“Crash”: ultimately by whites, for whites
CVK
Jeff Chang and Sylvia Chan just wrote an AWESOME article for Alternet breaking down why the movie “Crash” left so many people of color unsatisfied. They completely put into words what I thought about the movie but couldn’t quite verbalize. Here are some excerpts:
The entire notion that racism can be instigated by “crashes” and collisions is steeped in a certain perspective: if I don’t crash into you, I’ll never get to know you, because you don’t live in my neighborhood, and I don’t have any friends that are not of my race or class.
The whole idea that you don’t have to think about race until you “crash” into it is not what most people have the luxury of doing. And that is what white privilege is. White privilege is not having to think about race…
Take David Denby who reviewed “Crash” in the New Yorker, and loved it. If you go back, he hated “Do the Right Thing,” famously wrote that it was reactionary and terrible. But to me, a good movie about race would be one where white viewers walk out angry, confused, and frustrated, because for once, they would get a chance to look at the world from a non-white perspective. To make you feel what it’s like to be angry, confused, and frustrated all the time is exactly what a movie about race should do, because that’s what it feels like when you tell me that if I do this, this and this, I can get this. But, it’s just not true…
In the end, the film paints racism as a postmodern malaise where conflict happens because we don’t touch each other except when we crash. That’s bullshit. Racism is structural and institutional more than it is personal and sentimental.
dan wrote:
an even better review is at the new york press
http://www.nypress.com/18/20/film/ArmondWhite2.cfm
one thing that should be added is that haggis’ viewpoint is informed by his canadian identity, a la norman jewison. they both sincerely think they are doing a *good* thing by treating americans as little more than racial caricatures and ‘exposing’ racism yet they don’t have any interest in exposing the racism that also affects canada.
Posted 20 Jul 2005 at 1:31 am ¶
JM wrote:
“But to me, a good movie about race would be one where white viewers walk out angry, confused, and frustrated, because for once, they would get a chance to look at the world from a non-white perspective.”
Apart from the rest of Chang and Chan’s commentary/article, I completely disagree with this comment. If people of mixed decent are trying to promote tolerance then why call for a movie that would make ‘white viewers walk out angry, confused, and frustrated”? That would mean the movie is meant to target them, to make white people feel bad for behavior that NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE GUILTY FOR. Showing a racially motivated film to piss off a section of the audience is hostile and it targets viewers, as I said before. As a biracial person myself, I always thought the most influential message to ‘changing the times’ was passive activism, like Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King’s approach was not to single out white oppressors by calling them names or making them angry. He used the concept of passive activism to send a message. And he spread that message without insulting people! I mean, didn’t Chang and Chan learn anything?! Isn’t there a reason why some many people respect King?! Come on!
Chang and Chan’s call for singling out white viewers is a blatant attack. Their article is more like a commentary, an angry rant, than an article to read, absorb, and take heed from. You can’t change people by attacking them. You can’t make white stereotypes angry and expect for them to change. In fact, it only makes them bitter. Let me elaborate this concept through my own experience.
I watched The Debut back in 02′ and even though the film is a comedy made to poke fun at Filipino stereotypes, it gave Filipina women married to American men a bad reputation. Now after pointing this out, I’m sure you can figure out what my ethnic background is. But back to the matter in question. In the movie they portrayed the American guy as incompetent and narrow-minded freak, claiming that Asian people were not Asian but ‘Oriental’. Now that pissed me off because Oriental usually refers to property, such as ‘oriental rugs’, ‘oriental furniture’. Never should the word ‘Oriental’ be used when identifying a person.
But back to my point. They not only gave the American guy a bad rep but his wife as well. She was the mother of an unstable teenager, incapable of mothering her son while acting like a cheap pretender, thinking life was great and everything was good because she was the only one out of the crowd married to an American.
Bull shit.
This was a pun on my mom and my dad. It left me angry and bitter, thinking that all Filipinos thought the same way because my mom married an American. Does this mean they think she’s cheap because she married a ‘puti’? Do they assume my dad is a stupid ass who thinks Asian people are in fact Orientals instead of Asian? That white men married to Asian women deem their spouses as property instead of people? Give me a break! This made me bitter and even now I am insecure when it comes to what others think of me when they find out that my mom is married to an American (let alone I look more white than Filipino). But again, I refuse to go about life being angry and blaming other people for my problems because it gets you nowhere!
So NO! I don’t think racial allegories should point fingers! You want a good film about racial allegory then stick to family films like Bend It Like Beckham instead of ‘mature’ character studies like Crash. Maybe then you’ll learn something and stop blaming the world for your prejudices! You yourself can make the difference but not by pointing fingers at others, especially when you generalize. When you generalize, you are no different than the people who do. So, for once, take your experiences and learn from them.
All right then. That’s it, I’ve said my peace.
Posted 24 Jul 2005 at 11:59 am ¶
JM wrote:
“But to me, a good movie about race would be one where white viewers walk out angry, confused, and frustrated, because for once, they would get a chance to look at the world from a non-white perspective.”
