Li ča Paloma Petritz The Hollywood Boiling Pot - The Portrayal of Multiethnic Los Angeles in Film: Race Relations and Issues of Ethnicity in Crash , Freedom Writers and What's Cooking? DIPLOMARBEIT zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Magistra der Philosophie Anglistik und Amerikanistik(343) Universität Klagenfurt Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften Begutachter: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Adi Wimmer Institut: Anglistik und Amerikanistik Juni 2010 Declaration of honour I hereby confirm on my honour that I personally prepared the present academic work and carried out myself the activities directly involved with it. I also confirm that I have used no resources other than those declared. All formulations and concepts adopted literally or in their essential content from printed, unprinted or Internet sources have been cited according to the rules for academic work and identified by means of footnotes or other precise indications of source. 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Villach, June 11, 2010 HOLLYWOOD'S BOILING POT - The portrayal of multi-ethnic Los Angeles in film: Race relations and issues in “ Crash ”, “ Freedom Writers ” & “ What's Cooking ” 1 Introduction 1 2 Defining 'American Ethnicity' 3 2.1 Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity 3 2.2 The Turn to Culture – Approaching American (Ethnic) Studies 5 2.3 Of Melting Pots, Pizza Pies and Salad Bowls – Approaching 7 (American) Ethnic Ideologies & Assimilation Theories 2.4 Voices of Ethnic America – Approaching Contemporary Ethnic 10 American Literature & Film 3 Conquering the Jungle: Los Angeles 30 3.1 Demographics & Ethnic geography of Los Angeles 30 3.2 L.A. History 32 3.2.1 Adobe Houses & A River – Early history 32 3.2.2 Tinseltown & Urban Sprawl – Rise of a metropolis 33 3.2.3 Rodney King & Burning Streets – America's first multi-ethnic 35 civil unrest 3.2.4 Multi-L.A.-yerd 37 3.3 Los Angeles in Numbers – Statistics & Facts 37 3.3.1 Crime & Safety 38 3.3.2 Economy 40 3.3.3 Education 43 3.3.4 Politics 44 3.3.5 Social Security, Health Care & Welfare 45 4 Starring:Los Angeles 48 4.1 L.A. in literature 48 4.2 L.A. in film 62 5 Crash 72 5.1 Synopsis 72 5.2 Character Analysis 75 5.3 Issues of race and ethnicity in Crash 79 5.4 Critics & Viewers' Reception 92 6 Freedom Writers 97 6.1 Synopsis 97 6.2 Character Analysis 99 6.3 Issues of race and ethnicity in Freedom Writers 101 6.4 Critics & Viewers' Reception 120 7 What's Cooking 124 7.1 Synopsis 124 7.2 Character Analysis 127 7.3 Issues of race and ethnicity in What's Cooking 130 7.4 Critics & Viewers' Reception 149 8 Conclusion 153 9 Bibliography Introduction The greatest difficulty in coming to terms with Los Angeles will always be not seeing it as such; not for a lack of representations of it, but because of their contradictory plenitude. Brecht's scare-quotes spring up automatically around any mention of the 'real' L.A., due to the sheer volume of incompatible definitions. According to your point of view, Los Angeles is either exhilarating or nihilistic, sun-drenched or smog-enshrouded, a multicultural haven or a segregated ethnic concentration camp – Atlantis or high capitalism – and orchestrating these polarized alternatives is an urban identity thriving precisely on their interchangeability. The city (or is it a city, and not a collection of cities?) recycles an extraordinary amount of oxymoronic self-referential discourse, never cohering into anything more than a patchwork of undecidable clichés – this paragraph perhaps being just another instance of that tendency. 1 Los Angeles is multi-faceted in every aspect. The streets you walk, the people you meet, the reasons you are there (visiting or living), the food you eat, the weather that greets you - everything influences the perception you will have of L.A.. And since there are thousands of streets, millions of people, and cuisines from all of over the world, it will most likely differ even from those of the people closest to you. Many a perception of Los Angeles has translated into the arts. Music - think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns'N'Roses, 2Pac, Madonna's Hollywood , L.A. Woman by the Doors or even Frank Sinatra's L.A. Is My Lady , to name only a few; visual art – paintings by Sandow Birk, Z. Swerdlove or James Doolin, the abundance of artistic L.A. photography and most notably the murals and graffiti that can be seen all over the city; literature – prominent L.A. novelists like Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy come to mind, but also works of