Crash - More Than a Collision of Cultures
If you know someone with strong, conservative political beliefs - and who attends evangelical church services and listens to Rush Limbaugh faithfully - from Nebraska or perhaps rural Idaho, who has never been to Los Angeles, ask them if they saw "Crash" and ask what they believe about L.A. now. They might just turn and run away. If they do have the grace to answer your question, compare what they say with what someone says who has actually visited South-Central, or Korea Town, or "East LA" at night, alone, in recent weeks or months. Granted, life isn't really as bad - and people couldn't possibly be as rude, hateful and unbendingly racist - as one would believe if taking the film literally. But life is bad, pretty damn bad, for a lot of people who live in greater L.A. - or in any sprawling, multicultural urban setting in 2006. Visit Dallas, Chicago, New York, Newark, Miami, and try to tell me those many and diverse cultures and sub-cultures truly love and embrace each other. I'll show you a cow that flies. I'll show you a pizza that solves math problems.Meanwhile, it is the thesis of this paper that while this movie was an eye-popping, jaw-dropping jolt of hideously racist individuals living out various twisted
It certainly didn't hurt the film's chances first, that it was shot in L. "Is this just manipulative storytelling?" Ebert wonders. But those who know the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences well - and the Academy's collective desire to occasionally be brutally honest about life in Los Angeles, where so many films are produced - were not shocked at all. It is what we see it is, and more: a glut of pilgrims from diverse points of entry, polarized by a political system that borders on fascism, yet in their hearts a love that fights for survival can snuff out the loathing in wink of a jaundiced eye. Some observers were shocked at the choice of "Crash," since there had been so much pre-Oscar hype about "Brokeback Mountain. The burning car accident scene stands out as one of many very effective use of film. Dillon "victimizes others by exercising his power, and is impotent when it comes to helping his father. But then Haggis maneuvers the story so "the plot turns ironically on itself," Ebert continues; both Dillon's character and the young cop who despises Dillon wind up saving the lives of the black couple (a TV director and his wife) that were stopped (and harassed) without justification earlier in the film. " Indeed, "Brokeback" had swept numerous awards leading up to Oscar night, and well, it seemed an appropriate time for an openly gay story of such delicate beauty to win it all. This scene is stark, telling, and poignant. Some of us can overcome those prejudices; others of us can't. And what does the text and the substance of this film tell us about our culture? It tells us a huge amount. First of all, this film clearly grabbed the issue of racial intolerance and cultural stereotyping by the neck and shook it - and all of us with it - until teeth were about to fall out. Fourthly, the movie is a lesson offered through film; it brilliantly portrays the harried lives of all of us, in that we often don't stop often enough to smell the flowers that spring from the rich earth of diversity all around us.
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Acceptance Essays
