I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something

On Crash:

Crash is the Do the Right Thing of my generation. This movie not only deals with race relations in terms of blacks and whites, but Asians, Hispanics, Middle Easterns, everybody and how each of these different cultures interact within and with each other. It is that that makes Crash such a great movie and such an important movie to have on my list. I love the idea of the quote I introduced this post with and it fits in perfectly with the idea of the hands of love and hate introduced in Do the Right Thing. Think about the touch as love and when we are deprived of that touch the result is a crash, hate, just to feel something. There is a lot of crashing going on in this movie, but the message sent in the end is a message of love.

Crash is one of the intertwining-stories movies. There are a bunch of different people, with different baggage and different backgrounds that all interact with each other in one way or another and effect each other's lives. One of the most interesting interactions in this story to me is that between the black car thief, Anthony and the black director, Cameron. Anthony is a self-righteous black car thief. His character is so ironic because he is adamant about better his community and the black community, but he also perpetuates the stereotypes he tries to fight. Anthony talks about how pathetic it is for blacks to steal from each other, but he finds himself pointing a gun at Cameron to steal his car one day. Cameron has had a rough day and he is angry so he fights back. Anthony is startled and surprised to find his victim resisting even at gun point. The cop that comes to the scene happened to be the former partner of the officer that molested Cameron's wife and contributed to his bad mood. The cop tries to cut him a break and let him off with a severe warning. Cameron proceeds to drop Anthony off at a bus stop and gives him a stern talking to and tells him, "You are pathetic". That is a harsh, cold taste of reality for Anthony as he is forced to ride the bus he so despises back home.

Graham's character is one that has appeared in a few movies. Graham has a job as a detective that is respectable, and he has made it up and away from his life in the hood. But Graham has abandoned his brother Peter, Anthony's fellow car thief, and his sick mother. After identifying the body, Graham's mother told him that it was Graham himself that killed Peter, because he had not gone to find him and bring him home. That is also the truth, because Graham was afraid. He ran away from his life in the hood and never looked back. Sure, he still loves his family enough to visit his mom every once in a while and drop off groceries, but he has still abandoned his family. It is something that his co-worker and love interest, Ria, points out to him. The two come from very different cultural backgrounds and they think they know each other.

There is so much to take away from this movie about the diverse cultures of Los Angeles and their interactions. The overall message of this movie is not too far off from that of American History X that hate is baggage. Hate is something that grows and grows that you carry around until it just becomes too much and people crash into each other. Love helps alleviate the weight of hate. Next on the list is Black Dynamite