If you know someone with strong, conservative political beliefs – and who attends evangelical church services and listens to Rush Limbaugh faithfully – from Nebraska or perhaps rural Idaho, who has never been to Los Angeles, ask them if they saw "Crash" and ask what they believe about L.A. now. They might just turn and run away. If they do have the grace to answer your question, compare what they say with what someone says who has actually visited South-Central, or Korea Town, or "East LA" at night, alone, in recent weeks or months.
             Granted, life isn't really as bad – and people couldn't possibly be as rude, hateful and unbendingly racist – as one would believe if taking the film literally. But life is bad, pretty damn bad, for a lot of people who live in greater L.A. – or in any sprawling, multicultural urban setting in 2006.
             Visit Dallas, Chicago, New York, Newark, Miami, and try to tell me those many and diverse cultures and sub-cultures truly love and embrace each other. I'll show you a cow that flies. I'll show you a pizza that solves math problems.
             Meanwhile, it is the thesis of this paper that while this movie was an eye-popping, jaw-dropping jolt of hideously racist individuals living out various twisted ethnocentric ideologies, it is in broad brushstrokes a gross exaggeration of 21st Century urban life. And yet at the same time, it honestly reflects realities in artistic terms. It is what we see it is, and more: a glut of pilgrims from diverse points of entry, polarized by a political system that borders on fascism, yet in their hearts a love that fights for survival can snuff out the loathing in wink of a jaundiced eye.
             "Crash" had to be an exaggeration, otherwise it would not have attracted the attention it did, and people would perhaps still be slumbering, thinking everything's cool on the Western front.
             And take this to the b...