Donna is a young latina woman - noted specifically by her mother and her arguing in spanish earlier in the film. As viewers you're supposed to take away the point that she is latina, but not latina enought to look anything other than white. And this is not to say that people cannot be all shades, but its a trite convinient that even in a world of 'shades' we're often forced to look at white skin. Moving on - - So shelly is young white male, who is also specifically important because he is the only character of size in the film. This means that his character is sexless, child like, simple, and ultimately always seperated from the group by virture of being too fat to enjoy the basic things in life skinny people take for granted. Like swimming - Shelly is quoted saying "...they said they're going skinny dipping, and im not skinny enough," when another character inquires why is not with the rest of the group.
Shelly and Donna end up in a small town general store. Just as Donna is trying to buy food at the counter the clerk abruptly utters "..and we don't except no food stamps!" Racialized moment #2 in the film next to the argument in Spanish. Donna turns to ask Shelly for money - he throws the wallet and instead of Donna catching it the wallet falls short of reach and ends up on the floor. Just as the shot of Donnas piercingly white hand goes to pick up the wallet a black boot stomps into the screen. Donna looks up to see a black biker chick! Now i have to say that my face looked exactly like Donnas in this scene. It was something like a " riiiiiight, 'cause black bikers are in an abundance in northern America" face. And by northern American i mean Maine/Vermont area. So the black biker girl makes Donna plead for the wallet, while the two men with her (one black and one white) hold Shelly back from intervening. Finally, after 'asking nicely' the two friends pay and are released. They walk out to the car and of course Shelly accidentally backs in the car into the the motorcycles as the black male of the biker gang watches. The black male then breaks in the front and side window on the car - Shelly speeds off.
Now this is where i got that feeling, you know that sick feeling when something just seems wrong? Well instead of speeding away as an effect of being so 'terrorized' Shellys takes advantage of his privilege in that situation (..being in a car) and tries to run the black male down. The odd thing was, as he was doing it he said "he went too far this time" - as if he had known him for yrs. As if he had suffered multiple offenses from this person. As if he had been abused by this man one too many times and this was just the last straw and so of course RUNNING him over with a car is justifyable.
How could this random black man who Shelly had never seen before in his life 'go too far'? It's called misplaced rage. Shellys white male/female friends make fun of him, leave him out of things, degrade him, tell him he isn't wanted, manipulate and control him throughout the film and yet his only surge of aggression that EVER manifests is on a random black guy he's never met before. Too afriad to go against your own race Shelly? Or rather too afraid to give up the privileges that come with be socially as well as physically white? Because one component of social whiteness is complete and utter avoidence of conflict, no? And so in typical wp fashion he put his aggressions in the one place he knew there would be no legal , emotional, physical, economical, social, or moral repercussions to his actions. Not to mention in the end it was a white man and a latina woman running over a black man. If that doesn't clear up the fact that skin is key and that the closer you look to white the more likely you are to band together in a fight against the darkies - then i don't know what does.
People have very little respect for horror films but atleast they can say and deal with what most film directors bury under a foolish storyline, an emaciated (empowered) white girl, and an emotionally crippled white man who secretly has a heart of gold. in short, what has a romantic comedy done lately in the fight against racism, sexism, and homophobia? oh i know, completely rienforce all thoes ideologies. So maybe horror movies display violence, over sexualization, degredation, and sadism - but atleast they don't lie. Ya know, and tell woman they're safe. We have policies, laws, and police. Nothings gonna happen to you - like i said, atleast they don't lie.
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