A film review on crash...

Crash: A Collision of Racial Stereotypes by Ryan Saxby Hill for deal.org

At times hard to watch, but candid and much needed, Crash fills a void by giving us a reason to discuss racial stereotypes and racism.
Canada holds itself up as an icon of a multicultural and multi-lingual society. We celebrate our multicultural policy as being a core value of the Canadian way of life. It is certainly true that politicians and leaders talk continually about the value of Canadian diversity and the need to celebrate this diversity whenever we can.

This nationalistic level of multiculturalism is one thing, but it is the interaction between people that determines how multiculturalism is felt at a personal level. Many times it is at this personal level of interaction where racism and stereotypes are formed and where they play out. It is easy for us to say that we live in a country that respects cultural diversity and that stands for multicultural values, but it is a very different thing to live this experience everyday.

Due to how multicultural our society is supposed to be, there is sometimes a difficulty in talking about race and racism, because we just don’t have the vocabulary or the ability to make the conversation work. We are scared to talk about race because we are not sure how we are supposed to talk about it. We know that we live in a multicultural society, but yet we know that we experience stereotypes and racism everyday. We sometimes end up not thinking about the implications of stereotypes because we are not sure how we can talk about them.

The new movie Crash by Lion’s Gate Films might be able to help us work this out. The movie works to deconstruct the events that lead up to a car crash in Los Angeles. The events are a series of interconnected inter-racial interactions that expose the racism, intolerance, and stereotyping that goes on in everyday American life. As it deconstructs the scene of the car accident, Crash also works to deconstruct the stereotypes that are depicted in the film.


The website for the film states, “Driving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast of characters’ struggles to overcome their fears as they careen in and out of one another’s lives.” This candid portrayal of racial stereotypes, bigotry, and intolerance works in all directions. Bigots become the victims of bigotry, and stereotypes are turned in on themselves. The result is a fast paced journey through the interconnected lives of the characters. Emotional scenes are the norm and the intensity of the film is obvious.

The movie’s tag line is, “at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other,” and this general theme serves to explore the difficulties that exist in these interpersonal collisions. There is violence, a little bit of romance, and a whole lot of prejudice and racism. The movie provides us with real life cases of how racism feels, how it plays out in real life, and how unreasonable it can be.

I left the film with something to talk about. I was able to say, “Wow, I felt that and I don’t like it,” or “I’m not comfortable with how normal this looks.” Whatever you think of the film, you will likely be forced to think about the content. It might not be completely easy to handle, but it is something that you should do. Go see it. Take your friends. Talk about it after.

Links:
The official site of Crashhttp://www.crashfilm.com/