I don't *need* to watch The O.C., but it makes me happy.

Yesterday, I spent the later part of the afternoon watching Crash, a movie I had heard much about but had not yet seen. I spent much of the movie begging characters to stop what they were doing (which they didn't) and wondering why my friends father had suggested this was something that we needed to see. There was no cathartic moment, so resolution, no moral. Quite simply, we spent 2+ hours watching people be mean to each mainly using derogatorry comments, racial slurs and the occasional gun. Not fun.
Afterwards, my friend and I looked at each other. "I feel icky," she said, "like all this movie has taught me is that I'm a bad person. That everyone else is bad too." My reaction was to turn on another "happy" movie, not really able to process all that I had seen. However, unable to concentrate on the new movie, we tried to find the point of Crash. In the end, Roger Ebert helped us out the most.
Although the movie is superficially about racial divides in America, it is ultimately about fear. All of us face trials in our private lives; things that put us on edge. We worry over our personal health or that of a loved one... about the next generation and what we'll leave for them to work out... about making it through the day at our jobs, in our homes, etc. And all of these fears permeate our interactions with others. And so, self-consumed, fearful individuals that we are, we boil everyone else down to their lowest common denomenator which is most commonly their race. We don't deal with the individual standing in front of us--rather, we fearfully lash out at the social construct that defines that person for us. "This movie is saying that racism in the symptom, not the problem," noted my friend. The same could be said about issues surrounding gender, religion and sexuality.
Additionally, Ebert points out that division along racial lines used to be a geographic reality, and therefore is not (neccessarily) the root cause of many of the issues we deal with today. "Until several hundred years ago, most people everywhere on earth never saw anybody who didn't look like them. They were not racist because, as far as they knew, there was only one race." Yet, it is not as though people were dancing together in the streets daily, accepting everyone at face value and only with the addition of different races did divisions arise. There was still fear, the need to self-preserve, and a pervasive self-centeredness the caused and festered in conflicts large and small.
Do we have a race problem? Yes. Does it need to be addressed? Yes. Will it's resolution solve all of our other problems? Unfortunately, I don't think so.
***
Having recovered, we watched a few episodes of House, MD.
"Hello, sick people and their loved ones! In the interest of saving time and avoiding a lot of boring chitchat later, I'm Doctor Gregory House; you can call me "Greg." I'm one of three doctors staffing this clinic this morning. This ray of sunshine is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. Doctor Cuddy runs this whole hospital, so unfortunately she's much too busy to deal with you. I am a board-certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. I am also the only doctor currently employed at this hospital who is forced to be here against his will. But not to worry, because for most of you, this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you're particularly annoying, you may see me reach for this: this is Vicodin. It's mine! You can't have any! And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem... but who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too stoned to tell. So, who wants me?"
House just makes me feel better....
***
I just read something about a Second Sight movie... and while that would be a wonderful birthday present for me, I'm satisfied to know that Mr.Owen is my very own Odd British Actor.