War of the Worlds: Excrement

Way back on July 20, 2005, I published the following review on cinekklesia. It generated a couple of comments, which I also post here, along with my lengthy response.

Many of my friends know that I am not a big fan of science fiction. In fact, one constant source of aesthetic friction in my household comes from my wife's inexplicable love of the Stargate series on the Sci-Fi cable network. (We no longer receive that network, but now that we have reinitiated our NetFlix account, I anticipate seeing Stargate Atlantis DVDs cluttering our mailbox soon.)

My critique of sci-fi stems from its constant potentiality. Many science fiction movies and television shows deal with profound existential questions, agonizing moral dilemmas, and perplexing scientific conundrums, so they have the potential both to enlighten and entertain us. However, so much science fiction is poorly produced that its highly charged themes get lost in a morass of mediocrity.

Take the Star Trek franchise. Almost every episode of every series, from the original to Voyager, is tailored to address some philosophical theme, whether overtly or discretely. However, with few exceptions, the characters addressing these themes are portrayed in an overly simplistic or contrived fashion, and I end up wondering how the shows' producers could have wasted such an opportunity. Even the camp of the original series eventually loses its charm. In fact, the most interesting aspect of Star Trek is sociological: watching diehard Trekkies convert the franchise into an all-encompassing lifestyle or, in more extreme cases, into a religion.

At this point, science fiction fans may scoff at my critique and suggest that my lack of appreciation stems from ignorance. If I knew more about sci-fi, if I read and studied it a bit more, then I would learn to appreciate it. This dynamic is true up to a point. For example, when I was a child, I didn't like dark chocolate, and my father told me that I merely had to "develop a taste for it." I thought he was being facetious, but it turned out he was right: I now prefer dark chocolate over other varieties. However, I've always liked milk chocolate and still do. In other words, not all good things in life have to begin as negative experience; on the flip side, not all bad things become enjoyable, no matter how much we "study" them. While I may "learn to appreciate" science fiction via repeated exposure, I also may never like the genre (and why should I risk sitting through hours of unenjoyable experiences that may produce no pleasurable outcome?).

My second critique of science fiction (and fantasy) stems from its exclusionary nature. Since sci-fi often involves the creation of alternate, all-encompassing universes/realities, one must be "in the know" in order to participate. Such exclusion is exacerbated by the intense focus on minutiae exhibited by fans of both science fiction and fantasy. Rather than discuss those profound philosophical questions that lie at the heart of a given work, fans often concentrate on such details as which alien race was introduced in the second movie, which dragon was killed in Book 4, etc. Such talk is meaningless and off-putting to an outsider who is more interested in what a given genre or work has to say.

At this point, committed fans of sci-fi/fantasy either will fume that my critiques are invalid since I'm clearly an ignorant boor ("Screw him. What does he know? Let's go play some D&D!"), or—if they despise Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (2005) as much as I do—fret that I'll use said movie as an example of sci-fi's shortcomings. Fear not, Gentle Trekkie, for I try to be a fair observer of the cinematic form, and I know that even the mere placement of Spielberg's latest project within the sci-fi camp would be both unfair and inaccurate. You see, War of the Worlds is so poorly constructed, written in such a contrived fashion, and directed in such a slipshod manner, that it deserves categorization in a separate genre, namely that of Excrement.

Why Excrement? Simply put, War of the Worlds is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I do not write that for hyperbolic effect; I mean that simply and literally. Steven Spielberg violated me aesthetically, and I don't think that I ever can view him in the same light again. Before, he was just a mediocre cinematic craftsman, the unofficial co-founder (with George Lucas) of the Summer Blockbuster. Now, he is an aesthetic criminal.