Upton Sinclair, Nathanael West, Aldous Huxley and Norman Mailer; and lastly the extensive list of movies set in or even depicting Los Angeles – all are different ways of dealing with the many faces of L.A. Nonetheless, from this vast pool of images certain recurring elements of the city's character can be drawn. For instance, the beauty of the city would be acclaimed, and at the same time substantial problems could addressed. One of these recurring elements is Los Angeles' multi- ethnic background. Ranking high among the nation's top five metropolitan areas with the highest concentration of immigrants, L.A.'s attribute as a “melting pot” of cultures is reflected in its colorful cityscape. However, as beautiful as ethnic diversity can be, from time to time it will show its ugly sides, too, and in Los Angeles' case this happened more than once. This thesis shall examine how multi-ethnic Los Angeles is portrayed in film. Since there have been countless movies made about L.A., it would be a bold venture to interpret all of them. The choice of movies will hence be narrowed down to three recent examples of how 1 Murphet, Julian: Literature and Race in Los Angeles (Cultural Margins) . Cambridge University Press, 2001. p.8 - 1 - Hollywood deals with race relations and racial issues. The first one is Paul Haggis's Crash . The Academy Award winning movie has thrown a very critical light at L.A.'s multi-ethnic society, claiming that strangers never come into contact unless they literally crash into one another. The second movie, Freedom Writers, tackles racial tensions from a different angle. The main character of the movie, a young high school teacher, tries to bring about a change on a campus ruled by interracial hostility – and she ultimately succeeds. What's Cooking? , the third movie in this thesis, is celebrating the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles rather than sharply criticizing its inherent problems or rallying for a change. In the end the predominant theme in all three of them clearly is race, which makes them a qualified selection for our purpose. However before we can resume with a thorough analysis of the movies and the kind of picture they paint of L.A., other related topics, which serve as a basis to underpin later arguments, have to be covered. The following chapter will focus on “American ethnicity”. First, definitions of the terms “race”, “ethnicity” and “ethnic identity” will be given. Then we will touch upon thesis-relevant topics of American Ethnic Studies and American Studies in general, moving on to display the various assimilation models and illustrate different ethnic ideologies. A short survey of contemporary ethnic American literature and film will form the final part of the chapter on “American ethnicity”. Particular attention will be paid to the common characters and themes they provide. From there our journey will take us to the city itself – Los Angeles. After looking at demographics and the geographical distribution of ethnic neighborhoods, the thesis will delve into L.A.'s rich and vivid past by retelling its history divided into four periods. To come full circle on Los Angeles, facts and figures on different topics such as crime, economy, education, politics and social security will be presented. Moving on from there, a chapter titled Starring: Los Angeles shall examine the role the city has played in film and fiction over the past, with different authors and different film genres having all paid their tribute to it. Subsequently the three movies of interest will be analyzed in what forms the main part of this thesis. To make it more distinct, the structure shall be the same for all three: first a plot synopsis will be given, then the characters will be analyzed, followed by the central point, the portrayal of issues of race and ethnicity, and rounded up by the reviews the movie received by critics and viewers. On the whole, the aim of the thesis is to determine what kind of picture of multi-ethnic Los Angeles the film industry has drawn over the last few years and how accurate it is, or if we may be dealing with completely differing images of a city that refuses to be defined. - 2 - Defining 'American Ethnicity' The United States of America is a country that was continually shaped by immigration, turning it into the multicultural, multi-ethnic society it is today. Race and ethnicity have therefore played a decisive role in the forming of an American national identity, eventually redefining the phrase “E pluribus unum” to reflect that a single people and nation emerged from a conglomerate of many ethnies.