Thanks for this article on Crash and your insights on how the film works and its white savior logic.

I used to teach it a lot to my white-majority classes at Ohio State because even though it is basic, I felt it taught them more than what they know and raised questions we could critically discuss. There is also a way that the film links racism against Arabs/Muslims/Latinx people to the usual Black/White binary of race in the US that many mainstream films (unfortunately) do not do — even if the way Crash does that is clumsy and stereotypical.

I also have a soft spot for that magic cape story, which I told my own kid….

That said, I haven’t taught Crash in a while because, at the end of the day, it is more concerned with the cop than anyone else. As you said, only the white characters evolve. Even if you teach it critically, for people of color in the class, this kind of movie could turn them/us into marginal figures within the classroom. It lowers the bar.

But I’m thinking now, after BLM and #MeToo and Obama and Trump it might be good to teach it with the layers your brought in — to ask what kind of criticism of racism is this, how the film itself absorbs a certain kind of racism, and the whole ideology of “colorblindness”. Maybe teach it along with another film that does things differently, and better? Maybe contrast with Do the Right Thing, for all of its issues? Hm.

You really got me thinking! Thank you!