You might say that my visceral reaction stems from unreasonably high expectations. What was I expecting? War of the Worlds is the proverbial Summer Blockbuster, after all. A friend who watched the movie with me and my wife was not nearly so affected as I; she said that she knew it was going to be bad and thus, got exactly what she wanted. Yet, I, too, walked into the theater with low expectations, simply looking for so-called "mindless entertainment," and as I have written before, I have no problem with films that don't "teach" me anything. However, in order for War of the Worlds to have "met expectations," I literally would have had to anticipate it being a 90-minute, single shot of a pile of dung sitting by the side of the road. In fact, if I had expected to spend $8.25 to see (again, literally) a pile of feces and ended up seeing what Spielberg actually produced, then my expectations actually would have been surpassed...though just barely.

Hence, we really need a new category in the arts, one that allows us to describe a piece of trash as it really is without sullying other works in its genre. Even though I am not a science fiction fan, I am fair enough to know that sci-fi aficionados should be up in arms over Spielberg merely attempting to associate War of the Worlds with other sci-fi productions. More generally, I suggest that the entire movie industry reconsider whether War of the Worlds be allowed categorization under the broader headings of "film," "motion picture," or even "barely tolerable human artifact."

Thus, Excrement. I call on scholars, critics, and regular, everyday consumers of the arts to start using this new genre in their discussions of culture. It would help us to see that the effects of vile aesthetic creations transcend categories and degrade us all. War of the Worlds not only chips away at any progress science fiction may have made as a genre; it chips away at all of humanity.

There is one benefit behind Spielberg's current "film." It teaches us humility. As the Titanic and Hindenburg reminded us of the limits of our technological prowess and as World War I showed how Western Civilization had not overcome its petty hatred and squabbling, War of the Worlds reminds us that for all of our "progress" in the arts, we so easily regress — not just to the level of mediocrity but to the level of Excrement. Ecclesiastes is right: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc. 1:9). Humanity always has been capable of producing excrement, and we still are. Thank you, Mr. Spielberg, for reminding us of this timeless truth.

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Comment # 1

Gosh, golly, Kevin! You've invited so many different kinds of rebuttals from so many different kinds of people (including your wife)!

I think I'll withhold my thoughts on sci-fi and fantasy and start with a question: what exactly don't you like about the movie? You make a few gestures at Star Trek, but mention absolutely no details from Spielberg's film. Or did its feces-factor so befuddle your senses that all you can do is gasp and cough out a desperate curse? Pick the, uh, "crap" out of your nose, take a deep breath, and give us Part 2, eh? - Paul Marchbanks

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Comment # 2

Wow, your review sure left us hanging! You had that title that was sure to suck us in, but then never told us why you thought the movie was excrement. Or perhaps you've done so consciously...as a way to create a subtle parallel between your review and the movie? - Herb

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My Response

Paul poses a fair question: What, exactly, in War of the Worlds raised my ire? My review was both a brief meditation on science fiction and an attempt to give form to my visceral reaction to Spielberg's production; however, I wholly admit that it did lack some specifics. I'll try to (briefly) rectify that by focusing on my two primary critiques.

First, War of the Worlds suffers from the malady of being an action scene looking for a movie. After a brief introduction of the main characters, the alien invasion begins, Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) et al take off in a stolen van, cities are destroyed, people scream and die. The plot is thin (action is the plot), character development is non-existent, and Spielberg provides no background, context, or lead-up. It's just action, which is not only exhausting but annoying. If Spielberg had nothing more to say than "Wow! Alien invasion is scary stuff!" then he should have waited until something more substantial entered his creative mind.

Paul, I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments in your own review of this film. We need to be reminded of God's sovereignty, wrath, and power. We need to remember that God cannot be mocked (Gal. 6:7) and that our entire existence is owing to His will and pleasure. Unfortunately, War of the Worlds is not a good vehicle to remind us of the value of fear (godly or otherwise) because its near constant stream of violence and "suspense" eventually leads to immunity and boredom. After a few scary moments at the beginning, I just became tired of the non-stop action and spent much of the rest of the movie looking at my watch, waiting for the credits to roll.

