One more for the Road - Crash
From dissident voice “Crash” and the Self-Indulgence of White America :
"So, “Crash” is white supremacist because it minimizes the reality of white supremacy. Its faux humanism and simplistic message of tolerance directs attention away from a white-supremacist system and undermines white accountability for the maintenance of that system. We have no way of knowing whether this is the conscious intention of writer/director Paul Haggis, but it’s emerges as the film’s dominant message.
While viewing “Crash” may make some people, especially white people, uncomfortable during and immediately after viewing, the film seems designed, at a deeper level, to make white people feel better. As the film asks us to confront personal prejudices, it allows us white folk to evade our collective responsibility for white supremacy. In “Crash,” emotion trumps analysis, and psychology is more important than politics. The result: White people are off the hook. read more
posted by hysterical blackness @ 1:56 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I didn't read the whole thing but I don't agree with the snippet. I thought Crash operated against the supposition of white supremacy, that this was the ground, horizon, frame of the film and that this very supposition turned racism into a flow or force independent of specific persons.
My response to Crash: a Bamboozled Magnolia (my comment links to my post). I'm finding more and more and more responses to the film that speak to the "convenience" factor. This is operating much like Fight Club operated in relation to soothing consumer guilt and, through the experience of viewing the film, allowing the viewer to enjoy the conceit of their "awareness" of the issue but, ultimately, giving them an out simply because they acknolwedge the problem. I think Crash is operating in much the same way (but then I had many problems with the film on a cinematic level, never mind all the MOR - middle of the road - music that had to be pumped in *EVERY* scene to manipulate our emotions. Note, I am white so my experience of the film may be different than somebody elses. But, speaking as a white person, I do believe that Crash offers a soothing mediation of racist guilt. I know it, because - as a viewer - I felt manipulated into feeling forgiveness for the racist characters (even though I didn't actually feel that at all). Perhaps had they stuck with fewer characters and allowed us to really get to know them, understand their thinking, motivations, etc... maybe that would have illuminated something. But this film dealt in a lot of cliches and stereotypes that we're all too familiar with without providing any sort of genuine depth or challenge.
Here is the link to my rant/review (below).
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