Crash vs. Volcano
(I've been on a comments tear at other people's blogs about Volcano and Crash, so I thought I'd reproduce my comment 46 from michaelberube.com over here. See also this discussion at Left Behinds.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you for pointing out the importance of Volcano as a precursor to Crash! Much more so, I think, than Short Cuts and Magnolia, though those vastly superior antecedents also bear mention. But what’s wonderful about Volcano is that it has both a much more cogent argument about race in Los Angeles AND Tommy Lee Jones kicking the ASS off a volcano.
Now, Michael, you probably remember Volcano’s argument about race as the treacly end bit where once everyone is covered in volcanic ash, they all look the same. Well yes, that’s there, and hey, outta the mouths of babes! but the setup for that is actually a much more politicized account of spatialized segregation in Los Angeles than that offered by Crash.
You see, the heavy in Volcano (besides the volcano) is the developer who opposes the extension of the subway to the Red Line because it will bring poor brown people near his fancy condo tower. That’s a real conversation that happened in Los Angeles and helped thwart a cross-town subway. L.A. is just now moving past it. Compare that to Crash’s account of spatial segregation, which is the bit how in order to meet people who look different, you need to bend their fender. (Compare also to the Cronenberg ‘Crash’, which also recommends auto accidents as a good way to get to know people better.) Anyway, while critics pointed out that people mostly have their prejudices confirmed in Crash, Volcano provides a much better ending, because the racist developer gets his beautiful condo tower BLOWN UP to stop the volcano—in essence, Tommy Lee Jones kicks the developer's ass as a byproduct of kicking the ass off the volcano. And the racist developer’s girlfriend leaves him for being a racist, which is the kind of comeuppance that you should have in a good liberal movie.
posted by Josh K-sky at
1:13 PM
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