If one wants to learn the value of fear, then I recommend Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I remember watching it in 1998, when I was a cynical, snarky 23-year-old (as opposed to my current status as a cynical, snarky 30-year-old) and anticipating being amused at the relatively benign content that freaked out average moviegoers in 1960. The laugh, however, was on me: Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) scared me silly, largely because Hitchcock masterfully built the fear and suspense associated with his character to a fever pitch. Psycho's subtle examination of what can frighten us taught me more about fear and human vulnerability than Spielberg's War of the Worlds ever could.

My second main critique of the film stems from its flat, contrived characters that produced absolutely no level of sympathy in me. For example, Robbie (Justin Chatwin) was just an annoying punk kid whose nadir came when he selfishly insisted on abandoning his family so that he could watch (join in?) the military's fight against the aliens. That apparently was something he "had to do." Why? What good would that have done? Why was that even written into the script? Dakota Fanning's considerable talents were wasted by Spielberg et al as they had her spend at least one-third of the movie screaming in an annoyingly high pitch; as such, I didn't feel pain for her — I received pain from her. As for Tom Cruise's portrayal of Ray Ferrier, I just didn't "feel" the anguish of a father trying to protect his children. (In fairness, this failure was a function of Josh Friedman's and David Koepp's flat, plotless script.)

Thus, I hope that I have answered Paul's fair and honest question by providing some specific reasons for my absolute dislike of War of the Worlds. As for Herb's comment: it's cute but ultimately nothing more than a cheap shot.

The Interpreter and The City of No Limits: On Secrecy

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on November 19, 2005.

Humans seem to have a habit of keeping secrets. Most of us cannot claim to live completely open lives, in which all of our virtues and vices are available for the world to see. At first blush, this may seem like a bad thing; after all, if we have nothing to hide, then why would we need to keep anything under wraps? However, a more nuanced examination of the issue reveals that not everything hidden is suspect, and even the Bible gives sanction to both openness and hiddenness. (Deciding between the two requires, of course, discernment.)

Two recent movies in my cinematic queue present the issue of hiddenness and secrecy in starkly different contexts. Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter (2005) presents secrecy as one woman's strategy for escaping her past while attempting to contribute to a greater good. Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome, an interpreter at the United Nations who overhears a plot to assassinate a visiting African dictator. When she reports the plot to the authorities, she comes into contact with Tobin Keller (Sean Penn), a federal agent charged with diplomatic security. As Keller investigates the plot more deeply, he realizes that Broome is not the most forthcoming bureaucrat; every turn in the investigation reveals that she is no "mere" interpreter but a white African with her own grudge against the dictator. Does her lack of forthrightness demonstrate that she is part of the plot, or does her secrecy merely demonstrate that she is trying to leave her troubled past behind and "move on" to something more positive? (As an aside, I suggest that if she had wanted to do some good for Africa, she should have worked for a private, non-profit organization, rather than a public, international bureaucracy — but I digress.)

As a movie, The Interpreter proved disappointing. I have to admit that the original television commercials drew me in (I should know better by now), and I'm usually very open to political thrillers as a sub-genre. However, a friend of mine told me that she found the film too slick and "Hollywood," and she was right. The plot had promise, but the screenwriting proved flat and mildly contrived (though Kidman and Penn did a good job with what they had). Nevertheless, I found the continual unwrapping of Broome's past interesting enough to keep me entertained. (I suppose that even mediocre mysteries can be worthwhile since they are, by definition, interactive; after all, the audience is continually "kept guessing.")

Antonio Hernández's The City of No Limits (2002)—a.k.a., En la ciudad sin límites—does a better job of tackling the theme of secrecy. Leonardo Sbaraglia plays Victor, a Spaniard who travels from Argentina (where he's working as an astrophysicist) to Paris in order to visit his ill father, who is staying at a hospital and awaiting a risky surgery. Victor's entire family has traveled from Madrid to Paris to look after the patriarch and to consult with the medical staff. When sitting by his bedside, Victor begins to suspect that his father is not "himself," that he is hiding something from the rest of the family. When he probes more deeply, his father reveals that he needs to get in touch someone named Rancel in order to tell him not to get on some train that supposedly leads to a trap. While most of the family thinks that the father is merely losing his faculties, Victor feels that he should at least investigate the claim; as he digs deeper, he learns more about his father's (and mother's) past than he could have anticipated.

