# Crash -- Deserving of Best Picture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 6, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223 "2006-03-06T05:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/81 "2006-03-07T19:32:19Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > I don’t know if I agree with the 100%. I understand that they were trying to make some generic point without regard to L.A., but there is a reason it takes place in this city. L.A. is an extremely diverse city. It is also can be a very alienating one, very spread out, where folks don’t really know or attach themselves to their neighborhoods. Don Chaedle speech about folks “crashing into one another” may be a commentary on modern life, but it is especialy relevant in Los Angeles. > > However, whether you believe it being set in L.A. is relevant or not, to me, living in L.A., it seemed false and contrived. That’s because you insist on LA-izing it. Plus, it’s fiction, remember? If it wasn’t “false and contrived” it’d be a documentary. You left out one very important reason that it was filmed in LA-- that’s where the movie industry is! 🙂 One thing I like about the film is how all the characters ended up doing something in the end completely out of character based on your initial perceptions of them. And, the snowing scene was a great visual representation. Who ever expects it to snow in LA? Whoever expects an ignorant thug to end up helping some helpless Asian illegal imigrants. Who ever expects the good guy non-racist cop to kill the Black guy? Whoever expects the pampered, whiny housewife to recognize that she’s been a complete ass? And racism is just a metaphore for how we react to each other in a tense, urban enviroment. The audience sizes up the characters in exactly the same way that the characters themselves size each other up. Anyway, I can’t really say whether it should’ve won best picture, since I didn’t see several of the other films. 🙂 But I think the complaints being leveled against it are off base. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/82 "2006-03-07T20:54:49Z")
There is an interesting [article](http://theenvelope.latimes.com/columnists/insider/env-screenscrash7mar07,0,5184709.column?coll=env-home-headlines) (I think registration will be required) at the LA Times about the campaign Lionsgate put on for _Crash_. They basically went specifically after the acting contingent in the Academy as well as the L.A. based contingent. > [@](#): > > In fact, the key to the success of “Crash” was that the film itself — and the carefully orchestrated promotional campaign undertaken by its distributor, Lionsgate — appealed to the academy’s largest voting bloc: actors. With 22% of the voting members, the acting contingent is nearly three times as big as the next-largest group, producers. > > It was actors — specifically, those in Los Angeles — who were targeted to deliver votes. And judging by the upset, deliver they did. **John Mace** : I can’t help L.A.'izing it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/83 "2006-03-07T21:45:05Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > One thing I like about the film is how all the characters ended up doing something in the end completely out of character based on your initial perceptions of them. And, the snowing scene was a great visual representation. Who ever expects it to snow in LA? Whoever expects an ignorant thug to end up helping some helpless Asian illegal imigrants. Who ever expects the good guy non-racist cop to kill the Black guy? Whoever expects the pampered, whiny housewife to recognize that she’s been a complete ass? Me. Because I’ve seen a movie before. That’s how they work. The only unexpected things were the little girl managing to live to the end of the film (and she was shot at, it just failed to kill her) and the DA not screwing his assistant on screen. Seriously, was any of that even remotely unexpected or original to you? (Except the snow. The snow was a bit odd, but didn’t snow in LA Story, too?). Was it supposed to be? Cause the rest has been done. Many times. Much better. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/84 "2006-03-08T08:59:32Z")
**Trunk** - I get what you’re trying to say. My point is, that when my Chinese Catholic Malaysian friend (who gets one kind of discrimination in Malaysia, for not being muslim and Malay, and another kind in Ireland, for not being white) doesn’t feel that the film is believable, she might have a point. Her point (and mine) is exactly yours- people ARE racist, but that film used the least subtle examples it could find, not the more subtle ones that happen in daily life. Perhaps life here and in the far East just isn’t like urban America (I can see that) but it certainly isn’t like _Crash_. Things that actually happen: Being asked if you speak English. Being served last in a shop or followed around when you shop. People seeing your wedding ring and tutting to themselves about arranged marriages and wife-beating. The only thing that rang true was the DA’s wife holding her purse tighter…it’s THAT type of stuff that happens. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/85 "2006-03-08T16:52:58Z")
Several years ago, my wife and I had car trouble in Vancouver BC. On the long drive from Seattle, somewhere along the way, the transmission developed a crack and lost its fluid. When we got to Vancouver and limped into the hotel’s parking garage, I discovered that I’d burned out my gears. We had to call a tow truck to get the car to a local mechanic. The tow truck driver seemed like a normal-enough kind of guy. Mid-twenties, mullet, frosted tips on top and in the front; a thin, eyebrow-y beard that was nonetheless carefully trimmed and groomed, so it was clear he’d spent his whole life growing it and this was the best he could manage so he’d make sure it looked as good as he could make it; Ali-G-style tinted sunglasses. Canadian trendy. 