L.A. Confidential keeps hidden racial curriculum off the record and "hush-hush"

Following the hype and rave reviews of Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential at the theaters this winter, following the mad rush to revel in the noir-shaded, star-studded glamour of L.A. in the 1950s, witnessing the radiant Kim Basinger bask in the glow of her first Oscar this year for her interpretation of the "whore with a heart of gold" prototype, the famed L.A. Confidential has made its red-carpeted debut at our very own Apollo theater. And we have issues.

Just as the audience finds itself settled into the twists and turns of shadowy LAPD life in a city blinded by sunshine and glamour, in comes a scene of racial tension which hits like a brick. The crowd of suits and spirits at an LAPD Christmas party becomes more and more drunken and ends up downstairs in the jail cell screaming "spic" and other curses at a group of Mexicans who were just hauled in. Soon after, the cops throw them against the jail bars and lay into them in a style reminiscient of 1992.

The movie is rated R, according to an Internet parental guide, for "violence and strong sexual content." Perhaps the reviewer had written off as suitable for children the tidal wave of racial and social stereotypes, as well as the sexual assault of women and gay men. Images woven through the plot also include that of a raped Latina woman tied up in bed, and three young black men framed, tortured into confession, and murdered. Yeah, it's all corrupt and messed up. What can you do. They have no power.

Maybe, sandwiched in the eye candy entertainment package that is L.A. Confidential, the reviewer didn't notice it as significant or affecting. After all, it was not intended to be a political film, and was merely meant to be consumed for entertainment purposes.

I wondered if L.A. Confidential wanted me to think about the plot and the entertainment of it all when confronted with an unexpected cultural barrage of gunfire aimed at my Oberlin sensibilities. As it was not presented in a "political" framework, I guessed probably not. So I shut my mind off and absorbed the plot obediently.

But, one question did not disappear: is L.A. Confidential guilty of imposing a social structure within the guise of entertainment? Or is the movie simply showing us "how it was" to make the backdrop more believeable?

Perhaps, in the advice of the gossip-columnist played by Danny DeVito, it is all a matter of keeping it "hush-hush." That the protagonists, therefore the people we as viewers were taught most to care about as heroes had to be exclusively white and male. That the enemies and victims of violence and a corrupt world had to be women, homosexuals, blacks and Mexicans.

Good versus evil, light versus dark, Us versus The Other - it's a familiar tale. And, in L.A. Confidential, a lucrative one. Sitting enjoying the film in all other aspects, it was hard not to feel the bitter irony - kind of like my papa at home rooting for John Wayne to shoot out the vaqueros before the film's end.

Based on the James Ellroy novel, who devotes many pages to the historical complexity of mid-century Los Angeles, L.A. Confidential enmeshes L.A.'s fantasy and spectacle with Ellroy's interpretation of social realism, racial hierarchy included. As the plot ventures through dimensions of deceit and betrayal, so the film ebbs between fantasy and reality, never assuring the audience that they are experiencing purely one or the other.

L.A. Confidential is a "suspenseful! action-packed!" film well-deserving of its praise thus far. It is, unarguably, a popular film, with stellar production and performances. It is also a dangerous film that gives us food for thought, yet gives us guilt for thinking about the food, because after all "it's just a movie." Perhaps, similar to the term "gratuitous violence," the term "gratuitous culture commentary" is making its way into the film schools of tomorrow.