I felt torn while watching The City of No Limits. As in The Interpreter, the process of finding more about the patriarch proved fascinating. Victor's steadfast search kept me highly interested, which was good because the various subplots were less than satisfying. We learn that the patriarch is not the only one who has a secret to keep; it appears that almost all of the family members have some dirty laundry that eventually gets aired out. (And, of course, all of these secrets involve sex.) It is clear that one of Hernández's overriding messages is the fact that none of us is innocent: We all have some naughtiness in our lives that we regret and of which we are ashamed. This, of course, is an ancient theme, but nevertheless one worth repeating. Hernández's message is most acute in his portrayal of Victor. The astrophysicist initially comes across as the younger, happy-go-lucky sibling, removed both geographically and emotionally from the tumultuous scandals bedeviling his family in Madrid. However, we learn that Victor, too, has some secrets in his own life, and while I lost some sympathy for him upon discovering that fact, I nevertheless acknowledge that Hernández succeeded in creating a fuller, more "realistic" character.

While both The Interpreter and The City of No Limits deal with the theme of secrets, they offer different treatments. With some exceptions, most would have sympathy with Silvia Broome and would not look upon her past with derision (especially when we see the full context of her actions). Yes, she wants to move beyond (and thus, hide) her past, but it does not appear that she has much to be ashamed of. The characters in The City of No Limits, however, maintain their secrets precisely because their past actions prove shameful, and when those secrets are revealed, scandal ensues.

So, how are Christians to deal with secrets? On the one hand, it is, of course, impossible for anybody to keep any secret completely hidden. One of the most powerful passages of Scripture deals with the exposure that all of us will experience eventually (e.g., 1 Cor. 4:5). However, Scripture also teaches us that secrecy can be a hallmark of the faithful (e.g., Mt. 6:1-18). This seeming paradox merely reminds us of the importance of context. The passage from 1 Corinthians deals with exposing "the motives of men's hearts," which is not a bad thing (though I hypothesize that such exposure will make most of us uncomfortable). The selection from Matthew, of course, deals with our responsibility to donate, pray, and fast with discretion so as not to seek the rewards of this world but rather, the reward of God. It appears that neither exposure nor secrecy have intrinsic value; only in the context of our motives can they speak of anything good or evil. It would have been nice if The Interpreter and The City of No Limits had presented this more nuanced view of secrecy.

Undercover Brother: Dissecting "The Man"

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on November 10, 2005.

When I was in college, a friend of mine railed against conspiracy theorists. He was particularly infuriated at their belief that any absence of evidence that a conspiracy was afoot served...well, as evidence that a conspiracy was afoot. For example, if I claim that the Freemasons control the levers of the U.S. government, and you demand that I produce evidence, then I easily can retort: "If evidence were available, then it wouldn't be a successful conspiracy, would it?" The best conspirators are so adept that nobody is able to pin anything on them; everything about them remains at the level of hypothesis, rumor, and innuendo.

We are fascinated by conspiracies for two reasons. First of all, some of them actually do exist, even if the general public only discovers them after the fact. Watergate and Iran-Contra are two famous examples, but anytime anyone gets together with anyone else to plan anything, the possibility of conspiracy presents itself. It is a practice learned early in life; I still remember kids in my middle school conspiring to gang up on new players during games of four square. Of course, in that scenario, the conspiracy was exposed rather quickly, but the fact nevertheless remained that the top three players had coordinated their efforts, albeit informally, against the fourth.

The second reason why we're fascinated by conspiracies is because they help to explain our world. Despite our continual striving for knowledge, we know deep down that some facets of existence stubbornly remain outside our purview. We cannot know everything, and when we witness a tragedy or injustice that defies explanation, one of our coping mechanisms is the conspiracy theory. Some person or organization with vast amounts of power is pulling somebody's string, inflicting misery on us so as to achieve ill-gotten gain.

