UNCOMFORTABLE
By Judith Parker Harris | May 13, 2008
On the morning after the Academy Awards, I’m left with a question: What do movies do best? My answer is that they allow people to work out their own emotional questions through the actions of the characters on screen.
Last night, when CRASH won for Best Picture, I jumped off our living room sofa and screamed in jubilation. Why? Because that movie touched me deeply. I left the theatre disturbed and uncomfortable. I talked about the movie to my husband and friends. I questioned my own unconscious feelings of prejudice. But, is that enough? Is it enough that the movie made me uncomfortable and made me think?
My answer to that question is, “No.” The movie did what it was supposed to do. Now, it’s up to me. What do we do with unconscious fears and unspoken prejudices? If we don’t find them, understand them and deal with them, we end up repeating behavior we don’t respect. It comes out when we least suspect it as we draw away from a dark stranger on a street (as Sandra Bullock’s character did in the movie) or as we experience racism, ageism, wealthism, homophobism or any number of “isms” and can’t believe it’s happening to us, inside of us, around us, or worst case that it’s actually perpetrated by us.
Kenneth Turan, film critic for the LA Times, suggests that CRASH is a “feel-good movie about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed.” He used this as a reason that “liberal” Academy voters chose CRASH over BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN for the Best Picture Academy Award.
Both movies made people distinctly uncomfortable. I submit that CRASH pushed more buttons. More people identified with the discomfort of CRASH. Now the job to be done is to understand and deal with the discomfort or the movie’s mission has been wasted and we will prove Kenneth Turan’s pessimistic view to be right.
Here’s what you can do: Listen to the prejudiced voices in your own head. Notice the way you interact with others. Pay attention to who you choose to be with. If you sense discomfort when close to another person that you perceive to be different from you, try for just a few moments to imagine what it would be like to live that person’s life. Notice what it feels like.
When you have done that for a day or two, write down all the sentences and feelings that make you uncomfortable, and then try to figure out where you learned to think and feel that way. Who taught you? Once you answer that question you can make a choice to give that thinking back to the source and change your own thinking, feeling and acting. This is an exercise you may use for the rest of your life. It will definitely keep you from CRASHING.
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