I don't care how much trouble "Crash" had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.
For "Crash"'s biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed....
Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force in the world. It is in the business of entertainment, in the business of making the most dollars it can. Yes, on Oscar night, it likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than actually do that job in the present.
(Critic Kenneth Turan, "Breaking no ground," Los Angeles Times)You can almost view it as the cinematic equivalent of brainwashing, but its for a good cause.
The reality in the film is not similar to our own in any shape or form.
How are we supposed to take what we learn from this film and apply it to everyday life when the people that inhabit this world tell people of other races and cultures why they do not feel safe and secure around them?
The film makes the audience feel like a better person by supplying them what they want.
They give the rascist characters redemption.
Do most rascists change their ways?
Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon would not change their ways.
Their rascism is so deeply in them that they cannot change.
Well they could, but definately not the way the film provides.
And don't get me started about Ludacris's story.
The film does not leave viewers in an array of frustration and confusion, but in an array of comfort and relief.
Rascism should not leave that type of feeling.
The film and the crew think they can change people's thoughts of other people, but it really cannot if it does not realize that they need to provide truth to what they are doing.
The film supplies good drama.
I'll give it that.
It just needs to know how to deal with the issue it has.
Do the Right Thing handles this issue so much subtler and brilliantly.
You might not like that movie because you might think it is preachy.
It is definately more subtler than this film.
It actually leaves you frustrated and confused.
It leave you pondering what is the right way to deal with rascism.
Crash preachs the "truth" to the audience, while Do the Right Thing poses the question what is the "truth."
Nobody really knows how to deal with rascism so why provide solutions to it?
Ask the audience what the right solution is.
And remember...
Always do the right thing