It is important to remember that just because an idea serves as a coping mechanism doesn't mean that it's not true. While the absence of evidence should not be construed as evidence proper, we also should be quick to ask doubters: Where is the evidence that a conspiracy does not exist? This may seem like a cheap rhetorical tactic since the conspiracy theorist always can demand more evidence of non-conspiracy while simultaneously pooh-poohing that evidence (such "evidence" of non-conspiracy, after all, most likely has been planted by the conspirators). Nevertheless, doubters should be cautioned against downplaying (or completely rejecting) the possibility of conspiracy just because the proof isn't obvious and immediate.

This very topic permeates Malcolm D. Lee's Undercover Brother (2002), an examination of the figure known as The Man and his control over us all. According to Lee, The Man (Robert Trumbull) is in a relentless pursuit to eradicate Black culture from the planet. When General Warren Boutwell (Billy Dee Williams) retires from the military in order to run for president (an obvious reference to Colin Powell), The Man conspires to brainwash the general, steering him away from politics and into the racially stereotypical role of proprietor of a fried chicken chain. We also learn that said chicken contains a substance intended to alter the minds of the general's (presumably) Black clientele. Thus, The Man not only strives to prevent Blacks from gaining political office, but he seeks to dominate the very minds of Black America. The Man is the essence of totalitarianism.

Enter the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., a super-secret organization of Black spies and scientists, whose mission is to fight The Man. (Unfortunately, the acronym remains a mystery; a quick Google search combining the terms <"brotherhood" "undercover brother" "acronym"> merely revealed other reviewers who were just as confused as I.) The head of the BROTHERHOOD recruits Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin), a freelance, vigilante enforcer of Black Pride, whose most noticeable feature is his intense loyalty to 1970s aesthetic. Undercover Brother must infiltrate a multinational corporation controlled by The Man in order to find out exactly how he is scheming to eradicate Black culture. This, of course, is dangerous work; to succeed, Undercover Brother will have to "act" white and will have to learn the factors that make white people tick, including extensive knowledge of the now-defunct Friends television series and a love of mayonnaise. (The latter caught me by surprise: Undercover Brother implies that Blacks generally hate the condiment, a claim that I have yet to confirm or deny.)

What I found most fascinating about Undercover Brother is the intense cultural essentialism at its core. Right at the beginning, the narrator (J.D. Hall) argues that the apex of Black culture in the United States was found in the 1970s, as exemplified by such icons as funk music, afros, and Shaft. The narrator then states that the 1980s and 90s saw a decline in Black culture with such figures as Mr. T and Dennis Rodman. Thus, Undercover Brother's aesthetic is not merely a personal preference but a statement of cultural pride and resistance; while I ultimately do not agree with the movie's essentialism, I do respect its bold cultural stand.

So does The Man exist? According to Wikipedia's entry (accessed 10 November 2005), "'The Man' is a slang phrase associated with the counterculture and used to describe higher authority. This 'Man' does not usually refer to a specific individual as such, but instead to the government, leaders of large corporations and other authority figures; its meaning is pejorative. The Man is colloquially defined as the figurative person who controls our world. The Man is also often used as a symbol of racial oppression." The anonymous contributors at Wikipedia seem to have bought into the idea that The Man is merely a figurative notion, a convenient symbol of authority. Yet, I find myself in a bit of an epistemological quandary. Is the common belief in The Man's lack of corporeal reality merely a ruse? After all, if we only refer to The Man with a sense of irony—as when we say "the Man is keeping me down" and "stick it to the Man" (see Wikipedia)—then we no longer pose a threat to the "real" Man. In fact (just to rile my friend further), the lack of physical evidence of The Man's existence may prove only that he's an adept conspirator!

Perhaps the real value in conspiracy theories lies in their keeping us on our toes. Whether The Man really exists is a secondary issue; in our post-Genesis 3 world, we must be reminded constantly of our sinful nature and the possibility that any of us can do wrong at any time. While presuming the worst in people generally is perceived as unpleasant and impolite, it sometimes proves necessary. Thus, a little conspiracy theory is a good thing — one of these days, the theory may prove correct.

