The Gospel According to WALL-E: Crash

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people and people bump into you. In LA, nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think that we miss this touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."--Det. Graham Waters.

Crash is, quite possibly, one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. Paul Haggis is the screenwriting mastermind behind this film. He successfully managed to have one main story, and at the same time, integrate several other stories into the main one. The whole context of Crash is the theme of racial intolerance between different racial groups/ethnicities.

While the movie itself has very little "comedy," the irony of the movie is what provides some random chuckles. The most ironic part to me was, in the beginning of the movie, when Ludacris' character and his friend are walking down the street, and he's grumbling and complaining about having to wait over an hour for a plate of spaghetti and even gets offended when Sandra Bullock's character cuddles closer to her husband when she's walking past them. Then what does he do? He goes and car jacks them, fitting into the "African-American male" stereotype.

This movie's purpose is quite clear. Paul Haggis, writing mastermind, wanted to send a message to today's society, informing us about how intolerant we are of each other culturally and ethnically. His other message is that, not only are we intolerant of each other's backgrounds, but we also often judge other people before really getting to know them. We only see people and judge them on their outward appearance, instead of taking the time to really get to know and understand them for the people that they are.

Spirituality plays a subtle role in this film. At first glance, the spiritual implications seem to be the Golden Rule; treat others as you want to be treated. Don't stereotype people, otherwise you, yourself, will become a victim of stereotyping. But upon further review, the spiritual message is that sometimes the person that you hate the most, is the person that saves you. God/Jesus are often viewed in ways that are less than positive, but when it all comes down to it, they're the ones that are going to sacrifice themselves and cut our seatbelt so that we don't get blown up after our accidents in life. Jesus can also be represented by the little girl who ran out to protect her Daddy from the possibility of him getting shot. She was scared because her Daddy didn't have the "invisibility cloak" to keep him from getting shot. Without hesitation, she bolted out into the street to save him, just like Jesus bolts out of no where to shield us.

Watching this movie really opened my eyes and gave me a greater appreciation for the little things in life and reminded me that everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves.

Brenda Schaffner

Pastor Sam

UNST 101: The Gospel According to WALL-E: Crash

14 October 2009