Crash (2004)

Below is a link to the movie Crash which I used as the basis for my essay. The specific scene that I reviewed can be found at 15:41 and follows for several minutes. This being said, if you have never seen Crash I highly recommend watching the full movie. Not only is it a spectacularly well directed film, but it deals highly with contemporary racial perspectives.

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=0MTW06UY

Matthew Willett-Jeffries
Dr. Holly Moore
Philosophy PL213
2/26/10
The Stigma of Interracial Intimacy
A compilation of intersecting lives in a racially apprehensive urban setting, Crash examines race in a contemporary light seeking to clarify modern racial anxieties through a fictional narrative. Among its examinations, Crash touches on the persisting attitudes toward interracial sex. While largely an artifact of historical attitudes and belief systems, attitudes toward interracial couples, especially white and black couples, remain highly primitive and restrictive. In this light, Crash and one of its scenes bring to mind an anxiety which continues to haunt and affect race relations in contemporary America, and in order to address this attitude it is necessary to look at both the interpersonal and historical motives that drive it.

The scene begins in a diner where an aggravated Officer, John Ryan, discusses his father's health with a female African American representative on a pay phone. After an awkward argument with the representative the officer demands her name, Shaniqua Johnson, to which he responds “Shaniqua, what a big fucking surprise that is” (Crash). The officer returns to his patrol car where he subsequently pursues a passing SUV. Upon shinning a light through the rear view mirror of the SUV he spots what appears to be, under the light, a white woman raising her head from the crotch of an African American driver. At first his partner protests arguing that there is no reason to pull the SUV over, to which John rebuts “they were doing something,” and turns on the siren (Crash). After approaching the driver side window, the officer encounters a well dressed African American male driver, and a tan lady reapplying lipstick, both presumably well off. After questioning and subsequently demanding that the driver step out of the vehicle for a sobriety test, it soon becomes evident that the female passenger is slightly inebriated, as she jokingly objects to the officers demands. As the scene progresses, the officer becomes more blunt, and the female passenger becomes more openly agitated. During the sobriety test the female passenger opens her door and begins to argue with the officer who proceeds to demand that both the driver and the passenger place their hands on the vehicle. While being shoved up against the passenger side door, the female passenger yells abrasively, “this is what this is all about isn't it. You thought you saw a white woman blowing a black man and that just drove your little cracker ass crazy” (Crash). In response, the officer begins to pat down the lady while lecturing the driver. While patting his hands up under the woman's dress presumably checking for weapons, the officer explains “Now we could charge your wife here with lewd conduct by performing a sexual act in public or... we could use our discretion and let you go with a warning” (Crash). After which the husband fearfully agrees and the officer leaves the scared and abused couple with only the words “you two drive safe now” (Crash).

While this scene demonstrates the strong persisting stigma attached to interracial relationships, it does not capture the historical basis which gave rise to this persisting attitude. And although the taboo nature of interracial intercourse remains as much a product of modern motives, it is equally important to understand the historical racial projects which have helped to found this ill-seated attitude. Taking on a perspective of racial attitudes similar to Michael Omi and Howard Winant's idea of race formation as a “process of historically situated projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized,” attitudes toward interracial relationships can be dated back to early pseudo-scientific attempts to validate existing social hierarchies (Omi and Winant 184). Following the 18th century, slavery in particular was becoming harder and harder to justify within the context of modern thought which emphasized, “the 'natural rights' of 'man'” (193). In this light, Omi and Winant suggest that “the invocation of scientific criteria to demonstrate the 'natural' basis of racial hierarchy was both a logical consequence... and an attempt to provide a more subtle and nuanced account of human complexity in the new, 'enlightened' age” (194). Subsequently, with the rise of a presumed scientific justification of race came the stigma of interracial marriage and intercourse. Following the logic of a natural racial hierarchy, it becomes ever apparent that mixing would be seen as undesirable. If for example one race is naturally superior to another than mixing would intuitively demean the quality of offspring (this can certainly be seen with early attitudes toward and the racial classification of mulattoes). This misconceived attitude toward interracial sex, however, is probably best rooted in later attempts at racial classification such as eugenics which sought not only to explain race but also intended to “deal with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race” (Galton 79). In many ways, eugenics played a similar social role (in the United States it validated social hierarchies still present in the south) to earlier scientific attempts to explain race; except in its case, it placed special interest on the effects of interbreeding and strongly validated the taboo nature of interracial intercourse. While most of these pseudosciences are now known to be highly inaccurate especially with the advent of improved genetic understanding, this historical racial project has had a lasting effect on the social attitudes toward interracial couples.

Today the stigma of interracial intercourse still exists in full force and it is mostly perpetuated and enforced by existing social conceptions originating in the racial projects previously described. In Crash this effect can be seen clearly. The officer's reaction to what he perceived as a white woman engaging in fellatio with an African American man sought to punish and condemn divergence from this long standing social norm. This fact is made especially clear when in a brutish symbolic act the officer proceeds to fondle the lady while lecturing her black partner. While it is clear that he is enforcing a social norm, more over it is almost as if he is staking claim to the lady, an act which sheds light on the sociohistorical background associated with this attitude. First the condemnation of the African American man at least in this case subjugates the African American man to the officer. Second the woman is also subjugated. As Naomi Zack points out in Thinking about Race, “(g)enerally, all women in romantic and sexual roles, regardless of race or ethnicity, are portrayed... from the perspective of male heterosexual viewers” (Zack 99). In this light, it is clear that strong social forces aimed at validating Caucasian male hierarchy have perpetuated a long history of radically adverse social attitudes toward interracial sex.

In conclusion, through Crash's presentation of the stigma following interracial couples a historical attitude validated by existing social interests can be seen and described. Backed by a history of pseudo-scientific explanations of race, Crash presents the persisting anxiety that surrounds interracial mingling. From this presentation, the sociohistorical motives can also well be seen and identified. In this way, Crash and its scene defines attitudes toward racial intermingling as structured upon a validation of a Caucasian male social hierarchy originating in a historic understanding of race and social structure.