The Ring: Narcissism, Totalitarianism, and Intellectual Dissatisfaction

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on November 2, 2005.

Whenever one encounters a horror movie, he/she must grapple with seemingly arcane bits of trivia that are nevertheless central to the mechanics of the plot. For example, last week, a couple of co-workers and I were discussing zombies, specifically the genesis of said creatures. Do they arise solely from the ground, or can they also come into being through infection of non-zombies (usually via flesh wounds)? Do they maintain any of the individual characteristics they had as humans, or are they mere cogs in the meta-zombie consciousness — a consciousness resembling the Borg of Star Trek fame? And, freakier still, do zombies actually exist? (For a fun introduction, check out Wikipedia's entry on this topic.)

I was reminded of such questions when watching Gore Verbinski's The Ring (2002), a tale not about zombies, but rather, about an urban legend regarding a video tape of disturbing images. Anyone who watches the tape, the legend purports, will receive a phone call about his/her imminent demise seven days hence; of course, the recipients of such calls actually do perish at the appointed time.

Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has a personal encounter with this tape when one of her relatives falls prey to its evil machinations. She then is asked by the victim's mother to get to the bottom of this whole scenario. Of course, part of her research involves watching the tape...and lo and behold, she, too, becomes threatened with death.

I won't expose the intricacies of the plot, but suffice it to say that Keller proves herself a talented reporter when she tracks down the images on the tape to a secluded island off the Washington coast. The haunting, of course, involves someone who was treated unjustly long ago and whose spirit seeks revenge...perpetually. On one level, one would expect that the aggrieved party would not rest until justice was served and then would fade away at the point of resolution. However, the astute viewer will notice that Verbinski gives us a classic false ending — just when we think the past has been amended, we learn (via the technologies of home entertainment) that the movie has at least 20 more minutes in which we witness how revenge is not only a dish best served cold, but served repeatedly.

Thus, while we initially may have sympathized with the plight of the spirit haunting The Ring, we later learn that she is nothing but a narcissist, demanding our attention at the threat of death. Think of a video chain letter gone horribly awry.

Unfortunately, The Ring proved disappointing because a friend of mine overhyped it. I mentioned this to my zombie-discussing co-worker, and she said that she had the same experience: Her friends had said that the movie frightened them to the point at which they were afraid to answer the phone for several days. However, such responses are puzzling. Sure, The Ring is tense and suspenseful, but assuming one views it with full knowledge that it is, after all, a horror flick, then there is no reason for one to become unduly frightened. (In fairness, I should mention that prior to my watching The Ring, my friend told me of a scene that he found particularly scary; thus, I was able to anticipate it. Nevertheless, that scene was the only part of the movie that was close to being truly frightening.)

In fact, I found parts of The Ring quite funny because Verbinski faithfully includes many of the elements common in the genre: the slow, close-up shot of the back of a victim's head (ever since Psycho, we know that when we turn the body around, the face is going to be a horrific mess); the unnervingly freaky and precocious child who has some connection with the nether world; and lots of cloudy/rainy weather.

Nevertheless, despite my disappointment, The Ring raised a couple of interesting metaphysical questions in my mind. First of all: Who, exactly, is this spirit girl? As in so many horror movies, it is unclear how the antagonist came to be and whether she answers to anybody. If she is merely a minion of Satan, then why does she appear to have so much autonomy and agency? The movie gives no explanation as to her genesis, implying that she merely arose ex nihilo; we know that she experienced an injustice in her past, but we do not know how she got the power to travel through time, space, and multimedia.

Second: Why the insatiable hunger for perpetual revenge? Why doesn't this spirit return to the nether world once the injustice has been rectified? Why does she insist on haunting even more bystanders? Perhaps she is the embodiment of a pure (Platonic?) narcissism, a being whose only raison d'etre is drawing the entire universe's attention to herself. (Perhaps she is not employed by Satan because she actually embodies Satan, whose greatest sin is selfish pride, a refusal to worship the truly sovereign God.)

