saves the light-skinned African-American woman Christine whom he initially mistreated because he assumed she was white and was dating an African-American man (really her husband). Personal contact, in other words, is assumed to eradicate racism, which is not the case. Ryan becomes a typical white-hatted cowboy of Western films, undoing his previous evils towards the woman with chivalry. The film suddenly takes on the aesthetic and driving pace of an action film, whereby physical, exterior actions can erase psychological and sociological problems, including the problems of racism, much like 'buddy' films that pair African-American and white partners suggest that forging immediate, personal relationships can heal the historical abuses of the past.

The implication is, rather offensively that if somehow every racist officer could 'save' an African-American, than their racism would be erased and the uncomfortable feelings that African-Americans feel for the law would also be eased. The fact that the street criminals who complain about white racism played by Larenz Tate and Ludicrous, who attack a District Attorney and his wife in the opening sequence of the film, seem to confirm Officer Ryan's prejudice bolsters this argument. The film is not as radical as it seems, it merely confirms old liberal cliches that 'if we all come together and get to know one another as people, things will be okay' as well as mocks supposed liberal assumptions that all African-Americans are 'good' while whites are 'bad.' These African-American youths are clearly in need of redemption to heal them of their sinning ways, a common trope that is expressed in films as old as Blackboard Jungle, and an argument against the radical nature of Crash.

Superficial notions of tolerance eradicating racism are thus unintentionally supported by the film. In the film, redemption comes through random personal acts, like the thug Anthony's freeing of Thai refugees, but society as a whole remains the same, as do the conditions that produced both Anthony's behavior and the traffic in human beings. But it is specious, and however unintentionally, supportive of white hegemony to suggest empathy and personal acts of redemption are enough to overcome profound systemic imbalances in power, which a cultural critic such as Loseke rejects -- the racism that a black person inflicts upon an Asian person in casual anger can be equated with the systemic, institutionalized racism of the LAPD or a DA and his wife. Yes, of course, racism always hurts on a personal level, regardless of who is the perpetrator, but the violence done to society at large by certain groups (whites) upon other groups cannot be quantified by merely adding up cases of individualized pain and unhappiness. The film offers merely simple diagnostic frames of racism, of tolerance as eradicating deeply ingrained cultural constructions. Racism, however, is not merely a personal and psychological disease, it is a cultural system of stereotyping that reinforces white privilege, even if individual whites do not personally enforce stereotypes or engage in stereotypical thinking in their daily lives.

In defense of Crash's director Paul Haggis, the interconnected plots of the film suggest a more subtle analysis than the broad caricature of 'can't we all get along' as presented by the modern media. For example, familiarity with the 'other' does not necessarily create universal tolerance immediately -- a theme that runs throughout the film. Being the victim of racism does not make someone saintly, as is seen in the case of the Iranian who is discriminated against because of his Middle Eastern heritage, but who is suspicious of a Mexican-American locksmith. The fears of the Iranian motivate him to buy a gun, which results in discriminatory language and violence being vented against him. This works against the liberal argument that exposure eventually promotes tolerance. In fact, when someone is the victim of racism, he or she may feel the type of rage and paranoia that itself fuels racism and contempt of 'the other.' Different groups, even groups who are the victims of discrimination, cannot see the larger dangers of racism and white hegemony and thus they vent their rage in ineffectual, personal ways that do not fundamentally change society.

Exposure does not always promote tolerance, even in Crash -- the film does acknowledge that familiarity can breed contempt, so it does not fall prey to all past cliches. Also, it is not that Ryan has no experience with African-Americans, rather the fact that his HMO is treating his father unfairly, and the 'face' of that organizational bureaucracy is represented by a black woman that causes his rage. His lack of ability to obtain medical care for his dying father, his impotence in the face of his father's illness causes him accuses a black woman (a relatively powerless bureaucrat) working at his HMO of discriminating against him because he is white. To overcome racism requires a deeper type of contact with 'the other,' the film suggests in such moments when it shows how institutions can be 'misread.' The healthcare system, which statistically privileges whites, is misread in Ryan's frustration as something that favors African-Americans. But this misreading has far greater consequences for African-Americans than individualized prejudice shown by nonwhites does for other groups -- the Iranian's decision to buy a gun hurts himself, Ryan's prejudice, because he is a white police officer, hurts African-Americans. His authority and location in a schema of white privilege gives him added power.

Thus, analogizing the racism of the Iranian and the white policeman is inaccurate because one has more cultural power, despite Ryan's perceptions of powerlessness. Ryan's racism is not the same, because it is protected by a badge and because it validates a system of apartheid, unlike the racism of the nonwhite characters. When Christine is violated by Ryan during a traffic stop, her African-American husband can do nothing, because the author has a gun and institutional power behind him. Ryan's unfair prejudice against the HMO caseworker is undercut by her expressed prejudice against an Asian driver, whom she accuses of being unable to speak English and within the film's logic this almost seems to 'equalize' their mutual racial antipathy, even though Ryan's racism has much greater consequences.

Within the harsh,… READ MORE

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