😉 My wife went to the hotel lobby to check us out while I dealt with the tow truck. I waited as he got the car hooked up, and then I climbed into the cab. He started maneuvering down the ramps and out of the garage, where we were going to pick up my wife on the sidewalk outside. Midway down, we had to stop, as the way was blocked by a woman who was trying to pull into a parking space and making a mess of it. She had steered wide, missed the space, and was now executing a twenty-point turn, backing up, going forward, backing up, going forward, to get herself aimed into the spot. And in so doing, she made herself an obstacle to traffic, so we had to wait. “Man,” said the tow truck driver. “Stupid Chinese drivers.” I peered more closely, and saw that the driver was indeed a fiftyish Chinese woman. “They just can’t drive,” said the tow truck driver in a tone of low-key exasperation. “You have bad Chinese drivers where you’re from?” He wasn’t being gratuitously offensive, so I didn’t want to be unfriendly, but his comments were also pretty tasteless, so I didn’t want to encourage him either. After a second of consideration, I gave this noncommittal response: “We have a lot of bad drivers in Seattle.” An empty reply that would give him the opportunity to clarify his intentions. Which he did. “That’s right, you’re from the States,” he said, nodding, and looking at me. “You’ve got all the coloreds down there.” I didn’t respond, and kept my gaze out the windshield, where the woman was jockeying her car back and forth. I needed the guy to tow my vehicle, but I didn’t want to get into this subject with him, so I let my long silence communicate my disapproval with the tenor of the conversation. He was quiet as well, because he knew right away he’d crossed a line, and that I disapproved strongly of his sentiment. The interesting thing, though, was the way he said it. “You’ve got all the coloreds down there” was not said with anger, or disgust, or venom. It was a deeply racist remark, but it wasn’t spoken with obvious hate. No: he said it with _hope._ He was, in a real sense, reaching out to me as another human being. He was hoping to make a personal connection, hoping to find somebody who shared his attitude, and with whom he could _bond._ He was tentative, testing my beliefs, my worldview, carefully exposing some of his own, _hopeful_ that he’d find a kindred spirit with whom he could be himself. He clearly kept these thoughts and feelings hidden, day to day, and offered them cautiously to strangers he thought he could trust. But I rejected his overture, and made clear my distaste with his offer. The silence stretched out for long seconds while we waited for the Chinese woman to park her car. Eventually she was done, and we pulled past. There was no conversation for something approaching a full minute when we left the garage and I pointed to my wife waiting on the sidewalk: “There she is.” She got in, and with the dynamic changed, we were able to make meaningless small talk on the way to the mechanic. _That_ is what racism in the real world looks like. It’s subtle. It lurks and skulks. It is not approved behavior in polite society, which is absolutely the way it should be, but because of that, it hides in the shadows and speaks only in code. It slithers out with caution, seeking allies, pleading for companionship, and it scuttles back into darkness when it finds a hostile environment. It is elusive, a source of social shame; it is not to be wallowed in publicly. When its adherents do manage to identify one another, they latch on almost in desperation, and they work to inject their poisons into the world while hiding behind a veil of politeness and civility. _Crash_ turns this upside down and inside out. And while that can be a valid storytelling tactic, it’s cheating if the thing you’re reversing is the thing you’re trying to explore. You don’t get to claim you’re making valid points about human behavior if you’re distorting that behavior beyond any real-world recognition. In an odd sort of way, storytelling works sort of like a scientific experiment, where you isolate elements and control various factors in order to focus analytically on some aspect of the system. In a tapestry movie like _Crash_, just as with _Short Cuts_ and similarly structured films, you establish the highly artificial interwoven relationships as an acknowledged contrivance in order to get at the deeper truths of human interaction. But _Crash_ invalidates its ostensible observations by manipulating its people as heavily as it does its narrative framework. Nobody’s saying racist cops don’t exist. They just don’t act the way Matt Dillon does in the film. _Crash_ says absolutely nothing, and says it over and over again. That’s why I don’t respect it, and that’s why it’s undeserving of the acclaim it’s received. (By the way, on the subject of Ebert’s advocacy, he’s been wrong about this kind of thing before. He gave _Monster’s Ball_ four stars, with similar reasoning, and that movie is unnatural, manufactured, and false in the same way _Crash_ is. I didn’t buy _Monster’s Ball_ for a minute, and I didn’t buy _Crash_ either: not because of the storytelling coincidences, but because I couldn’t see any recognizable human behavior through the haze of writerly manipulation in either movie.) ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/86 "2006-03-08T18:42:12Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Nobody’s saying racist cops don’t exist. They just don’t act the way Matt Dillon does in the film. You’ve told a very long story to make this point, but you failed to make it. Most of the time, cops don’t act like Matt Dillon’s character… but sometimes they do. It does happen. Denying that is somewhat deliberately obtuse IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/87 "2006-03-08T19:01:44Z")