On a less spiritual level, perhaps the girl represents the extreme, though logical, outcome of the political life, a life that often facilitates both narcissism and totalitarianism. (Politics, a realm of existence that relies on domination and control, easily falls prey to totalitarian impulses.) Perhaps Verbinski is taking a subtle swipe at politicians, holding up the girl spirit as the raw, unadorned face of the smiling candidate who looks not only to win our vote but eventually to control our lives through fear and violence. Perhaps Verbinski is suggesting that our voting unwittingly facilitates the horror of politics.

Yet, I digress. Unfortunately, The Ring does not give us enough information to satisfy the intellectual curiosity fomented in the minds of audience members. (As with my earlier discussion regarding zombies, I wanted more information about the metaphysical mechanics of The Ring's universe.) While Rachel's investigation, rather than the horror of her situation, is the more stimulating aspect of the movie, Verbinski nevertheless relies primarily on the overly emotive elements of the horror genre (i.e., freaking people out), a move that ultimately sells short The Ring's potential.

Crash: Let's Not Talk About Race

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on October 26, 2005.

In my recent review of Waking Life, I argued that Richard Linklater's film was not pretentious (and, by extension, not contrived). Nevertheless, it remains true that producing a movie with an "obvious" message or theme is risky because such productions open one up to critical derision and ridicule. Such is the risk that Paul Haggis took with Crash (2004), an ambitious "ensemble" movie with a star-studded cast playing various characters who, um, "crash" into each other during two days in Los Angeles. The theme is obvious: race. The message is obvious: Racism is bad, and we are all complicit. And yes, the movie has its contrived moments that lack nuance (ironic, given Haggis' desire to discuss the issue of race in more nuanced terms).

Nevertheless, Crash grew on me as I watched. Perhaps it was because the script, despite its problems, kept me interested. After all, Haggis makes sure that the characters all intersect in a complicated urban web so that we can't help but wonder who's going to run into whom next. In addition, crime and law enforcement serve as the context in which the characters interact, and the advantage of the cops-and-robbers motif is that it almost always gives characters something interesting to do. (That is why I used to watch television's Law and Order—and a couple of its spin-offs—on a regular basis. Admittedly, the writing and acting of said franchise are mediocre, but the fascinating legal and criminological elements kept me going back for more.)

Yet, despite my generally positive feelings about Crash, I still wished that Haggis were more subtle. If he wanted to make a clear and obvious statement about race, then he should have written an essay or filmed a documentary. If he wanted to produce a drama, then he would have done better to focus on writing a more sophisticated, nuanced script—with characters that had more depth—and to allow the theme of race to simmer slowly. Instead, we are thrown immediately into a pot of boiling water and have little context in which to understand the characters. (Haggis essentially breaks one of the classic "rules" of good storytelling by having the characters explain too much. Don't talk to me, Haggis; show me.)

So, what about the issue of race? Unfortunately, I am coming to the conclusion that Americans will never be able to talk about "race" in anything approximating a dispassionate, reasoned discourse. In addition, perhaps our very attempts at discussing race are doomed to failure because we constantly find ourselves fumbling around, unsure of what to say and how to say it.

Let's first look at the term "race": We seem to be unsure of what it means. Even if we follow a simple, junior-high methodology (i.e., looking up the term in the dictionary), we come up with some ambiguous results; according to Merriam-Webster Online, "race" can signify, in part, "a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock" ["stock," eh? — that seems pretty biological]; "a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics" [this sounds cultural, rather than biological]; and "a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type" [we're back to biology]. And how does the dictionary definition of race differ from "ethnic"? The latter is "of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background" (my emphasis). So, according to Merriam-Webster, "race" is both biological and cultural and is somewhat akin to "ethnicity." Just looking at the definitions of the two terms, we can see (1) why people use them interchangeably and (2) why we seen unable to distinguish biology from culture.

