by Chris Marshall:
My first draft of this post consisted of just one word: “Garbage.”
Maybe that’s a little too uncharitable, but it summed up my feelings
immediately after watching Crash.
That being said, though, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out
that I was already biased against the film before going into it, simply because
of all the negative criticism I’ve read about it over the past few years.
But I’m pretty sure I never would have liked this, even if I
went into it totally blind. I’m not against “message films” in principle, but I
prefer not to be bludgeoned over the head with that message. There is literally
not a single scene in this movie that can’t be boiled down to one of the
following formulae: two people of different races being racist toward one
another or two people of the same race talking about how bad racism is.
The thing is, that’s not a bad message at all. The problem
is that it’s not a new or insightful or useful message. This is something that
everybody knows already. I’m not claiming that racists don’t exist; they do,
and they’re terrible. Most of the time, though, racism doesn’t take the
blatant, overt form on display in Crash.
The characters in this movie just openly hate people of other races.
Seriously, how often do you meet somebody, even in
Mississippi, who acts like this? It’s pretty rare. Insofar as this type of
racism occurs, it’s almost always confined to two people of the same race
talking about some Other. Take, for example, the scene where Matt Dillon tells
the insurance person that it makes him sick that she took her job from more
qualified white men. Does this happen in real life?
I’m sure somebody will tell me I’m overly naïve and that it
happens all the time, but I’m still not buying it. Say what you will about our
society, but we’ve evolved to a point where that’s Definitely Not Okay. It
happens all the time in the movie, however.
Now I’ve spent the first 350 words of this post talking
about racism, but what else is there
when discussing this film? From a technical standpoint, it’s not badly made at
all, but those aspects are completely overshadowed by the heavy-handed
dialogue. The scene where Ludacris is telling his partner about how hip-hop is
the “music of the oppressor” is a perfect example. Maybe he has a point (no he
doesn’t), but the filmmakers’ intention is so transparent that it’s impossible
to take them seriously. Hahaha, Ludacris, a rapper, is talking about how evil
rapping is!
Don’t get me wrong, I love Ludacris, and I thought he was
the best part of the movie, but come on. And anyway, doesn’t that undermine
your message? We know that the actor doesn’t believe what he’s saying, by
virtue of the fact that he makes a living in real life by doing what he decries
in the film, so if we’re supposed to take his message to heart, what sense does
that make?
 |
| Nothing about this scene made any sense at all. |
There are so many interwoven storylines here that I don’t
have the time or space to address them all, but these scenes exemplify my
problem with the movie. If you’re going to make a feature film where the only
goal is to say “racism is bad,” at least make your point consistently. And just
as importantly, don’t do it in such a way where the viewer (me) is LOLing at
the most tragic moments. The excruciating melodrama of the scene where the
Persian[1]
(not Arab!) shopkeeper goes to kill the Mexican locksmith was just so over the
top that I couldn’t help but laugh. And I didn’t even feel bad about it.
I’ve long harped about how much I hated The Great Ziegfeld. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Crash is a worse movie, but I’m pretty
sure they’re on the same tier of badness. The main difference is that The Great Ziegfeld was bad because it
was dull and uninteresting, while Crash
actively annoyed me. I’m not sure which is the greater sin.
But no matter. As of about 5 p.m. today, I can now say that
I have seen every existing Best Picture winner. The Oscar Project isn’t
finished, but this was the last winner I hadn’t previously seen. I did it! 86
days after this stupid thing started, my main goal is done. Now to just see it
through for another six films.
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