"Nobody Touches You"--Clean(ed up) Version

This post is about the award winning movie, “Crash”!

The 3-time Oscar-winning movie had an awesome screenplay and a slew of super stars in its cast whose talent is the reason that it became so successful. The movie brings us into the heart of Los Angeles, putting us face to face with each character’s struggles in the areas of stereotyping and discrimination.

Here is my favorite line, performed by Don Cheadle in the opening scene of the movie, "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." This idea circulated over and over as the two class days played out, as we met each character and got a sense, not only of who they were, but, more importantly, what they believed as far as stereotyping is concerned. When they started crashing into each other, we saw their pervading ideas influence their words and actions. The reason the movie was so effective was its realism and the way emotions were framed. It took ordinary L.A. situations—assault, robberies, high jacking, racial preferences--and turned them into a cohesive plot where each character was interrelated with the people they stereotyped the most strongly.

L.A. was the perfect setting for the movie because there are so many different ethnicities crammed into the city. Unlike Hawaii, where we, for the most part, accept and embrace the beauty of diversity, the Los Angeles conveyed by the movie seems to have a lot of trust issues between races. People go about their daily lives, accepting of their ignorance, avoiding each other, blinded by prejudice, so that they never get a chance to understand each other. When they finally make connections, they do it in grand fashion, careening out of control and “crash”-ing in each others' faces. But perhaps being ignorant of their stereotyping is the best way to protect themselves so that they don't have to face each other until the big caboom. The rose-colored world that they lived in did little to prepare them for what came at the end of the movie.

It all goes back to the quote by Don Cheadle. The Oxford Dictionary cites the definition of "city" as "a town or collective body of inhabitants." The Los Angeles portrayed in the movie does not seem to be a collective body of inhabitants because each group of people is at odds with each other. Instead, the "city" seems to be more of a collection of warring villages whose goal is to avoid each other as much as possible. There are no opportunities to "brush past people" or for "people [to] pump into you" because no interactions are made. The metal and glass he is referring to stands for any barrier which separates people--one way mirrors in a police station, stereotyping, or silence. Los Angeles is a place of great industry, but I never thought that its inhabitants would be just as mechanical. One has to wonder how much emotion is exchanged in the crashes that do occur. Are they just a heap of metal and glass or does blood mix with empathy? Crashing is still the only way to feel, and to notice how many layers they've been hiding behind.

I have never lived on the mainland (although I did live in Orange County when I was 1) so I was doubtful as to whether I would understand the stereotyping going on in the movie. To a certain extent I feel that I understand the feelings being exchanged--just not on a personal level. I can see why each “crash” was bound to happen, but I cannot relate to the ideas, the source of the discord. There is no wonder that this was an award-winning movie because it addresses such heavy issues, doing so gracefully, yet truthfully. It encouraged each and every viewer in the audience to address the issues presented and assess their own ideas. We grew with the characters and, perhaps, tried to deny that a crash was imminent so that we cried when they did. But then again, how could I understand it at all? To hate one race with such a passion that you cannot even look at them without thinking about your stereotypical ideas is a foreign concept.

Hawaii does an exceptional job of preparing us for the world where understanding and seeing past stereotypes is a congenital "street smart". Although stereotypes still exist in Hawaii, they are less prevalent in the way our society interacts. We may have deep-rooted traditions—pressure from grandparents to marry people of the same ethnicity, etc.--but feelings of stereotypes have really lessened through the generations and, sort of, faded from our way of life. Tolerance is a skill necessary for the average Hawaii citizen, a habit planted in us because of all the “touching” that we do. In addition, to discriminate against one race is to discriminate against a lot of people because of our large “hapa” (mixed) group. People in Hawaii don’t crash into each other simply because we can’t—we don’t grow up that way and it doesn’t develop later on. If only Los Angeles had a little of Hawaii's cohesiveness, they'd be a lot better off...