"Crash"

As part of the MLK commemoration at Wooster, I joined about 50 people to watch the movie, "Crash," to share a Chinese dinner and good conversation around tables with some of these people, and to discuss the movie guided by local facilitators. Now if you are offended (as I am) by the ubiquitous use of the f-word, then watching the movie might be hard for you as it was for me. If you are offended by racism (as I am), then you might have mixed feelings about it as I did. Certainly the published reviews of the movie have been mixed, but the Af-Am student I know love it and have seen it several times. Every permutation of racial, ethnic and class stereotypes are exhibited in the movie, but its purpose is to break those down by its characters who are not just the surface stereotype but a complex mixture of that and something good below the surface. What didn't quite work for me was just that mixture--how could several of the characters be so awful one minute and so wonderful the next without seeming to feel the disconnect? The prime example of that behavior was with the cop who sexually abuses the wife of a film director in his presence, having stopped their car on a pretext, and then risks his life to save her from a car wreck the next day. "Just doing my duty, ma'am?" I don't think so. One of the things I did like about the movie though (despite the disapproval of many of the printed reviews) was the seemingly coincidental intertwining of lives of the characters. Believing as I do in God's sovereignty, it isn't a stretch for me to realize the web that connects individuals for his divine purposes. That aspect of the film "worked" for me.

More interesting than the movie itself was how we discussed it afterwards. The facilitators broke us "randomly" into eight tables of people, and at our tables, we were to share a motto that typified our lives along with how we lived that out and what frustrated it for us. We then shared those as a get-to-know-you and....then we were given a character in the movie (our table became the black detective, Graham). As a group we had to decide what his life's motto was, how he lived by it, what frustrated it. Then we could formulate questions from our character to the other (tables') characters and ask and have to answer them. As an aside--what was sad for me as we went through this process was the way we/characters defended their actions with "Really, I AM a good person. We had to stay in character, but even so, I don't think many in the room realized the depth of sin that denies this illusion of I'm really good." Back to theh process, I found it to be effective in trying to get into someone's skin, which was the purpose of the exercise. Of course, it was a bit of "preaching to the choir" to do it with this group because just being there meant that we were trying (I make no claim about succeeding) already. Nevertheless, it strikes me as a possible way to debrief a movie for class or as something to do in class with any kind of text. An article a dean once gave to FYS faculty claimed that just this ability or even desire to understand "alien" ideas is what incoming students do so poorly these days and is one of the prime tasks of education.

In the meantime, I rejoice in the fact that three young Af-Am families have recently arrived in Wooster to work at the nearby Christian Children's Home (for at-risk youth) and have volunteered to help us on campus make a safe place for Af-Am students (among others) to maintain, express, live out (and even find) faith in Christ. At that level, I can keep plugging away and can do so more effectively with their assistance. Look here for further updates about the resurrection of Word Up!