‘Crash’

Posted by Lurker on March 05, 2006, 02:34 PM | #

I saw this film not long ago. Black writer/director, grim stuff, probably didnt quite send out the message he was expecting.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on March 05, 2006, 04:50 PM | #

Crash is excellent and the bravest film on race I know of.  Sure, it’s totally contrived, but it’s a morality play.  I was really pleased with it.  Sure it’s not pro-white in the absolute sense, but it’s definitely not multicult-friendly either.

No doubt Haggis is trying to tell us that we all must get along: Dillon’s racist cop must save the black woman because he needs another black woman to save his father

I didn’t get that at all - what makes you think Dillon’s character needs the black woman?

The one huge flaw I see with Crash is its handling of mestizos; they’re all saints.  Everyone else in the film is mostly warts, but all the hispanophones are innocent, harmless, and purehearted.  I guess Haggis wanted to keep his servants happy.

Haggis flouted Hollywood taboos left and right, the biggest being “thou shalt not portray a white racist as human” and “thou shalt not ever portray a white racist positively.”

Posted by Zach on March 05, 2006, 05:44 PM | #

I can’t help but notice that it seems like Hispanics (at least in some instances) are becoming more militant and hysterical about defending any perceived offences than even blacks. For example, here is an article about a Hispanic group threatening to stalk the children of Minutemen volunteers.

Perhaps Haggis felt that with living in LA and all, he would be better off letting that sleeping dog lie. In any case, I can’t help but think that in some sense the Hispanics are becoming our equivalent of the European’s Muslims, with their fanaticism and violence.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on March 05, 2006, 06:19 PM | #

In that case he should’ve left them out altogether, rather than take the coward’s route.  He didn’t have to pepper the film with angelic mestizos.  This failing is conspicuous in its contrast with the far more realistic (and negative) portrayals afforded every other group.

Posted by Søren Renner on March 05, 2006, 06:22 PM | #

I am NOT making a haggis joke; be grateful.

Posted by Amalek on March 06, 2006, 10:57 AM | #

I have not yet seen this Oscar-winner, but Haggis has form as a dark horse.

His first big project, the TV series ‘Due South’ (now repeated daily on ITV3) starred a clean-cut white Canadian Mountie on secondment to Chicago, who wore his Queen’s uniform on all occasions, was unfailingly polite and patient and generally put the roughnecked, multiracial cops of the Windy City to shame. Constable Fraser’s father had been killed in the line of duty, and he communed with his ghost, imbibing the institutional values of the Mounties. He prided himself on not drawing his gun and trying to reason with miscreants whom his uncouth Yank sidekick wanted to blow away.

The series constantly set the moderation, caution, judgement and decency of the RCMP man from the clean white Frozen North against the trigger-happy nastiness of the US urban jungle. In fact Toronto stood in for Chicago in the filming, and there was a chauvinist outcry in the States when this was realised, although for many Canucks Toronto has become a byword for the future they want to avoid.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on March 06, 2006, 03:32 PM | #

I am NOT making a haggis joke; be grateful.

Oh we are grateful sir.  :D

Posted by Eman on March 06, 2006, 11:07 PM | #

I enjoyed Crash and I’m not white, liberal and believe in multiculturism.

I concur with the judgement that Hollywood tends to be one-sided when it comes with race relations so its good to see a movie which shows there is good and bad in everyone regardless of race.

As far as the issue with Hispanics go, they may have been portrayed positively here but thats not necessarily how they are seen elsewhere (see Training Day or The Shield - TV show).

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on March 06, 2006, 11:29 PM | #

As far as the issue with Hispanics go, they may have been portrayed positively here but thats not necessarily how they are seen elsewhere (see Training Day or The Shield - TV show).

Of course you believe in multiculturalism; it serves your racial and ethnic interests.

Keep those examples coming.  I’m interested in all the negative portrayals of mestizos (on balance, mind you) you can drum up.

The Shield is an interesting example.  It was inspired by the Ramparts scandal, but as far as I can tell the blackness of the real life event has been exchanged for whiteness (or mostly-white; I don’t watch the show) in Bizarro World.

Training Day is the exception that proves the rule.

