A Celebration of Los Angeles

Rating: 2/10 (19 October 2006)

I tried to ignore the voice in my head not to rent it. I had heard from multiple sources that "Crash" was the worst film to ever win Best Picture--worse than even "The Greatest Show on Earth" back in 1952. Yet it had won Best Picture, which must mean something. I fished out my rental card.
Minutes into the start of the film, I knew what I was in for: a narcissistic celebration of the city where the film takes place--LA. No, not the LA of reality, where human beings transcend stereotypes and live in a three dimensional world of development and originality. Fact is, LA really has no "reality." Norman Mailer once wrote that the city, America's grandest suburb, appears to have been built by some self-perpetuating television studio.
Like the city itself, "Crash" is a made-for-TV spectacle filled with character archetypes, gun-crazed hysterics, and clangy car wrecks. It is an accurate depiction of the psychic space many Angelinos are proud to call home--the stupefying, stifling world of television.
Defenders argued that "Crash" has one 'fresh' element: it at least acknowledges the fact that we live in this stereotypical, flat world. Yet "Crash" does not rebel against this world--it perpetuates it. Instead of challenging its own moviescape, "Crash" keeps indulging us with more car bangs, more flat archetypes, more cheap, overt racism. Look out, Fox TV.
In March 2006, on behalf of a society increasingly defined by such pulp, the celebrity class paid its dues: it awarded best picture to this shrill, depressing film. "We are all racists" they said, in an attempt to mask their glossy pulp with banal condescension. This film is a great step toward making their generality a reality.
Some critics lamented that Crash's Oscar victory spelled the end of the Academy's "relevance." Hardly. The win heralds a new era at the Academy. The Oscars, once a serious, national ceremony celebrating the art of individual expression, has fully succumbed to the televised suburbs. The narcissistic celebrities of LA no doubt toasted their win with martinis. Meanwhile, a nation that used to be known for its individuality, intelligence, and love, continues to lose.