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- Title
REFLECTING THE MAN: GENDERING RACE IN PAUL HAGGIS'S CRASH.
- Authors
ELLIOTT, MANDY
- Abstract
Paul Haggis's Crash (2004) employs the fluidity of gender roles to demonstrate and respond to instances of social inequity committed on the basis of race. This paper demonstrates the ways in which the film engages with Frantz Fanon's idea of the racist gaze as a form of figurative castration--as the systematic replacement of masculine sexual power with forced objectification and submission. Informed by Fanon's work, Daniel Kim states that the white male homosocial gaze "forces men of color to adopt a feminized position," asserting ideas of racial superiority through the language of sexual dominance. In the film, Christine (Thandie Newton) and Cameron (Terrence Howard) Thayer both experience the racist cutting off of their sexual identity as people of colour. While this figurative castration is not necessarily permanent, it emphasizes the unavoidable link between race and gender and the binaries that tend to dictate dominance and submission.
- Subjects
CRASH (Film : 2004); HAGGIS, Paul, 1953-; GENDER role in motion pictures; RACISM in motion pictures; GAZE in motion pictures; SEXUAL objectification
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 2017, Vol 26, Issue 2, p117
- ISSN
0847-5911
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0010