Crash

I just watched Crash again. I still really like this movie. People tend to think it’s about the effects of racism because it highlights so many racial stereotypes and reactions. But I think racism is just a vehicle that’s used to get at the deeper theme of our self-imposed separation from each other. We often assume that separation is all about the other person’s need to change in order to bring the walls between us down, when really the only change that will do that is our own changed perception and choice to love that which is different than us in some ways. Without making that choice, we become fearful and angry when others don’t look, speak, or act in ways that enhance our sense of connection to them.

We need that contact and sense of connection so badly but have almost completely given up on feeling it so much of the time, or have no idea how to bring it about. Like the opening line of the movie says, “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.” The most impassioned scenes in the movie occur when the characters interact out of fear and separation-producing prejudice, expressing anger at others that’s totally unjustified in each given situation. I think their passion comes from their deeper desire to be connected and to be able to interact with each other in a way that’s mutually respectful and caring and giving, and from the frustration that we all feel when we’re in situations where that doesn’t happen. So just as we each so often do, they then lash out, taking out their frustrations on others in all sorts of awful ways and worsening the sense of separation between themselves and others.

The other really powerful scenes in the movie for me are those when the characters ultimately realize the contributions of their own words and actions and prejudices to the feeling of separation they’re experiencing. It shows that we all carry around this sense of frustration at being separated, we all contribute to it through our thoughts and unwillingness to see things differently, and we all express our anger at feeling separated in different ways and times but with equally damaging results. We want so badly to feel a heavenly sense of connectedness with all life, but we end up creating a hell on earth by the ways that we react when we don’t feel that connectedness to the extent that we want and need.