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Chapter 3 Circulating Emotion: Race, Gender, and Genre in Crash E. Deidre Pribram “I wake up like this every morning. I am angry all the time . . . and I don’t know why.” —Jean, Crash Crash (Paul Haggis, 2005) follows a range of diverse but intersecting characters who, in their entirety, are meant to represent a social landscape: modern American urban existence. Through an ensemble cast and a multi-story structure, the film depicts a circuitous society in which one part affects other parts that, in turn, affect all parts. The film is structured by means of three entangled, sometimes complementary, sometimes competing, cultural discourses. The first discourse is race. In a deeply troubling way, race is most overtly what the film is “about.” In the world of the film, virtually every character is at some point explicitly racist. Additionally, in certain subplots, racial discourse is inextricably intertwined with gender. The second discourse is law and order. Again, the majority of characters take up a role in this discursive range. Some are the designated upholders of law and order: District Attorney Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser); uniformed police officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon); police detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle). Other characters are either criminals like Anthony (Ludacris) and Peter (Larenz Tate), or victims of crime like Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) and Daniel (Michael Peña). Over the course of the film many come to occupy more than one position in the law and order spectrum. The effect is a kaleidoscope of police officers, detectives, criminals, crime victims, police officers who become criminals, criminals who become the victims of crime, and so on. i-xii_1-262_Gled.indd 41 12/13/11 11:17 AM 42 E. Deidre Pribram The third discourse is anger. Although specifically voiced by Jean Cabot, her words, “I wake up like this every morning. I am angry all the time . . . and I don’t know why,” represent a moment of insight into the motivations of many of the people in this social landscape. The film’s representation of anger is varying and nuanced, taking the form of outrage, frustration, distrust, or fear, provoked by different causes, and acted upon in different ways. Yet, it is a common denominator that further binds together the individuals who make up this metaphorical microcosm of contemporary society. In this chapter, I take up the complex, multi-discursive world depicted in Crash in order to explore the place—or absence—of emotion in genre studies. Looking specifically at the moments of collision between characters in which the issues of race and gender are inseparable, I consider how anger specifically, and perhaps emotion in general, can be understood to ignite and fuel complex social relations . Such an analysis tells us about the ways emotions as cultural phenomena are understood or, equally, overlooked in media and other social representations. Emotion and Genre Studies For the most part, and surprisingly, emotions have not been incorporated as a fundamental element in the analysis of genres. Rarely discussed in detail, emotion is often noted. For instance, Corrigan and White note that “horror films are about fear—physical fear, psychological fear, sexual fear, even social fear” (2004, 309). Similarly, from Bordwell and Thompson: “Thrillers obviously aim to thrill us—that is, to startle, shock, and scare” (2004, 113), and “some genres are defined by the distinctive emotional effect they aim for: amusement in comedy, tension in suspense films” (109). Despite this widespread identification of emotional values across genres, and the “obviously” emotional component of specific genres, little systematic study has been undertaken on the place and function of emotion as an integral component of “genreness,” or on the role particular emotions might play in the development of specific genres. There are exceptions to this, for example, in the study of melodrama. Even so, emotion in melodrama too often has been considered in terms of its usually problematic “excess.” Steve Neale, citing Daniel Gerould, describes the dominant tendency of melodrama as involving “the subordination of all other elements ‘to one overriding aesthetic goal: the calling forth of “pure,” “vivid” emotions’” (1995, 179). While seeming to celebrate the presence of emotion in melodrama, this view constructs it as dominant to the detriment of all else. In contrast, Linda Williams (1998) argues that characterizing melodrama as emotionally excessive obscures the pivotal and complex role of emotion in melodramatic forms and in American popular culture in general. We are diverted, therefore, from the significance of melodrama if we pay too much attention to what...

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