Posted by Matra on March 07, 2006, 02:13 AM | #

No doubt Haggis is trying to tell us that we all must get along: Dillon’s racist cop must save the black woman because he needs another black woman to save his father

Svigor:

I didn’t get that at all - what makes you think Dillon’s character needs the black woman?

I didn’t mean it literally as in he had to save that woman. I think it was intended to be symbolic.

Amalek on Paul Haggis:

His first big project, the TV series ‘Due South’ (now repeated daily on ITV3) starred a clean-cut white Canadian Mountie on secondment to Chicago, who wore his Queen’s uniform on all occasions, was unfailingly polite and patient and generally put the roughnecked, multiracial cops of the Windy City to shame… He prided himself on not drawing his gun and trying to reason with miscreants whom his uncouth Yank sidekick wanted to blow away.

The series constantly set the moderation, caution, judgement and decency of the RCMP man from the clean white Frozen North against the trigger-happy nastiness of the US urban jungle.

I didn’t know he was involved in that series. I never saw Due South, though I remember it being quite popular in the UK - possibly more so than in Canada. Judging by your description it sounds like a Liberal Canadian Nationalist cultural product.  The Liberal Canadian Nationalist will emphasise and exaggerate every possible difference between Anglo-Canada and the US.

Amalek:

In fact Toronto stood in for Chicago in the filming

Toronto has stood in for New York for at least a decade in US movies due to cheaper production costs. I remember Tim Robbins saying such films are not the same as Toronto, which has a reputation for being safe but dull, lacks New York’s vibe. With the number of gun murders doubling last year over 2004 and Jamaican gangs all over the place Toronto is well on its way to having that NY vibe!

Posted by Matra on March 07, 2006, 02:24 AM | #

Eman:

As far as the issue with Hispanics go, they may have been portrayed positively here but thats not necessarily how they are seen elsewhere (see Training Day or The Shield - TV show).

You are right that Hispanics are often portrayed negatively in The Shield but then so is every other ethnic group. That said they occasionally have a good Hispanic to balance out the bad. The Shield is like Crash in that it gives us the impression that LA is hell on earth.

Posted by Matra on March 07, 2006, 02:42 AM | #

Peter Fonda on Crash:

By the way, I saw that Crash movie. And I’m glad, too, because I had forgotten just how racist white people really are.

Sure, most of it is unconscious, but so what? I don’t make excuses when I oppress people, even inadvertantly. Me, I take ownership of my hate, man, and I try to drive it out by confronting it.

Which is why I once spent a totally nude and coke-filled weekend with Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones, making love and, in the empty spaces, sharing bread and forging a kind of cultural rapprochement. It was almost, like, Biblical, in a sense.

Anyway, if I see Brendan Frasier or Matt Dillon on the street, I’ll probably punch them just on principle.

That’s how powerful a film Crash was, man.

That’s from the Pajamas live-blogging (entry #240 at 8.24pm).

I’m assuming that is not a parody of the has-been actor, who has blogged in the past at Huffington Post. Though it is hard to believe anyone famous would actually put their real name to such a statement.

Posted by Al Ross on March 07, 2006, 03:35 AM | #

Fonda has learned his lines well and I’m sure his masters, the Chosen People, will pat him on the head and commend him for keeping in abeyance what little commonsense he has.

Posted by Lurker on March 07, 2006, 04:17 AM | #

There is no way that is the real Fonda,  it has to be someone taking the piss, the whole thread is like that.

Posted by ben tillman on March 07, 2006, 11:47 AM | #

Yeah, it’s a parody.

Posted by Alex Zeka on March 07, 2006, 01:50 PM | #

I concur with the judgement that Hollywood tends to be one-sided when it comes with race relations so its good to see a movie which shows there is good and bad in everyone regardless of race. -Eman

However, do you see that by the logic of multiculturalism, any previously dominant group must be portrayed in a uniformly negative light, Eman? In other words, that the one-sided, histrionic race film is a necessary method of weakening what is seen as the white patriarchy. Perhaps you should reconsider your support for multiculturalism?

Posted by Svigor on March 07, 2006, 10:46 PM | #

I didn’t mean it literally as in he had to save that woman. I think it was intended to be symbolic.

Ah.

Posted by michell on December 20, 2009, 10:23 PM | #

Hello,

Could someone tell me some example of how the movie Crash deals with social pyschology

Thank you