I’d like to thank the academy..
Although I didn’t predict the surprise Best Picture win CRASH at the boring Oscars sunday night,
I had been hoping the Academy would come to their senses and deliver the award to this film. This is one of the only films to move me, challenge me, or make me think in years. If you haven’t seen it DO SO! I argued with a customer before they announced the winner on Sunday night. He seemed to think that the Best Picture award had to go to Brokeback because it is “the only film on the list that actually addresses real issues in America today. The only film that can get something done.”
My jaw drops before I can catch my breath to ask him if he had heard of a little event we like to call Hurricane Katrina? Now, I’m not saying the hurricane is racist, but no one can deny that Katrina exposed a world of class division so dramatic, it wouldn’t even make a good movie. So when the little prick looks at me and says, “well, I have lived in L.A. and all of those characters were ridiculous stereo types that don’t exist anymore! The racist abusive cop?”
Pick your jaw off the floor Belle…
“Hey Whitie, you didn’t happen to live in a daddy paid for apartment near beverly hills and drive a car only five years old, huh?”
I just lost my tip. “cuz in that case you’re right. there is no racism in your world, nor abuse.”
stupid prick guy: “well, race issues aren’t the issue this year. It’s not an effective move to beat a dead horse.”
My high horse mouth, “it is if the poor people have to eat it.”
and then my film won.
“Movie studios, by and large, avoid controversial subjects like race the way you might avoid a hive of angry bees. So it’s remarkable that Crash even got made; that it’s a rich, intelligent, and moving exploration of the interlocking lives of a dozen Los Angeles residents–black, white, latino, Asian, and Persian–is downright amazing. A politically nervous district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his high-strung wife (Sandra Bullock, biting into a welcome change of pace from Miss Congeniality) get car-jacked by an oddly sociological pair of young black men (Larenz Tate and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges); a rich black T.V. director (Terrence Howard) and his wife (Thandie Newton) get pulled over by a white racist cop (Matt Dillon) and his reluctant partner (Ryan Phillipe); a detective (Don Cheadle) and his Latina partner and lover (Jennifer Esposito) investigate a white cop who shot a black cop–these are only three of the interlocking stories that reach up and down class lines. Writer/director Paul Haggis (who wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby) spins every character in unpredictable directions, refusing to let anyone sink into a stereotype. The cast–ranging from the famous names above to lesser-known but just as capable actors like Michael Pena (Buffalo Soldiers) and Loretta Devine (Woman Thou Art Loosed)–meets the strong script head-on, delivering galvanizing performances in short vignettes, brief glimpses that build with gut-wrenching force. This sort of multi-character mosaic is hard to pull off; Crash rivals such classics as Nashville and Short Cuts. A knockout. –Bret Fetzer”
March 7th, 2006 at 9:48 am
In many areas, Crash shined. More importantly, it opened a door to re-examining a dialogue that had taken a back seat for a time, which is indeed relevant in our post-Katrina era.
However, for a movie that boasts opening the door to such racial/ethnic dialogue, the Iranian portrayal was crap. It reinforced the stereotypes of angry, irrational Middle Eastern male and head-scarved, repressed woman (save the daughter, who was clearly more American than Iranian)… And this portrayal really disappointed me (or should I say ‘irrationally enraged me to the point of attempting to committ senseless murder’…*sarcasm*).
My point is, Iranians are incredibly versatile and complex people. Pick up any cultural-anthropological or historical account of the country and it’ll paint a beautiful and complex picture of that. Unfortunately, the media coverage–fictional and nonfictional alike–has been completely one-dimensional and lopsided, even today. Remember “Not Without My Daughter?” Trust me, no Iranian can forget it. In short, less than 10% of the Iranians I’ve known in my lifetime–and that’s far more than most–fit these f’d up stereotypes. Between the Hollywood position and the Washington and global media political maneuvering with the Iranian IAEA, the nuclear situation, and this psychotic president and his psychotic and corrupt regime, I’m quite over it.
In short, unless an artist has some new (to Western eyes) light to shed on this ancient, layered, multifaceted culture, they should refrain from making any comment at all.
Then again, everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but I’m not entitled to view yet another trite expression as anywhere near brilliant.
March 7th, 2006 at 9:49 am
correction: …with the IAEA, the Iranian nuclear situation, and the…
March 10th, 2006 at 5:41 am
I agree wholeheartedly with Belle that CRASH is an important film precisely for the reasons she lists: it takes no easy outs and gets you to think about race and racism. That said, Roddy is on the mark in noting many of the stereotypes being perpetuated in order to supposedly “interrogate” racism. From the WASPish Bullock to racist redneck cop to Shaniqua the insurance lackey and yes the Iranian shopkeeper, this film (written by Million Dollar Baby-don’t-try-to-be-Rocky-have-babies Haggis) could easily promote and validate the very sterotypes it is trying to call into question. But maybe it can kick-start discussion, because Belle is absolutely right about the invisibility of white privledge. I’m still seeing this in LSU students and in N.O. during the shockingly ‘pale’ Mardi Gras this year.
Check out Walk the Line. It is GREAT!
March 10th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
The stereotypes come from somewhere. I know at least one person who is like all of those characters. And even these people in real life might be large and over dramatic, but they are still real. there are definately real Shaniquas and I was practically raised by the Sandra Bullocks of the world. What people tend to overlook is the otherside of each of those characters that was subtely but distinctly mapped out in the screenplay. Sandra’s lonely anger she was drowning in, the racist cop’s insufferable and now helpless father…
I don’t think the portayal of the Iranian store owner was any more “stereotypical” than another. It, too, was doublesided. An over sensitive, hyper Iranian on one hand and a struggling father on the other trying to maintain control of his family power of his daughter rather than let her help and admit any weakness. Kinda like my life story.
Maybe I just know a lot of different people, but seriously the only stereotype that got to me in CRASH was all of these people crossing paths in one or two days. But that’s cinema.
March 12th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
dude, first off let me say that i love you Belle. Now on to my second point: Crash fucking sucked. it should have totally been Brokeback. If only for the fact that there is no moral. of course, there is a sympathetic presentation of homocowboys, but never in the film does someone step out and say cowboys should be allowed to be gay. if anything it says well good luck cowboys try not to catch a tire iron in the face. or maybe it just says love is hard. period. i mean then you look at crash and that shit where Matt Dillion goes and gets Thandie out of the car and then they keep staring at each other all like oh wow we’ve really learned something here… if anything the only thing that movie clearly says is white people are bad. if you want to watch a movie that makes a point about class division on a global scale watch City of God-that shit’ll make you wanna kill yourself