Why was Crash so bad again?
thesolelife
369 Posts
I remember a post some time ago about Crash- the movie....I haven't seen it but many Strutters have dissed it...so why was is bad??? My class all raves about it...I am really hesitant to show any parts of it...
Comments
I hated the more recent film, altho I wasn't privy to any OG SS threads about it. I felt like it was a lame attempt by a rich white liberal to come to terms with feelings of racial anger after being carjacked by a black dude, resorting to many lamentable racial stereotypes and trite 'n' overused narrative patterns in the process.
Think the most stereotypical racial issues all sharing a day together Magnolia style.
Been waiting to pull this one out:
Absofuckinglutely. Could not get past Season One because of it. Best thing about it was the brother-in-law and lawyer sitting in the living room and asking the maid what you call the thing between the assh*le and the pr*ck and she answers the table. Other than that, straight garbage.
this is fact not opinion.
absolute hollywood garbage disguised as a profound film about contemporary race relations.
I actually have never seen it. I was lecturing about concepts of prejudice, stereotypes, etc and someone said, "you gotta see Crash!" The majority says in unison, "yeah, that was a good movie."
I remember vaguely some Strutters sayin' it was wack. So, yeah, I guess I wanna hear collective critiques of it- which some of you have given already so thanks.
Okay, I'll check the MCSearch function so not to bother.
the dialogue with the black dude's family is on par with grand theft auto cutscenes
maybe im just an enlightened whitey (yeah right) but this show rubs me wrong in this exact way. everytime a scene comes on with dude from 40yearoldvirgin and his family, i cringe hardcore. i thought the show was "ok" but i've had so many people come up to me and rave about it. something about the racial aspect is just kind of 0_o (to steal that face). INCIDENTALLY, most of the people who like the show and try to talk to me about it our pretty hardcore 'beckys' (my gf included
Magical Negro: Part 400.
I started the old Crash thread so I don't mind just restating the basic arguments here.
The gist is this: start with how it's just a shitty movie - I mean, it really is. Robert Altman is turning over in his grave over the thought that this multi-narrative threading gets turned into this crock of self-righteous stupidity.
But go back to your class and ask them this:
What does the movie have to say about the nature of racism?
And really push them to think on this. I'm going to guess that your students like the film because it's one of the few, rare times in contemporary film where things like racism are even taken, head-on, and b/c it's a desert, even rancid water might actually seem kind of good from a distance.
But beyond the fact that, "well, the film deals with race and prejudice and stuff like that!" ask them what the film actually has to say about racism and the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) Racism is largely the exercise of individual will and personal prejudice.
2) There'd be less racism if people simply stopped making assumptions about race and learned to treat people "as people" (or some other saccharin liberal humanist rhetoric like that).
3) For those who are really, really racist - like Matt Dillon's cop character - they can redeem themselves by "doing the right thing" when extraordinary circumstances call for it. As opposed to, you know, people realizing, "hey, maybe I should stop sexually assaulting Black women that I pull over because that's, not such a good thing to do."
Two things they may not notice right away - but are integral to the movie and plain as day once you point it out to folks:
1) The only way most people realize/redeem their racism is by something incredible happening - like shooting a little girl...but luckily, your paranoid daughter put blanks in the the gun. Or shooting Lorenzo Tate over a misunderstanding (this said, I wonder if Korean American viewers watched that scene and thought, "take that, O-Dog!"). The idea that racism is something lived daily, confronted daily, and renounced daily seems beyond the imagination of the movie. Instead, it requires something almost Divine in intervention for people to have some cosmic wake-up call.
However, even this pales to what kills me:
2) Racism is almost NEVER treated as something systemic, institutional or sublimated into the very fabric of our society and its social structures. It's the health care WORKER who is racist, not the health care system. It's the police officer that's racist, not the criminal justice system (this alone, for a movie set in L.A. should have had Angelino viewers both howling from disbelief and then ready to burn shit down) . It's as if racism somehow has managed to dig its claws into America because individual people have prejudicial beliefs but somehow, our very government, its institutions, other forms of social organization, etc. are utterly invisible and non-complicit.
So, go back to your class and try that on them and see what their reaction will be.
yes, this is it in a nutshell. this movie was celebrated by people who do not see very many movies that tackle difficult issues and/or cannot approach difficult issues themselves with any sophisticated level of critical thinking or nuance. therefore, drama that blunty tackles serious issue = good drama.
'Ere ya go:
http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=863981&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
I'll join the crash hatt. That film is doodoo.
It's funny, because the first time my girlfriend and I went to see it, this guy sitting in front of us was commenting loudly throughout the whole thing. "THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE", "CLICH??!" and so on. Everyone was pissed at him (including myself), but since he was a huge surly-looking lumberjack type of dude, no one did anything. I mean, he was absoluteley right, but I want to form my own opinion without captions, you know.
Hollywood trying to be deep. Another example: Babel. Straight kak. Why were people here defending that one?
Babel was decent.
Crash was kinda boring, until i rewatched it with some of my ghetto ass relatives. Laughing and cursing at the screen, it's a movie that can't be fully appreciated without a black audience. When ludacris comes on the screen, "Oh shit is Luda LUUDAA!!!"
- spidey
OOF
Nah but everything else said is 100% right. I think the main gist of the problem most people who take race relations very seriously and can be highly critical of race in America is that 'it lets white people off the hook'. White privilege and institutional racism in education, the justice system, from the very start of LA's history becomes a non-issue because 'we are all the same' and 'i mean even the help might be racist too'. It's like how white mainstream media loves to focus on the black / brown conflict in LA.