Crash

Hello all,
it is quite enough that I don't find the time for writing.

I want to speak today about an old movie of 2004 that impressed me a lot: CRASH is the title.

This is a very interesting movie: the story is related to the lives of some person, that "incidentally" crash one against the other during the development of the facts.

Different persons, different characters, different worlds are involved into this story: the main point is that this differences, at a first sight, are linked to the colour of the skin. But following the developments, we understand that the differences are not only, and not mostly, based on these colours, but most in the mind of the people, or in the way of thinking that is supposed they have because of different colours.

Yes, because from one side we have black people against white people and viceversa, white people against arabian people and viceversa even when people is not arabian but from Pakistan (ignorance); but of course for pakistanese people in the movie is simpler to turn their rage agaist the black people, in a kind of poor's war to defend their own identity.

But from the other side the most interesting are the conflicts between white people, even when they are policemen (they are supposed to be at the justice side but...it's not so easy) and they give origin to a moral confrontation about what is acceptable or not form a ethical white point of view, in relationship to the problem of racism: but the policeman who seems to be "corrupted" and racist (the "bad" one), maybe for a frustration problem, or maybe to defend his position of policeman or the stereotype of the abuser of his own social position of white policeman, finally he saves his black victim from the death, even risking his own life; while the policeman (the "good" one) who faces the moral problem and shows to understand the problems of the black people, at the end kills a black guy, only because of the suspect he is black and maybe weaponed and dangerous.

Interesting are the conflicts between black people, for instance husband and wife, when the husband shows a racional and "white wise attitude" when the bad policeman abuses of his own power to check his wife, humiliating both just because he can, and this white attitude affects negatively his wife who expected a black macho reaction to the abuse; or situations in which black people who has culture, has to play as white man to respect the stereotype that white people has towards them (basket ball, hip hop culture, ignorance, and so on) giving up to their "white culture" that they have got going out from the segregation of the different opportunities if compared with white people; and in the same time this black-skinned "white people" is watched with critical eye from other black brothers, 'till to the point that black "white" people doesn't know anymore if he is black for his own skin or white for his own way to think, maybe feeling ashamed for the behaviour of his black brothers and in the same time, of his own, different from the stereotype.

There are various other situations, but I think that what I wrote above is enough to think over:

it's not new that each people watch the others just from their point of view, so that we are one, nobody and hundred thousand, depending on how many persons are watching us; but now we can say as well that each of us shows actively to each people just a part of himself. Sometimes this happens because each of us wants to give a special impression to the others, depending on the people, and sometimes to do this, we have to play as movie star, and finally all of us don't know if we are facing the persons, or their or our own prejudices. And we have to recognize that we ourselves do really cultivate these prejudices in the others because this can be very comfortable. The result is that finally we can't know the difference between the truth and the prejudice.

And our face becomes like the woman's one, at the end of the movie: she is unable to speak some word, because she can't recognize in the same person the brutal (maybe actor) abuser and in the same time her own Jesus Christ. Our brain is not able to do this. She goes away in the silence, still alive and with a big interrogative point on his face.

All of these happenings in order to crash in the others's life, just to not feel alone. This is the preface of the film.

And just to think over a little bit more, in this movie all the prejudices, concrete or not, are skin colour-based. So the concept is really evident. But there are many kind of prejudices, based on ideas or other..and we cultivate them or the socially recognized ones , to take advantage, even in the supposed prejudices of the persons surrounding us, only because making part of some group or category.