Of course, the biology vs. culture divide is a hot potato. At its ugliest, racism manifests itself in the categorization—and subsequent treatment—of humans according to perceived physical characteristics. The "discipline" of eugenics, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, was one logical outcome of biological racism. While eugenics is roundly criticized in most of today's academic and popular press, it is interesting to note the resurgence of biological explanations for human behavior; it doesn't take a vivid imagination to realize what intellectual minefields these lines of enquiry can generate. One example, of course, is Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1995), which sparked a massive controversy that is still with us today.

Even if "mainstream" Americans end up rejecting (again) biological explanations, concluding that they are incorrect or immoral, we still have to deal with the trickier question of cultural racism (which is what Crash is all about). Even if one completely rejects the notion that there are "innate" biological differences between people groups, then how does that person deal with cultural expressions not to his/her liking? It's one thing to say that you're not going to judge someone by his/her physical characteristics, but what if you don't like a particular cultural artifact? Does a dislike of hip hop make one a racist? (Though, as many of us know, some of hip hop's most prevalent fans are white.) Or what about the classic Culture of Poverty argument, which states that certain beliefs, habits, and practices contribute to one's economic state — thus, one is poor because one's culture inclines him/her to poverty. You see where this can go; it doesn't take long before someone asks whether an ethnic group's cultural practices facilitate that group's poverty. Hot potato indeed. (Check out columnist Cathy Young's recent commentary on this very topic.)

So what is a Christian to do? How do we move "beyond" race? The New Testament presents us with two illustrations regarding our responsibilities to those we regard as "others": Jesus' inclusion of Samaritans in His ministry (e.g., Lk. 10:25-37, Jn. 4-1:26) and Paul's entire mission to the Gentile world. In both cases, we see God calling us to move outside our cultural (racial? ethnic?) spheres in order to witness, serve, and befriend. Thus, the issue of racism is not tangential to Christian ethics, but rather, an intrinsic part of it.

Yet, our discourse on race is so often scattered, contrived, and fake, especially when whites do the talking. On the one hand, we have the defensive posture: Somebody, somewhere, lodges an implication or accusation of racism, and the white person fires back that he/she is not a racist, that someone is seeking "preferential treatment" and "playing the race card." The defensive posture can take a more aggressive turn, as when some sarcastically call for the celebration of "European-American" heritage or for the development of "European-American Studies" curricula in colleges and universities.

On the other hand, we see the seemingly staged scenarios of whites who make public confessions of their racism and who set up programs of racial reconciliation. I certainly cannot—and have no right to—judge the intentions of those who engage in such activities; however, I can't help but wonder whether such practices mainly serve as catharsis for the penitent, desperate to shake off the fetters of White Guilt.

So what should Christians, particularly white Christians, do? It seems clear that biological racism, a judgment of another based on his/her physical characteristics, should be soundly condemned. It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which biological racism would be morally justifiable.

The issue of culture is a bit trickier. It seems that cultural practices that are morally neutral (i.e., that have no moral consequence, one way or the other) should play no role in how we judge another's character. In addition, cultural stereotypes that are exploited in order to mock a particular racial/ethnic group should be condemned. However, cultural judgments that are not moral but rather, aesthetic (e.g., dislike of hip hop or anime), should not be classified as racist since a preference that is genuinely aesthetic is (at least theoretically) not based on any racial/ethnic animosity.

Finally, I suggest that an antidote to our contrived discourse on racism is to avoid "discussing" the topic altogether. Let us not strive to talk about "racism" in a purely abstract sense; let us not hold staged sensitivity workshops that merely serve to alleviate White Guilt or to fulfill a political (rather than moral) agenda; let us be careful to avoid confessing our racism in overly public forums, lest we only receive our worldly reward (Mt. 6:5-6). Rather, let us reserve our energy for condemning and rectifying racial injustice when we find it in real, specific instances. Such a response would require more effort—and involve more risk—than we realize.