Oscar misfire: ‘Crash’ and burn

Talk about ruining a perfect evening.

Jon Stewart was funny, George Clooney was sharp, Salma Hayek looked to-freakin’-die-for, Philip Seymour Hoffman won in humble-but-lovable fashion and Ang Lee, the director of one of the best movies of the year, became the first non-Caucasian to win the Academy Award for best director.

Then Jack Nicholson, presenting the best picture winner, ruined everything. He didn’t say “Brokeback Mountain”; he actually said…“Crash.”

No, he didn’t. Did he? He did.

My god.

This is the worst best picture winner since “The Greatest Show on Earth” in 1952. It may be worse than that. “Greatest Show” was a dull, bloated romance set against the backdrop of a three-ring circus but at least it didn’t pretend to be important. “Crash” thinks it’s important. “Crash” thinks it’s saying something bold about racism in America.

But what is it saying?

That we all bear some form of racism. That we all “stereotype” other races. That, when pressured, racist sentiments spill out of us as easily as escaped air.

Here’s my take. Yes, we all bear some form of racism — that’s obvious. Yes, we all “stereotype” other races in some fashion — that’s obvious. (Particularly obvious in the Los Angeles of “Crash,” where so many characters are stereotypes.) But, no, we don’t easily give voice to our racist sentiments. And that’s why “Crash” rings so false.

Last month I wrote an article on the best picture nominees (called  “Anything But ‘Crash’”) in which I talked about how the most potent form of racism in this country is no longer overt but covert. Once upon a time, yes yes yes, it was overt, which is another reason why “Crash” sucks. It’s doing what simple-minded generals do: It’s fighting the last war.

The “Crash” quiz
Here, let’s take a little quiz. Say you’re an Asian woman who has just rear-ended the car in front of you. What do you do? Do you…

1. Wait in your car until a police officer arrives
2. Exchange licenses with the driver of the other car
3. Notice that the driver of the other car is someone who looks like Jennifer Esposito, immediately assume she’s Mexican-American (as opposed to, say, Italian-American), and then tell the African-American police officer that “Mexicans no know how to drive.”

How about this one? You’re talking to a bureaucrat on the phone about getting extra care for your father who is having trouble urinating, and she is not helpful. You ask for her name and she tells you: Shaniqua Johnson. You still need her help. What do you say?

1. “Shaniqua. That’s a beautiful name.”
2. “Shaniqua. You could do a better job of helping my father, who is in pain.
3. “Shaniqua. Big f---ing surprise that is.”

One last one. You’ve just been told by your hot, hot girlfriend, with whom you’re lucky to be sleeping in the first place, that she is not Mexican as you presumed; that her mother is from Puerto Rico and her father is from El Salvador. What do you say?

1. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m surprised I didn’t know that. Now come back to bed.”
2. “Really? How did they meet?”
3. “Who took [all Latinos] and taught them to park their cars on their lawns?”

And on and on and on. Every scene. Put a little pressure on somebody and they blurt simplistic racist sentiments. Right in the face of someone of that race.

Worse, none of it feels like sentiments these characters would actually say. It feels like sentiments writer/director Paul Haggis imposed upon them to make his grand, dull point about racism, when a more telling point about racism might have emerged if he’d just let them be. “Crash” is like a Creative Writing 101 demonstration of what not to do as a writer. To the Academy this meant two things: Best screenplay and best picture.

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