Trash

I'm upset that "Crash" won Best Picture. My opinion is that the movie is highly overrated. It's a good drama, even great...but to think that it says something important about racism I think is a fallacy.

Racism, I once heard, is the application of a specific(negative) trait to an entire population. So if I were to believe that all Chinese people are bad drivers, and treat them accordingly, that'd be racist. However, if I were to know that some people believe this, not believe it myself, but use it to reach an end(e.g. a laugh), is that racism? I'd say not. Insensitive, maybe. Politically incorrect? Yes. But not racist and I'd go so far as to say that those who think it is are guilty of a similar principle of generalizing.

I was pissed in high school when someone did an ISP on homophobia(which the class did not know ahead of time), handed out a cartoon of people dancing, asked "what is wrong with this picture", I leaned over to Darryl Dean and whispered "two guys are dancing together", and the presenter concluded that every one who said that was homophobic. Bullsh**. That's a simplistic, ignorant assessment.

Back to "Crash". The scene where Don Cheadle makes the quip about Latinos parking on the lawn or the scene where the gun store owner calls the Iranian "Osama" are supposed to be grave, introspective moments where we go "wow...it's so scary how we're all a little racist." Bullsh**. That's a simplistic, ignorant assessment. That's just two people who know how to push other people's buttons.

I'm not endorsing this kind of behavior(I do it myself) or denying it could lead to problems, but it's just...obnoxious how people are hailing "Crash" as if it has shed some profound light on the roots of racism when it has just scraped the surface of something more akin to insensitivity.

"Crash" is as applicable to racism as "Life is Beautiful" is applicable to the Holocaust.