**Trunk:** > [@](#): > > It won best original screenplay for a reason. That was a complex, artful screenplay with a great sense of dialogue. The quality of that screenplay is the first thing that jumps out at a viewer. I haven’t seen the movie, but if what you say above is true, then they chose an _extraordinarily_ unrepresentative clip to show at the Oscars. Because from what I saw of the writing, it’s almost ludicrously bad. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/88 "2006-03-08T19:14:19Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > You’ve told a very long story to make this point, but you failed to make it. Most of the time, cops don’t act like Matt Dillon’s character… but sometimes they do. It does happen. Denying that is somewhat deliberately obtuse IMO. But everyone in the film acted like that all the time. The characters were speaking what should have been conveyed through subtext. The in person interview between Matt Dillon and Loretta Devine wouldn’t have happened like that. The people may have thought what those characters were supposed to have been thinking, but it wouldn’t have happened out loud - it would have been in posture, physical presence, eye contact (and the lack of it) body language, uncomfortable silences, blustering, etc - maybe, maybe there would have been a conversation later, outside of that office, after the moment, with other people, in crowds that the speaker deemed as “safe” or at the very least sympathetic. But in that office, at that moment, that scene doesn’t happen. What was on that screen completely failed to ring true. And it wasn’t just that scene, it was for most of the movie. The words were wrong. And not infrequently, the actions were wrong as well. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/89 "2006-03-08T20:09:55Z")
Excellent post **Cervaise**. I happen to disagree, but at least it said something. > [@Cervaise](#): > > Nobody’s saying racist cops don’t exist. They just don’t act the way Matt Dillon does in the film. > > _Crash_ says absolutely nothing, and says it over and over again. > > That’s why I don’t respect it, and that’s why it’s undeserving of the acclaim it’s received. Take Matt Dillon’s character. The question to me wasn’t his racism. If he really was racist, couldn’t he have let the woman die? Wasn’t it interesting that he was filled with love for other characters but still racist? Isn’t it interesting that perhaps his racism came from dealing with people of other races and not ignorance or fear of people of other races (factors which are commonly cited as the root causes of racism). Well, to me that all was interesting. And, isn’t the point of putting Dillon and the woman in two extreme circumstances really just to get you to look at how racism manifests itself, to explore how one’s racism conflicts with one’s OTHER senses of morality & duty. And as for the rest of your story. . .forget the guy talking about “coloreds” for a minute. What do you, personally, think of Chinese drivers? (you don’t need to answer that. I’m going somewhere with this.) Personally, I think they suck. I’ve lived with 3 Chinese guys. I work with Chinese guys who often drive to lunch, and went to grad school with tons of them. They start driving when they get to America, when they’re 20. It’s not a shortcoming of a Chinese person. It’s just an indication that they didn’t grow up riding in cars from the day they were born, and that they haven’t been driving since they were teenagers. The EASY thing to say is, “Well, clearly, **Trunk** you have a cultural bias and so you notice that which reinforces your own stereotypes.” As I said earlier, I think some people who had a real problem with the movie are people who are dogmatic about that kind of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/90 "2006-03-08T21:06:00Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > If he really was racist, couldn’t he have let the woman die? Wasn’t it interesting that he was filled with love for other characters but still racist? Isn’t it interesting that perhaps his racism came from dealing with people of other races and not ignorance or fear of people of other races (factors which are commonly cited as the root causes of racism). > > Well, to me that all was interesting. And it was delivered just in time for the idea soft racism isn’t really that bad, as long as you don’t go around lynching people to settle firmly into the mainstream psyche, but before anyone really discusses it that plainly. That’s no commentary on the quality of the film. It’s just interesting how this is another example Hollywood reflecting American values early enough to _seem_ edgy, but late enough to not really be. ---