Apart from the rest of Chang and Chan’s commentary/article, I completely disagree with this comment. If people of mixed decent are trying to promote tolerance then why call for a movie that would make ‘white viewers walk out angry, confused, and frustrated”? That would mean the movie is meant to target them, to make white people feel bad for behavior that NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE GUILTY FOR. Showing a racially motivated film to piss off a section of the audience is hostile and it targets viewers, as I said before. As a biracial person myself, I always thought the most influential message to ‘changing the times’ was passive activism, like Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King’s approach was not to single out white oppressors by calling them names or making them angry. He used the concept of passive activism to send a message. And he spread that message without insulting people! I mean, didn’t Chang and Chan learn anything?! Isn’t there a reason why some many people respect King?! Come on!
Chang and Chan’s call for singling out white viewers is a blatant attack. Their article is more like a commentary, an angry rant, than an article to read, absorb, and take heed from. You can’t change people by attacking them. You can’t make white stereotypes angry and expect for them to change. In fact, it only makes them bitter. Let me elaborate this concept through my own experience.
I watched The Debut back in 02′ and even though the film is a comedy made to poke fun at Filipino stereotypes, it gave Filipina women married to American men a bad reputation. Now after pointing this out, I’m sure you can figure out what my ethnic background is. But back to the matter in question. In the movie they portrayed the American guy as incompetent and narrow-minded freak, claiming that Asian people were not Asian but ‘Oriental’. Now that pissed me off because Oriental usually refers to property, such as ‘oriental rugs’, ‘oriental furniture’. Never should the word ‘Oriental’ be used when identifying a person.
But back to my point. They not only gave the American guy a bad rep but his wife as well. She was the mother of an unstable teenager, incapable of mothering her son while acting like a cheap pretender, thinking life was great and everything was good because she was the only one out of the crowd married to an American.
Bull shit.
This was a pun on my mom and my dad. It left me angry and bitter, thinking that all Filipinos thought the same way because my mom married an American. Does this mean they think she’s cheap because she married a ‘puti’? Do they assume my dad is a stupid ass who thinks Asian people are in fact Orientals instead of Asian? That white men married to Asian women deem their spouses as property instead of people? Give me a break! This made me bitter and even now I am insecure when it comes to what others think of me when they find out that my mom is married to an American (let alone I look more white than Filipino). But again, I refuse to go about life being angry and blaming other people for my problems because it gets you nowhere!
So NO! I don’t think racial allegories should point fingers! You want a good film about racial allegory then stick to family films like Bend It Like Beckham instead of ‘mature’ character studies like Crash. Maybe then you’ll learn something and stop blaming the world for your prejudices! You yourself can make the difference but not by pointing fingers at others, especially when you generalize. When you generalize, you are no different than the people who do. So, for once, take your experiences and learn from them.
All right then. That’s it, I’ve said my peace.
Posted 24 Jul 2005 at 12:01 pm ¶
Chief Lapu-Lapu wrote:
“She was the mother of an unstable teenager, incapable of mothering her son while acting like a cheap pretender, thinking life was great and everything was good because she was the only one out of the crowd married to an American.”
Lol, that’s BS. 66% of US-born Pinays marry colonialist White men. So, the painful truth is that this character would actually be the NORM, not the EXCEPTION now.
No serious writers ever want to broach the taboo topic of OUR GENERATION’S SELF-HATING ASIAN WOMEN’S RACISM AGAINST ASIAN MEN though - and always attempt to sidestep instead onto traditional White racism or “Asian men’s sexism against women.” Why? Because we are all still stuck in a 60s Civil Rights Era film loop where women and minorities are only seen as VICTIMS of racism/sexism. Therefore, we overlook any instances NOW (a generation later) whenever minority women MIGHT BE guilty of such acts - because “double minorities” are still seen as untouchable double victims.
And that folks, is the NEW racism/sexism. Where some remain innocent, even if proven guilty…
Posted 19 Dec 2005 at 10:33 am ¶
Peter wrote:
people have made some very insightful comments about CRASH on this blog. what folks have to understand is that Academy members vote with a POLITICAL agenda, not an aesthetic agenda. They don’t vote with standards having to do with the quality of the writing. They want to play up whatever film makes a POLITICAL statement consistent with their own views. Can you imagine giving a best screenplay Oscar to Thelma And Louise, some years ago? Unreal! There was nothing remarkable about the screenplay. But it was a political statement about oppressed womanhood that jived with the views of the liberal majority of the Academy. Same thing with Crash, which is poorly written, if one uses the standards of great theatrical feature films. BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER that it’s poorly written. Watch this farce on March 5th: The Best Screenplay Oscar will go to Crash, a movie with more unlikely coincidences and overblown emotions than I can ever remember seeing in a feature film.
Peter
Posted 25 Feb 2006 at 7:17 pm ¶