**Author:** ![OneCut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@OneCut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCut)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/91 "2006-03-08T22:51:28Z")
> [@LA Times review](#): > > [LA Times review](http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/chocano/cl-et-crash6may06,1,4391013.story) … > > “‘You think you know who you are,’ the racist cop Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) tells his green, uninitiated partner. ‘You have no idea.’ Actually, in “Crash,” you do. Whatever flimsy layers cover the characters’ raging 24-hour xenophobia are swept away by the slightest breeze.” I couldn’t disagree more. The reviewer here seems to be assuming that Matt Dillon’s line must only be interpreted in the context that he says it, i.e. “you think you aren’t racist but you really are.” That may be what his character meant literally, at that moment, but to me it was supposed to be interpreted more broadly. Looking at it from that point of view, the movie is packed wall-to-wall with characters thinking they know themselves but learning otherwise. Ryan Phillipe, as mentioned, thinks he is above racism. Matt Dillon thinks he is irredemably racist. Ludacris thinks his criminal behavior is some sort of protest against society. Don Cheedle thinks he’s the good son. Sandra Bullock thinks she is deserving of sympathy. Terrence Howard thinks he has a grip on his racial identity. Shaun Toub thinks he’s a victim finally standing up for himself. The best criticism I’ve heard so far is that any of the characters could have been dropped without changing the overall work, but my question is: why would you want them to be? I found myself sympathizing with every character and hoping against hope that they would just **do something right**. The fact that I was equally pleased and disappointed made the experience that much better. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/92 "2006-03-10T15:24:54Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I liked Crash and I think its win is another indicator of the growing influence of African Americans in Hollywood, especially in Academy voting since 2001. Prior to that year, an African American couldn’t barely buy a nomination, much less a win in any “major” category: since then, four acting awards have gone to African Americans and last night a _rap_ song won for best song! Uh… Does anyone else find it ironic that **JohnT** is happy for crash because it’s a sign that more “black” movies are winning oscars? Personally, I have very mixed feelings about the movie. Yes, it’s contrived, saccharine, and manipulative; but it manages to salvage something worthwhile despite these flaws. Mostly, however, I found it an incredibly frustrating movie because it constantly undermined it’s central message with it’s trite morality plays. I definately don’t see it as oscar worthy material. I guess that for people who are unaware of the problems of racism in society, crash might serve as a wake up call or for people who have a personal stake in fighting racism, crash might serve as a call to arms. For these reasons, one might be able to look past the flaws. But for those of us who already have a good grasp of what racism actually is, crash merely served as a moral bludgen, wielded ineffectively. Holy shit, rich people are racist, poor people are racist, white people are racist, coloured people are racist, racist people are racist, not-racist people are racist, liberals are racist, conservatives are racist. Everybody has prejudices and the problem of racism is complex and requires much introspection and analysis. There are not easy answers, we get the fucking point. My main problem with crash is that the director evidently thought the way to create a morally ambigious charecter was to have him do something very very good and then something very very bad. Ooh, edgy, this person is multi-dimensional… no they’re not. Rather, what it does is that it removes all jugement from the viewers side. The audience is not asked to resolve within themselves their internal conflicts and to work at understanding the issues. Instead, they are told what to think and why they should think it. Ooh, the racist cop is bad… but wait! he also saves the woman. Ooh, the idealistic cop is good, but oh no! he also hates black people! The rich bitch finds her only friend is her housekeeper! The black carjacker saves the asians! Don’t bother thinking about it, just react with your gut and then brace for the inevitable twist which proves that what you thought it wrong. I guess the best way to put this is that I found crash patronising. The director doesn’t trust us to make up our own minds about the issue so he has to rely on ham fisted direction and contrived situations in order to make sure we absolutely do not miss his point. I find it slightly ironic that a movie that is meant to dispel social stereotypes tries to do it by promulglating social stereotypes of it’s own. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/93 "2006-03-19T13:11:49Z")
Saw this Friday night – they brought it back to the local indie house, god bless 'em. I liked it, but not as much as some people did; and saw its flaws, but wasn’t as bothered by them as some people were. I thought it was pretty good – but definitely didn’t think it was the best picture to come out last year. Others I preferred, in order: 1. Brokeback Mountain 2. Capote 3. Constant Gardener I did think it was better than Good Night and Good Luck, which I thought was a gorgeous film, but a bit … slight … for Best Picture honors. Didn’t see – and have no interest in seeing – Munich and Syriana. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223/94 "2006-03-19T13:38:24Z")
I haven’t seen _Crash_ or _Brokeback Mountain_ as neither particularly interested me but I saw all the other nominees. Before the Academy Awards I had a look on IMDB and noticed that according to user ratings _Crash_ was the 75th best movie ever made. None of the others were in the top 250 and all were roughly equally rated. So I assumed that _Crash_ would win. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crash-deserving-of-best-picture/347223.md?page=4)